Zoologist and writer on the historical aspects of science

Richard (Rick) Turner was a South African academic, educationist and theorist, who was murdered by the South African security forces in 1978. His killing was part of the public hearings at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), where members of the former security cluster were forced to testify.

Revd. Theo Schneider was a member of the Swiss Mission in Southern Africa. Having worked in Tsonga territories at the time, and being a fluent Tsonga speaker and theologian, he translated the Bible into Tsonga.

Stephanus Mukhesi Maimela Dzivhani was born c. 1888 at Sibasa in Chief Makwarela's area of the Northern Transvaal, of the Ngoma tribe. His mother was a princess of a royal family, his father was a headman. As a youth he was interested in musical instruments and soon picked up music and songs. His father bought him a xylophone to play at festivals.

He came into contact with Berlin missionaries through his brother and between 1907-1913 he trained at Botshabelo Training Institution in the violin, lessons on the organ and joined the college brass band. As a teacher he taught at the Lutheran Mission School, the first school in Sibasa. Classes were held under a tree, until Lali or Chief Mphaphuli agreed that a school building should be erected. It was here his songs markedly impressed the Superintendent and some were compiled in the Venda hymn books. Keenly interested in church matters, he translated most of the Lutheran hymn book into Venda, besides adding and composing numerous other hymns. As he started life as a teacher in the early years of this century, later becoming headmaster, he was used by chiefs in the area mainly Chief Mphaphuli, to mediate between the traditional authorities and the White government. He also had to keep records of court cases at the Chief's kraal.

In 1918 he went to King Williams Town to marry a teacher there - Selina Manyakan Yaka, a Xhosa. They had two boys and three girls. Ulrica, the eldest, took her B. A. degree at Fort Hare and became a teacher in Bulawayo. She had a son, Steven, who studied and want to Switzerland intending to take up medical science. Dzivhani's son, Herbert, who became blind, matriculated at Eerste River Blind School. He was killed in a car accident in Natal. The other surviving child, Bennett, matriculated and became a teacher.

Stephen Dzivhani himself became a lay preacher at the Lutheran Beuster Mission and opened up other schools in the Sibasa area, He worked for seven years without pay and became an agent for a commercial miller for the Otenda Mills at Sibasa under the Mealie Control Board.

Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr was born in Cape Town on 20 March 1894, the younger son of Andries Brink Hofmeyr (1851-1897) and his second wife Deborah Catherina Boyers. His father was business manager of the newspaper Ons Land, Secretary of the Afrikaner Bond and a cousin of J.H. 'Onze Jan' Hofmeyr. His mother, a member of an old Stellenbosch family, was a strong imperious character, who had an important influence on her younger son.

Hofmeyr was a brilliant student, with an intellect bordering on genius. He matriculated, aged twelve, at the South African College School in 1906, first in the school and third in the Cape Colony. In 1909 he obtained a B.A. with first-class honours at the South African College, winning the university gold medal for literature and a Rhodes scholarship. Before going to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1913, he took a Science B.A. and a first-class Classics M.A. His career was equally brilliant at Oxford where he gained a double first in classical honour moderations in 1914 and literae humaniores in 1916. In this year he returned to South Africa, lecturing in classics at the South African College and, in December, being appointed Professor of Classics at the South African School of Mines and Technology, Johannesburg, later the University of the Witwatersrand. This was the start of an illustrious career at 'Wits' where he became principal in 1919, vice-chancellor (then an honorary post) in 1926 and chancellor in 1938.

Hofmeyr left the academic world in 1924 to become Administrator of the Transvaal, thus marking the beginning of his political career. He was a successful administrator, attracting the notice of men such as J.B.M. Hertzog and J.C. Smuts. In 1929 he won a by-election at Johannesburg North and helped to play a considerable part in welding the National and South African. Parties into the United Party. He became Minister of Education, the Interior and Public Health in 1933. His liberal attitude towards Blacks, Coloureds and Indians embarrassed the United Party, despite which he remained in the cabinet, changing his portfolio to Labour and Mines in 1936, until 1938 when he resigned over the appointment of A.P.J. Fourie to the senate as a member specially qualified to speak for the Blacks. He resigned from the United Party caucus in 1939 over the Asiatics (Transvaal Land and Trading) Bill but remained in parliament as an independent United Party supporter.

