Portal:South Africa/Selected biography/8
Sir Cornelius Hermanus Wessels (26 April 1851 Rietfontein, Winburg, Orange River Sovereignty – 1 March 1924 Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, Union of South Africa) was a South African statesman.
Wessels stemmed from an important Orange Free State family clan, dedicated to farming and the Boer way of life. Mainly self-educated, he turned to politics in his early thirties. As a member of the Volksraad he developed his skills as a diplomat and mediator, and was involved in many of the important political decisions the Orange Free State had to make in the 1880s and 1890s. In 1897 he was appointed president of the Volksraad. (Full article...)