Jan Hofmeyr Heir to Smuts - a biography by Tom Macdonald
Jan Hofmeyr Heir to Smuts - a biography by Tom Macdonald
Hardcover
Publisher: Hurst & Blackett Ltd, 1948 first edition.
Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition. The DJ has some limited signs of wear and tear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. The book is protected with a Cellophane cover.
Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (20 March 1894 – 3 December 1948) was a South African politician and intellectual in the years preceding apartheid. In his lifetime he was regarded as one of the cleverest men in the country, and it was widely expected that he would eventually become Prime Minister of South Africa. He came from a well-known Afrikaner family; his uncle, also Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr but known affectionately as "Onze Jan" among fellow Afrikaners, was a famous figure in the Afrikaans language movement.
Hofmeyr's insight into racial issues was captured in many statements that Hofmeyr made, particularly concerning the rights of non-white people in South Africa. Honorary degrees were conferred on him by the University of Cape Town (D.Sc.), Witwatersrand (LLD) and Oxford (D.C.L.).
The University of the Witwatersrand has turned the one-time administrator's house into a museum and restaurant, called Hofmeyr House. His papers are housed at the University of Natal as part of its Alan Paton collection. Paton's seminal novel Cry, the Beloved Country is dedicated to his friend Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr. In 1964, Paton published a Hofmeyr biography. A suburb in the city of Johannesburg, Jan Hofmeyr, was named after him.
