Mzanzitravel Magazine - Issue 9

Hiking
Smut’s beloved house at Doornkloof, Irene - Steve Heap / Shutterstock.com
From Boer general to
international statesman…
visiting the homes where Jan Smuts
was born and later lived
He was, among his many exploits and adventures,
an innovative Boer general who terrorised the British
imperial army. He later commanded South African and
British forces and served in the British war cabinets
during both World Wars; was a close confidante of
Winston Churchill; a founder of the forerunner of the
United Nations; and became one of South Africa’s
most beloved and respected prime ministers. He was
also labelled as one of Cambridge University’s most
outstanding students ever. His name was Jan Smuts.
Visiting the home where he was born and the one where
he spent the last 40 years of his life, both now museums,
opens an engrossing window on the life and times of this
fascinating man.
The distinguished life of Jan Christiaan Smuts started on the farm Bovenplaats
near Riebeek West in the then Cape Colony on May 24, 1870 and ended on
September 11, 1950 in his beloved home on his farm Doornkloof, Irene, outside
Pretoria. Both homes are today museums open to the public, left exactly as they
were during his life, and filled with personal furniture, books, pictures, mementos
and more. A visit to both, but especially the one at Doornkloof, Irene, provides an
astounding insight into this amazing statesman who chose intellect and simplicity
over the trappings of high office and status. In doing so he had much in common
with Mahatma Ghandi, who was both his adversary and a friend.
Smuts only started school at the age of 12, after his elder brother died, as the
custom of the day held that only the eldest son received a schooling, while the rest
worked on the farm. But he quickly caught up, matriculated within four years, and
graduated from Victoria College (later Stellenbosch University), having studied
high Dutch, German, ancient Greek, literature, the classics, and Bible studies. He
then went on to study law at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge in England.
He was described by one of his tutors, Professor Maitland, a leading figure among
English legal historians at the time, as the most brilliant student he had ever met.
While studying at Cambridge, the youthful Smuts wrote a book, Walt Whitman: A
Study in the Evolution of Personality, which was published only in 1973, long after
his death, but which laid the foundation for Smuts’ later wide-ranging philosophy
of holism. In 1970, Lord Todd, the Master of Christ’s College, said that in the 500
years of the College’s history, among all its many students, only three had been
truly outstanding: John Milton, Charles Darwin and Jan Smuts.
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