Gys Hofmeyr

Gysbert Reitz Hofmeyr
Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George
1st Mandatory Administrator of South West Africa (now Namibia)
In office
1 October 1920 – 1 April 1926
MonarchGeorge V
Governors‑General
Preceded bySir Edmond Howard Lacam Gorges
Succeeded byAlbertus Johannes Werth
Personal details
Born
Gysbert Reitz Hofmeyr

(1871-02-12)12 February 1871
Riversdale, Cape Colony
Died12 March 1943(1943-03-12) (aged 72)
Lakeside, Cape, Union of South Africa
SpouseYdie Louis Dankwertz Nel
Children4
Alma materVictoria College, Stellenbosch

Gysbert Reitz Hofmeyr, CMG (1871-1942) was a South African civil servant and the first Administrator of South West Africa (now Namibia) under the League of Nations Mandate.[1]

As secretary for the Transvaal delegation to the National Convention in 1908-1909, Hofmeyr had a ring-side seat on the unification of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and Orange River colonies.[1] The new Union of South Africa became a self-governing dominion of the British Empire in 1910.

Hofmeyr continued close to power as clerk of the new Union government's House of Assembly from 1910 to 1920.[1] He published numerous political writings calling for greater unity between the English and Dutch inhabitants of South Africa.[2][3][4][5][6]

In 1920 Hofmeyr was appointed as the first Administrator of South West Africa under the League of Nations Mandate by Jan Smuts (then Prime Minister of South Africa).[7] As Administrator Hofmeyr strongly encouraged white settlers from the Union and introduced numerous measures designed to ensure that the local Black and Coloured inhabitants would work for the white settlers.[7]

Historian John Wellington's view is that in doing so Hofmeyr failed to “promote to the utmost the material and moral well-being and social progress of the inhabitants of the territory” as required under the League of Nations Mandate.[8] For Wellington, Hofmeyr's administration "used the natural resources of the territory to give white children the best possible education, while neglecting to educate in any sense adequately the children of the people who were their sacred trust. Policies of the whites ... had the effect of necessitating that large numbers of the indigenous people had to work for whites. And whites did these things in the name of Western Christian civilisation which outrightly rejects such attitudes and policies".[9]

Hofmeyr's actions during the Bondelswarts Rebellion in 1922, described by Ruth First as "the Sharpeville of the 1920s",[10] were controversial, especially the use of warplanes, aerial bombs and strafing against lightly armed Blacks.[11][12]

Hofmeyr was criticized by the Permanent Mandates Commission report into the Bondelswarts affair. Although the report held that Hofmeyr had "acted wisely in taking prompt steps to uphold government authority", it found that the repression of the uprising was "carried out with excessive severity".[13]

In an annex to the report, the chairman of the Permanent Mandates Commission, Marquess Theodoli of Italy, declared that Hofmeyr's actions ought to have been in line with the purpose of the Mandate system, namely the "well-being and development of less-advanced peoples", and that the Administration "has pursued a policy of force rather than of persuasion, and further that this policy has always been conceived and applied in the interests of the colonists rather than of the Natives".[13]

Nonetheless, what Hofmeyr implemented in South West Africa and his action in the Bondelswarts Rebellion was not only what Smuts required[14] and was similar to what South Africa was doing elsewhere at the time[15] but was also in many respects in line with what the British expected[16] and what the British were doing elsewhere at the time.[17][18]

Hofmeyr stood for election to the Parliament of South Africa for the Riversdale constituency in 1929 but lost to a nationalist opponent who taunted him about his Bondelswarts misjudgements.[19] Hofmeyr sued the opponent for libel and ultimately won the case,[20] but the loss at the election effectively ended Hofmeyr's political career.

While Hofmeyr rose above the narrow nationalism of many Afrikaners, English and Germans of his time, he, like General Smuts and other more centrist thinkers, did not match the far-sighted thinking of JW Sauer, Olive Schreiner and some other contemporaries who wanted Blacks, Coloureds, Indians, Europeans and women to all have the same rights and to be treated equally.[21]

  1. ^ a b c Debrett's (1922). Peerage.
  2. ^ Newspaper report Rand Daily Mail 30 March 1908
  3. ^ Hofmeyr, G.R. (1906). Het Zuid-Afrikaanse Jaarboek en Algemeene Gids.
  4. ^ Hofmeyr, Gysbert Reitz (1916). An Undivided White South Africa: The Ideal Union and how it may be achieved. T Maskew Miller, Cape Town.
  5. ^ Hancock, W.K. (1968). "12 – Reunion". Smuts: The Fields of Force 1919-1950. Cambridge University Press.
  6. ^ Hofmeyr, GR (6 January 1928). "A new Spirit in our Lingering Racial Atmosphere: Geneva: the Nazareth of the New World". The Cape Times.
  7. ^ a b Wellington, John H. (1967). "13 Administering the Mandate: the First Stage". South West Africa and its Human Issues. Oxford Clarendon Press.
  8. ^ Wellington, John H. (1967). "11 Black and White Relationships". South West Africa and its Human Issues. Oxford Clarendon Press.
  9. ^ Wellington, John H. (1967). "18 The Real Issues". South West Africa and its Human Issues. Oxford Clarendon Press.
  10. ^ First, Ruth (1963). "3 The Lean Years of the Mandate". South West Africa. Penguin.
  11. ^ Dewaldt, Franz (1976). "10 – League of Nations Mandates Commission's Criticism of South African administration in South West Africa". Native Uprisings in Southwest Africa. Documentary Publications Salisbury, NC, USA.
  12. ^ Crawford, Neta (2002). "6 - Sacred Trust". Argument and Change in World Politics: Ethics, Decolonization and Humanitarian Intervention. Cambridge University Press.
  13. ^ a b Dewaldt, Franz (1976). "11 – Mandates Commissions Report". Native Uprisings in Southwest Africa. Documentary Publications Salisbury, NC, USA.
  14. ^ Letter to GR Hofmeyr from General Smuts dated 20 May 1924, in South African National Archives, GR Hofmeyr Collection
  15. ^ Hancock, W.K. (1968). "5 – Bulhoek and Bondelzwarts". Smuts: The Fields of Force 1919-1950. Cambridge University Press.
  16. ^ Annex to Official Report of the Governor-General of the Union of South Africa of his visit to the South West Territory in October 1919
  17. ^ Elkins, Caroline (2022). "2 – Wars small and great". Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire. The Bodley Head.
  18. ^ Elkins, Caroline (2022). "4 – "I'm merely pro-British"". Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire. The Bodley Head.
  19. ^ Affidavit by GR Hofmeyr in Hofmeyr v Badenhorst, Cape Supreme Court 1932
  20. ^ Judgement in Hofmeyr v Badenhorst, Cape Supreme Court 1932
  21. ^ Wellington, John H. (1967). "Introduction". South West Africa and its Human Issues. Oxford Clarendon Press.