30 Facts About Gordon Sprigg

Gordon Sprigg's father was a pastor and his strictly conservative up-bringing had a lifelong effect on Sprigg's values.

Gordon Sprigg was educated at Ipswich School, as well as a series of other private schools.

Gordon Sprigg started his career in a shipbuilder's office, and then switched jobs to become a short-hand writer and reporter.

Gordon Sprigg managed to acquire a free farm in what was known at the time as British Kaffraria, and began to get involved in local politics.

Gordon Sprigg notably ran the Commission for Frontier Defense which recommended that the defence of the Cape Colony be separately administered for the Eastern and Western halves of the Colony and that the Cape's defences be racially segregated.

Gordon Sprigg was to remain a federalist for the remainder of his career.

In spite of the frontier war, Gordon Sprigg famously left his family and farm on the border immediately, to assist Frere in forming a new Cape government.

However, local Cape opposition to it was so strong and widespread that Gordon Sprigg had to give up on the idea.

At the time of taking office, Gordon Sprigg faced a parliament which was overwhelmingly supportive of the previous government which Frere had deposed.

Unlike the preceding, relatively mixed government, Gordon Sprigg's cabinet consisted exclusively of British South Africans, dominated by pro-imperialist politicians who all hailed, like Gordon Sprigg himself, from the Eastern Province and were descended from the 1820 Settlers.

In spite of his good relationship with the Colonial Office, Gordon Sprigg had little grass-roots support locally, and when Frere was recalled to London to face charges of misconduct, his government fell.

Gordon Sprigg was succeeded as prime minister by locally born Thomas Charles Scanlen.

Gordon Sprigg got an opportunity for a second term as prime minister when Thomas Upington resigned due to ill-health.

The Cape constitution guaranteed equal voting rights for citizens of all races through its "Cape Qualified Franchise" system, however Gordon Sprigg was concerned about the rapid political mobilisation of the Cape's large and growing African population.

Gordon Sprigg circumvented this with his Registration Bill in 1887, which excluded communal land-owners from voting and thus effectively disenfranchised a large proportion of the Cape's Black African citizens.

However, through persistence and mastery of parliamentary procedure, Gordon Sprigg successfully passed the measure.

Gordon Sprigg was much less successful in his railway policy.

Gordon Sprigg made himself available to Rhodes for a cabinet position and in the power vacuum he successfully re-secured the position of treasurer.

Gordon Sprigg went on to become one of the most vocal and loyal of Rhodes's supporters.

Gordon Sprigg publicly offered a cruiser to the Royal Navy, on behalf of the Cape, and received an honorary LLD from Edinburgh and an honorary DCL from Oxford.

Gordon Sprigg then lost a vote of no confidence that was initiated by William Philip Schreiner in May 1898, but fought to keep his position through the resultant general election, which he lost after an acrimonious campaign; his ministry finally fell to a second motion of no confidence later in the year.

Schreiner was forced to resign in June 1900 because of his anti-war stance, and Gordon Sprigg, who was seen in London as an acceptably pro-imperialist candidate, was appointed prime minister for the fourth and last time, though still without parliamentary sanction.

However, in his final term in office, Gordon Sprigg distinguished himself more than anything else through his work on the suspension issue.

Gordon Sprigg had begun his fourth term by closely toeing the line of the Colonial Office in London, but this became increasingly difficult, as it brought him into conflict with the largest parties in the Cape parliament.

Gordon Sprigg strongly supported confederation, as he had since his first Ministry, but he hesitated on the issue of suspending the country's constitution.

Meanwhile, the delicate balancing act that Gordon Sprigg needed to perform in order to survive politically became ever more precarious, until a string of defeats in parliament and in the 1904 election toppled his government for the final time.

Gordon Sprigg was appointed as a Privy Counsellor of the United Kingdom in 1897.

Gordon Sprigg coveted power and clung to it tenaciously, being content to change his colleagues, as long as he was left undisturbed in office.

Gordon Sprigg retired from politics after 1904, although he reappeared briefly in 1908 and voted against a parliamentary colour bar in 1909.

Gordon Sprigg died at his home in Wynberg, Cape Town on 4 February 1913, and was buried at St Peter's Cemetery, Mowbray.