The outbreak of war led to his returning to the cabinet as Minister of Finance and Education and during the war years he worked unstintingly for the war effort, shouldering much of the burden when Smuts was overseas and he was acting prime minister. It was felt by many that his liberalism cost the United Party the election in 1948, although Hofmeyr himself retained his seat.

Many honours were bestowed on him. In 1945 he was awarded a D.C.L. by Oxford University and was sworn in as a privy councillor; in 1946 he was made an honorary fellow of Balliol and an honorary bencher of Gray's Inn. He was a brilliant administrator, an indefatigable worker and a liberal thinker but essentially a simple man who enjoyed boys' camps and cricket. His early death (on 3 December 1948) was a tragedy for South Africa.

Dictionary of South African Biography, Vol. II, p.309

A. Paton. South African tragedy: the life and times of Jan Hofmeyr (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1965)

Edward Bushnan Rose, a British subject, remained in Johannesburg and Pretoria during the South African War (Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902) under permit from the British Government, and later recounts his experiences and gives an account of conditions in the Transvaal during the War.

Alfred de Jager JACKSON is the author of: Manna in the desert: a revelation of the great Karroo.

Jean Marquard was born 4 September 1941 in Cape Town, educated at St. Cyprian's School, Cape Town, where she matriculated 1st class; Stellenbosch University, attaining her B.A. with distinction in English; B.A. Hons. , cum laude; M.A., cum laude; B. Phil. on nineteenth century literature, Oxford University (Oxon); D. Phil. on W.C. Scully at the University of the Witwatersrand.

She lectured in the Department of English in the universities of Stellenbosch, Pretoria and the Witwatersrand. At the University of the Witwatersrand she was involved with extra-mural teaching with the Institute for Adult Education, tutored students working through UNISA and the Jewish Teachers Training College.

Her research consisted of an anthology of South African short stories; The Theme of Renunciation in the Novels of Henry James and a Critical History of the South African Short Story in English.

She published 'A Century of South African Short Stories' and edited a reprint of 'Kafir Stories' by W.C. Scully (Donker), with introduction. She wrote many articles, short stories, reviews and review articles, and radio interviews. Her creative writing consisted of poetry and short stories. She attended many conferences and was elected chairman of the Association of University English Teachers in Southern Africa (AUETSA).

Jean Marquard was married three times and had two sons. She died of cancer at the early age of 43 in 1984.

Douglas Thompson was born in England on the 8th August 1905 the son of David Chadwick Thompson and Kitty Brettle. David Thompson fought in the Boer War and in 1907 the Thompson family settled in Pretoria.

Douglas Thompson was a restless scholar. He left Pretoria Boys High in form four (192, 3) and became an iron moulding apprentice with the South African Railways and Harbours (1923-1928). The Church strongly influenced his life from an early age and in 1928 he was accepted into the Wesleyan Methodist Ministry. Between 1928 and 1930 he studied at Richmond College, the Divinity School at London University. On his return to the Union he was placed in the Geaina Area of the Pretoria Circuit. From 1937 to 1941 he was sent to Pietersburg and from 1942 - 1950 he was in Johannesburg West. From 1950 onwards he was in Springs

During his late teens Thompson became interested in world politics, local political issues, philosophy and psychology. He was particularly interested in the politics of the Soviet Union as well as the relationship between Christianity and communism. Thompson was of the first "Marxist theologians" in South Africa. He described himself as a Christian humanist and as a man who had a copy of Marx in the one hand and the Bible in the other.

Thompson was Chairman of the South African Peace Council, the Transvaal Peace Council and the Society for Peace and Friendship with Soviet Union. As the result of his involvement in these organisations he travelled to eastern bloc countries and the Soviet Union. He was also active in the Congress of Democrats, the Penal Reform League and the Child Welfare Society.

Douglas Thompson was one of the accused in the 1956 Treason Trial. He was banned from 1962-1967.