Olof de Wet

Olof Godlieb de Wet (1739–1811) was a South African high-ranking official in the Dutch East India Company and co-founder of the Freemasons in South Africa.

Olof de Wet
Personal details
Born
Olof Godlieb de Wet

1739
Cape Town, Cape Colony, South Africa
Died6 December 1811
Cape Town, Cape Colony, South Africa
SpouseMagdalena Saria Maria Butger
Children1
Known forVarious positions in The Dutch East India Company and Freemasonry in South Africa

Personal life

He was born in middle 1739 in Cape Town, South Africa. De Wet's grandfather Jacobus de Wet emigrated from Amsterdam, The Netherlands in 1693 to South Africa. [1] His parents were Maria Magdalena Blankenberg and Johannes Carolus de Wet. He married Magdalena Saria Maria Butger in July 1761, and out of their marriage one child was born. He died at age 72 in Cape Town, South Africa on 6 December 1811.[2]

Work path

He started his working career in the Dutch East India Company (DEIC) in 1757. Through the years he stayed with the DEIC and started as assistant and followed that up with a bookkeeper (1768), office manager (1772), buyer (1775) and then a member of the Council of Justice in 1778. This was followed by work as a store manager (1782) and auctions manager(1785).[3] [4][5]

In this period he acted as Journal Writer and assistant for Governor Joachim van Plettenberg, on the governor's trips. [6]

De Wet became the president of the Council of Commissioners for Civil and Matrimonial Affairs, in 1787. He was the president of the Council of Justice[7] and Receiver of Revenue,[8] in 1791 and 1793 respectively.

In the beginning of 1795, de Wet led an official commission that went to Graaff-Reinet to look into complaints by the residents against, Magistrate Honoratius Maynier . This was done on instructions received from Commissioner General Abraham Sluijsken.[9]

Freemasons

In 1772 de Wet together with the German banker Chiron, the Dutch Ships Captain van der Weijden and locals ( Brand, de Wit, le Febre, van Schoor, Gie, and Pieter Soermans) started the first Freemasonry movement in South Africa. [10][11]

References
  1. "Jacobus de Wet (Afrikaans)". Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  2. "Olof Godlieb de Wet". Retrieved 16 October 2018.
  3. Mossop, E.E. (1935). "The Journal of Hendrik Jacob Wikar (1779) Page 258" (PDF). The van Riebeeck Society. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  4. van Niekerk, J.P. (2016). "The life and times of Cape advocate Dirk Gysbert Reitz a biographical note" (PDF). Fundamina. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
  5. “De Wet, Olof Godlieb” in Dictionary of South African Biography vol 2 (Cape Town): 191-192
  6. Theal, G.M. (2010). History and Ethnography of Africa South of the Zambesi, from the Settlement of the Portuguese at Sofala in September 1505 to the Conquest of the Cape Colony by the British in September 1795. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108023344.
  7. Schutte, G.J. "Briefwisseling oor Kaapse Sake 1778-1792 (Afrikaans /Dutch –Translated: Correspondence regarding Cape Colony affairs)". Retrieved 8 October 2018.
  8. "Records of the Cape Colony from February 1793 to December 1796" (PDF). Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  9. Smith, K.W. (September 1974). "From frontier to Midlands, a history of Graaff-Reinet district 1786-1910" (PDF). Rhodes University.
  10. Cooper, A.A (January 1980). "The origins and growth of Freemasonry in South Africa, 1772 – 1876, page 16" (PDF). University of Cape Town. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  11. "The first Settler at the Cape Hans Conrad Guy (J.C. Gie)" (PDF). Retrieved 17 October 2018.
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