10 Facts About Christoffel Brand

Sir Christoffel Joseph Brand was a Cape jurist, politician, statesman and first Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the Cape Colony.

Christoffel Brand was born in 1797, during the twilight years of the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch Cape Colony.

Christoffel Brand was the godson of Joseph Banks, the noted British naturalist, whom his grandfather had worked with.

Christoffel Brand earned a doctorate of letters with a thesis Quaestiones in Socratis sententiam de Deo.

Christoffel Brand returned to The Cape and in 1821 established a law practice in Cape Town, before beginning to take an active interest in politics.

Christoffel Brand was one of the founders of the Zuid-Afrikaansch Athenaeum in 1828, and was one of the first advocates in the Supreme Court in 1829.

Christoffel Brand was bitterly disillusioned by the manner in which he perceived the British government to have marginalized the Cape Dutch community, in particular the way they had supplanted the Dutch legal system in the Cape with an Anglophone common law system.

Christoffel Brand was a prominent supporter of the movement for responsible government, and became the first Speaker of the Cape parliament under this new system, when it was instituted by the Molteno Ministry in 1872.

Sir Christoffel Brand was a South African Freemason and Deputy Grand Master National of the Grand Orient of the Netherlands in The Cape from 1847 to 1874.

Christoffel Brand's son was Sir Johannes Brand who became 4th State President of the Orange Free State.