- Nicolaas Jacobus de Wet
-
The Right Honourable
Nicolaas Jacobus de Wet
PC
Officer Administering the Government of South AfricaIn office
17 July 1943 – 1 January 1946Monarch George VI Prime Minister Jan Smuts Preceded by The Rt Hon. Sir Patrick Duncan Succeeded by The Rt Hon. Gideon Brand van Zyl Chief Justice of South Africa In office
1939–1943Nicolaas Jacobus de Wet (1873–1960) was Chief Justice of South Africa and acting Governor-General from 1943 to 1945.
Born in 1873, he obtained a law degree from the University of Cambridge in 1895 and was admitted as an advocate (the South African equivalent of a barrister) in 1896.[1] During the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), he was military secretary to General Louis Botha, commandant-general of the Transvaal forces, and acted as an interpreter at the peace conference that ended the war in 1902.
After the war, he joined Botha in politics, and was a member of the Transvaal legislative assembly from 1907 to 1910. He was a legal adviser to the Transvaal delegation to the 1908-1909 National Convention that drew up the Constitution for the Union of South Africa. In 1913, he was appointed a King's Counsel. He was also a founder member of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (the "South African Academy for Science and Art") in 1909.
De Wet was a member of the Union Parliament between 1913 and 1929, serving as a member of the House of Assembly from 1913 to 1920 and a Senator from 1920 to 1929. He served in the South African Party government as Minister of Justice from 1913 to 1924. As such, he had to deal with the legal aspects of an armed Afrikaner uprising against the government in 1914, and the 1922 Rand Revolt.
De Wet was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court in 1932, a judge of the Appeal Court in 1937, and Chief Justice in 1939. As Chief Justice, he was required ex officio to act as Officer Administering the Government, in the absence of the Governor-General, which he did for two and a half years, from the death of Sir Patrick Duncan in 1943 and the appointment of Gideon Brand van Zyl in 1945. He was appointed a member of the Privy Council in 1939.
De Wet was married twice. His first wife was Ella Scheepers, who is reputed to have composed the popular Afrikaans song Sarie Marais during the Anglo-Boer War. His second wife was Jakomina du Toit. He died in 1960. His son by his first marriage, Dr. Quartus de Wet, was also a judge, and presided over the 1963 Rivonia Treason Trial of Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists.
References
- ^ De Wet, Nicholas Jacobus in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
- Dictionary of South African Biography Volume IV
Preceded by
Sir Patrick DuncanGovernor-General of South Africa
1943–1946Succeeded by
Gideon Brand van Zylpre-Apartheid (1910-1948) Apartheid-era (1948-1994) Post-Apartheid (1994-present) Categories:- 1873 births
- 1960 deaths
- Afrikaner people
- Alumni of the University of Cambridge
- Governors-General of South Africa
- White South African people
- Chief Justices of South Africa
- Members of the House of Assembly of South Africa
- Members of the Senate of South Africa
- South African Party (Union of South Africa) politicians
- Government ministers of South Africa
- Jurist stubs
- South African politician stubs
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