Herbert Melville Guest
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Herbert Melville Guest | |
|---|---|
| Mayor of Klerksdorp | |
| In office 1910–1911 | |
| Monarch | George V |
| Governor General | Herbert Gladstone |
| Prime Minister | Louis Botha |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 29 January 1853 Kidderminster, England |
| Died | 29 June 1938 (aged 85) |
| Resting place | Klerksdorp Old Cemetery |
| Spouse | Lucy Charlotte Lucas (married 1877) |
| Relations |
|
| Children | Ernest Lucas Guest |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  British Empire |
| Battles/wars | Second Boer War |
Herbert Melville Guest (29 January 1853 – 29 June 1938) was an author, newspaper owner and politician of the Transvaal. He acquired the Klerksdorp Mining Record in 1889. He wrote several books on the Second Boer War in the area of Klerksdorp. In 1903 he became one of the first city council members and was mayor from 1910 to 1911. One of his sons was Ernest Lucas Guest, the prominent government minister of Southern Rhodesia.
Herbert Melville Guest was born on 29 January 1853 in Kidderminster, England, the son of Herbert and Mary Guest.[1][2] In 1861, Guest's father moved the family to Grahamstown, Cape Colony (in modern South Africa's Eastern Cape), where he was appointed manager of the Frontier Times.[3] At the age of 13, Herbert was apprenticed to the Grahamstown Journal.[1]
In 1869, diamonds were discovered on a farm belonging to the De Beers brothers in Colesberg Kopje, which was to become Kimberley, sparking off a rush.[4] The following year, Herbert Melville moved to Kimberley with the staff of the new Diamond News, published by the owners of the Grahamstown Journal.[1]
After a few years he returned to Grahamstown and joined his father's printing, bookselling and stationer's business.[1]
Career
In 1889, three years after the discovery of the gold fields, Guest moved to Klerksdorp in the Transvaal, acquiring The Representative and renamed it the Klerksdorp Mining Record in August of the same year.[1] It exists today, after several name changes, as the Klerksdorp Rekord.[5]
In Klerksdorp, Guest participated in the local institutions and formed the Chamber of Mines and the Chamber of Commerce. Shortly before the outbreak of the Anglo Boer War, Guest ceased publication of the newspaper and took his family away from Klerksdorp. He returned in February 1901. During the last two years of the war, he wrote several short volumes about it.[1] He was a member of the Town Guard in charge of a post. His son Ernest spoke of a night spent on picket duty with his father, describing how some mounted Boers, appearing at dusk about 1,000 yards away, took off when his father shot at them.[6]
At the conclusion of the War in 1902, the Transvaal became a colony of the British Empire, under direct British Rule, as set out in the terms of the Treaty of Vereeniging. Farmers whose property had been damaged by British troops during the War were able to claim compensation and Guest was on the Compensation Committee handling the claims.[6]
He became a city councillor in 1903 in the newly formed Klerksdorp city council.[5] He also played a leading role in the Chamber of Commerce, the Transvaal Municipal Association and several other local institutions.[1] In 1910, following the South Africa Act 1909 of the British Parliament, the Transvaal Colony was amalgamated with the Cape Colony, Orange River Colony and the Colony of Natal, into the British dominion of the Union of South Africa, becoming the Transvaal Province. Klerksdorp's first mayor was Herbert Guest from 1910 to 1911.[5]
