Wars and high drama span the generations
The Reitz family dominated political and public life, detailed in this biography,
Craig Williamson was an apartheid spy who first infiltrated student groups at Wits University, then Nusas and the International University Exchange Fund and even the ANC. In the mid90s he admitted also to being a killer: his Special Branch unit was responsible for the killing of Ruth First as well as Jeanette Schoon and her six-yearold daughter Katryn. He was granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Years later journalist Jonathan Ancer was driving on Ruth First Freeway in Durban and wondered aloud to a colleague what Williamson thought when using that road. The colleague responded: “Who is Craig Williamson?” Ancer decided to write this book because he says while it’s important to remember those who were killed in the Struggle, it’s also important to prevent the killers from “slipping into oblivion”; if we do, they escape accountability.
THIS is a highly readable account of events in Southern Africa before and after the Anglo-Boer War, and of members of the influential Reitz family.
Martin Meredith, an accomplished author, particularly of books on Africa, has written a biography of three generations of the family.
Francis William Reitz (1810-1881), gentleman farmer and member of the Cape Parliament; Frank Reitz (18441934), chief justice and later president of the Orange Free State; and Deneys Reitz (1882-1944), soldier in both the Anglo-Boer War and World War I.
Deneys Reitz fought in the British trenches, was author of the acclaimed
based on his journal as a young Boer soldier, and finally became high commissioner to the Court of St James.
The period covered spans one of high drama in Southern Africa. At first, during the first half of the 19th century, Southern Africa was seen by the wider world, says Meredith, as a “worthless jumble of British colonies, Boer Republics and African chiefdoms”.
Then two events during the second half the century completely transformed its fortunes: in 1871 explorers discovered the world’s richest deposit of diamonds in an area just outside the borders of Britain’s Cape Colony – an area Britain quickly snatched from the Free State.
Then in 1886 the world’s richest deposits of gold were discovered in the neighbouring republic at the time called De Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek or the Transvaal.
This made the Transvaal the richest state in Southern Africa – rich enough to challenge the British hegemony in the region.
Against this background, we meet the first member of the Reitz family.
He was Francis, son of a Dutch naval officer who settled in Cape Town in 1794 and married into the Cape aristocracy.
He became a prominent landowner, horse breeder and agricultural innovator and his main farm, Rhenosterfontein on the east bank of the Breede River, was one of the most advanced in the province. In 1884 he became a member of the Cape Parliament.
His son Frank was educated at Rondebosch Boys’ School, the South African College (later UCT) and the Inner Temple in London. He was called to the Bar in 1867.
At 29 he was appointed as Chief Justice of the Orange Free State. In 1889 he became president of the Free State, a position he held until 1895 when he resigned for health reasons. Soon afterwards he was appointed Secretary of State for the Transvaal. He was the man who presented Britain with the ultimatum which lead to the
This book was acclaimed a masterpiece and is still in print today.
He died in London in 1944 as South Africa’s High Commissioner.
Martin Meredith has once again produced a highly readable and perceptive look at our complicated history.
The Reitz family dominated political life for decades, yet never lost the common touch.