George Macartney was born on 14 May 1737 at Lissanoure, Ireland, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating M.A. in 1759. He then travelled extensively on the Continent and then made the acquaintance of Stephen Fox, brother of Charles James Fox. In 1764 he was knighted and went as envoy extraordinary to St. Petersburg, where he concluded a commercial treaty with Russia. He was returned to Parliament for Cockermouth in 1760, but resigned when elected for Antrim in the Irish House of Commons, in view of his becoming Chief Secretary for Ireland, a post he held from 1769-1772.

From 1775-1779 Macartney was Captain-General and Governor of the Cariboo Islands (Grenada, the Grenadines and Tobago). He was at his post in Grenada in 1779 when the island was attacked and captured by the French. Macartney was taken to France as prisoner of war but was soon exchanged. In 1700 he was sent on a confidential mission to Ireland and in the same year was appointed Governor and President of Fort St. George (Madras) by the East India Company. On his journey back to England he called at the Cape of Good Hope in October 1705.

Macartney's next missions of importance were to Pekin (Beijing) in 1792 and Italy in 1795, where he negotiated with Louis XVIII of France, then in exile in Verona. Other honours fall to him; in 1772 he was made K.B., in 1776 Baron Macartney of Lissanoure (Irish peerage), in 1792 Earl Macartney and Viscount Macartney of Dervock in the peerage of Ireland and in 1796 Baron Macartney of Parkhurst, Sussex, and of Auchinleck, Kirkcudbrightshire.

In failing health, Macartney, on 30 December 1796, reluctantly accepted the appointment of Governor of the newly captured colony of the Cape of Good Hope. He arrived there on 4 May 1797 and remained until November 1798 when his health compelled his return to England. Because of his continued ill-health, he refused all further offices offered to him.

Macartney married the Lady Jane Stuart, second daughter of John Stuart, Earl of Bute, but there was no issue of the marriage. He died on 31 May 1806.

In youth Macartney was considered one of the meet handsome and accomplished young men of his day. He had scholarly tastes and possessed a fine library. It has been said of him that no public servant over left office with purer hands

Francis Napier Broome was the Judge President Natal and M.P.

The Commission was appointed by the Governor-General, G.B. van Zyl, to report on housing, health, welfare and recreational facilities in Durban, on the respective responsibilities of the Government, the Provincial Administration and the local authority and to make recommendations.

Champion, A.W. George - Mahlathi (African politician and entrepreneur) 1893-1975

Alison Weasels George Champion, born in Natal in 1893, was named after an American missionary who had adopted his father. After an abbreviated schooling at Amanzimtoti Zulu Training College - later Adams College he became a policeman in Johannesburg, Natal and Zululand until World War1 then a mine clerk and first President of the Transvaal Native Mine Clerks Association; by the early 1920's he was becoming increasingly prominent as an African spokesman, particularly by means of the forum provided by the Johannesburg Joint Council.

In 1925 Champion met Kadalie and shortly thereafter joined the ICU, first as its Transvaal, and subsequently, Natal Secretary. Under Champion, the Natal branch soon became the strongest. However, a personality clash - amongst other reasons - with Kadalie, led to a split within the ICU, Champion forming the ICU Yale, Natal. In 1930, having been accused of fomenting unrest at the time. of the Durban Boer Protests of 1929, Champion was banished from Durban until pardoned in 1933.

Champion meanwhile, had become active in the African National Congress, siding with the more progressive faction within the Congress in the late 1920's and serving as Minister of Labour under J.T. Gumede. A right-wing backlash against Gumede's policies brought Pixley Seme to the fore and simultaneously cost Champion his position in the inner councils of Congress. In 1937 Champion returned to the executive of Congress, where he remained for the next 14 years.

The Natal Congress under Dube's leadership since its inception, had become increasingly stagnant and insular; when Dube resigned in 1944, a power struggle developed between Mtimkulu, his designated successor, and Champion. A Congress Youth League had been formed in Natal in the course of 1944 and, seeing in Champion a character capable of bringing the aberrant Natal Congress back into the main stream of Congress politics, the younger members of Congress backed Champion.

He served as President from 1945-1951. Relations with Xuma deteriorated in this period; aware of Champion's power to command popular support, Xuma had been prepared to make compromises and concessions to avoid any antagonism developing between them. However, as Congress gradually began to move in a more progressive direction, swayed by the Youth League and the broad left, concessions to Champion became Increasingly difficult as his rear-guard actions intensified. Convinced that the Youth League was 'driving the train against the red light' he warned that precipitate action would be fatal for Congress. In 1451 he was succeeded as Natal president by a less controversial figure, Albert Luthuli.

