MALAN, FRANCOIS STEPHANUS
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Francois Stephanus Malan (March 12, 1871-December 31, 1941), was a leading figure in South African social and political life throughout a long career as a journalist, politician, and cultural leader.
PHOTO CAPTION: Francois Stephanus Malan. SOURCE: EA Library
A son of Daniel Gerhardus Malan, a teacher and farmer, he was born at Bovlei near Wellington in the Cape Province. After studying at the Victoria College, now the University of Stellenbosch, obtained his B.A. with honours in mathematics and science in 1892. He then read law at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in England, where he obtained his LL.B. in 1895. He was admitted to the Cape’s Bar on his return to South Africa, but in November 1895 accepted the editorship of the newspaper Ons Land, a position he retained until 1908.
As the editor of an influential journal in a period of great tension in South Africa, he was inevitably drawn into the thick of political controversy. He attacked Cecil John Rhodes for complicity in the Jameson Raid of 1895-96. He was also strongly opposed to British policy during the South African War of 1899-1902 and served a term of imprisonment for criticising conditions in a Natal concentration camp.
Meanwhile, he had been elected to the Malmesbury seat in the Cape Legislative Assembly, representing the interest of the Afrikaner Bond (“League of Afrikaners”), a constituency he represented from 1900 to 1924. Despite his pro-Boer sympathies during the South African War, Malan worked untiringly between 1902 and 1910 for a united South Africa. He played an important part in the achievement of the Union in 1910 as a Cape delegate to the National Convention of 1908- 1909. A staunch upholder of the Cape liberal tradition, he was responsible for the retention of Cape Coloured and Black franchise rights previously enjoyed in the colony.
Malan attained cabinet rank in 1908 as secretary (minister) of agriculture in Merriman’s South African Party government in the Cape Colony. After Union, he served from 1910-21 as minister of education in the administrations of Botha and Jan Smuts, and in 1920-21 combined this portfolio with those of mines and industry, agriculture, and forestry.
His greatest parliamentary achievement was the legislation of 1916 which remodelled the South African university system by creating teaching universities at Cape Town and Stellenbosch and a federal university in Pretoria. He also helped to found a university college for black students, today the University of Fort Hare. Although Malan was less prominent in politics after 1924, he was elected to the Senate in 1927 and was president of the upper house in 1940-41.
He was also active in British Commonwealth affairs. In later years he made notable contributions to cultural life as chairman of such organisations as the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie, the Huguenot Society, and the Historical Monuments Commission. An enthusiast for the Afrikaans language, he was long chairman of the Taalbond (Language Association).
Malan’s publications include a biography of the Cape Town benefactress Marle Koopmans-de Wet (1925), and a chapter on South Africa (1910-21) in the eighth volume of the Cambridge History of the British Empire (1936). His diary of the proceedings of the National Convention of 1908-1909 (Die Konvenste-dagboek) was published posthumously (1951).
M. BOUCHER