Champion had been involved in other forms of political activity in this period. In 1942 he had been elected to the Natives Representative Council, and was re-elected in 1945 and 1948 - eventually becoming one of the last people to remains a member of the discredited council. In addition, Champion chaired the Durban Combined Advisory boards for many years, a portfolio that complemented his essentially reactionary beliefs.

One dimension to his popularity lay in his appeal to Zulu ethnicity. Indeed, he devoted much time to establishing a National Fund in the name of the Zulu nation, aimed at promoting economic development by stimulating entrepreneurship with loans. The sums collected were small however, and after his death were incorporated into the Luthuli Memorial Fund. Of more lasting impact was a scheme he claimed to have instigated - the Bantu Investment Corporation, established in 1959 to promote African enterprise in the reserves.

Champion died in 1975.

Brigadier the Hon. Ernest Thomas Stubbs, C.B.E., was born 1878 in the Queenstown district into a family of pioneers and early English settlers. He fought in the Anglo-Boer War, later served for the Department of Native Affairs in the Northern Transvaal from 1902-1913. He was an Assistant Magistrate ad Native Commissioner at Louis Trichardt in 1907. By 1913 he was Senior Magistrate, and in 1924 Magistrate and Native Commissioner in the Rustenburg district. During the First World War he was involved in the suppression of the rebellion in the Northern Transvaal in 1914. He was Senator representing the Dominion Party but later resigned from the Dominion Party in 1948 because of its anti-Native policies. During the Second World War he served as Director in the Non-European Army Services, and received the Grant of Dignity as a Commander of the Most Escellent Order of the British Empire. He died in January 1959.

F.C. Synge - Theologian, Warden of St. Paul's Theological College, Grahamstown.

Reverend Douglas Torr was born and educated in Johannesburg. He holds a B.A. Honours degree in Church History from Rhodes University, an M.A. from the University of Natal, and is currently working on a doctorate with Unisa. Reverend Torr was ordained as a priest in the Anglican Diocese in Johannesburg in 1990.

He has served the diocese in the following capacities:

Chaplain to St. Joseph's Children's Home

Rector of St. Luke's Bosmont church

Priest in charge of St. Margaret's Noordgesig church

Priest in charge of St. Mary's Cathedral

Rector of St. Mary's, Jeppe

Priest in charge of St. John the Divine in Belgravia

During his terms as a priest for the last 10 years he was also employed part-time as coordinator of Diocesan Social Responsibility. Reverend Torr's other involvements include: "BIG"- Basic Income Grant, Independent Electoral Commission and South African Council of Churches.

Having being a conscientious objector, and having being prosecuted for this stand, he remains committed to working with a wide variety of peace and justice issues.

Joost de Blank was the Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa from 1957 to 1963 and was known as the "scourge of apartheid" for his ardent opposition to the whites-only policies of the South African government.

Inspector in the Dept. of Bantu Education Field Officer in the SAIRR.

R.F. Alfred Hoernle (1880-1943) originated from Bonn/Germany and was educated at Oxford/United Kingdom. In his career as a professional philosopher he taught at various Universities in the United States, United Kingdom and South Africa, where he was, till his death, Professor in the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (1920-1943).

R.F.A. Hoernle took great interest in two great South African problems, the Afrikaaner - English problem and the European - Native problem, as it was called at the time. The latter was fully covered in his book "South African Native Policy and the Liberal Spirit". Hoernle served as Chairman and as member of the Council of the South African Institute of Race Relations; he was Chairman of the Bantu Men's Social Centre; and a delegate to the British Commonwealth Relations Conference at Sydney shortly before the outbreak of World War II.

William Hosken: born 1851 in Cornwall. After studying engineering in Britain, Hosken came to South Africa where he established himself in the business sector; by the 1890s he was managing director of several gold mines in the vicinity of Johannesburg.

Hosken received a two year sentence for the part he played in the Jameson Raid which presumably explains why no newspaper clipping were collected between November 1895 March 1897.

Following services rendered to the Empire during the Boer war, Milner appointed Hoskins to the Johannesburg Council in 1902, Hoskins played furthermore a significant role in the Transvaal Parliament where he was known for his liberalism and support for Gandhi.

He died in 1925.