Richard Feetham
Richard Feetham (1874-1965) was a lawyer, politician and judge in South Africa. He was chairman of the Feetham Function Committee on Constitutional Reform in India (1918-1919) and of the Irish Boundary Commission (1924-1925).
He was born in Penrhos, Monmouthshire, the fifth son of the Reverend William and Mary Feetham;[1] he was educated at Marlborough College and New College, Oxford. He read law in Lincolns Inn and was called to the Bar in 1899. He served with the Inns of Court Rifles in the Second Boer War.[2] He was one of the young lawyers selected by Lord Milner to assist him in a policy of reconstruction following the Treaty of Vereeniging, who became known as "Milner's Kindergarten".[3]
Feetham became deputy town clerk of Johannesburg in 1902 and town clerk the following year. In April 1905, he resigned from the Town Council and was appointed to the South African Bar.
Richard Feetham was also appointed "to enquire into and report upon the facts relating to the tenure by natives of their lots in the Potchefstroom native location" and after he completed this work, its findings were reported in 1906 by the Government Printer, Pretoria. This commission's work was undertaken because of the claims of the residents of the old native location that members of the Stadsraad in 1888 gave them verbal assurances of a perpetual right of occupation of their stands as long as they paid their annual rent.[4]
He was legal adviser to Lord Selborne, the High Commissioner in 1907 and a member of the Legislative Council of the Transvaal from (1907-1910).[5] In 1915 he was elected to the House of Assembly of South Africa for the Parktown constituency in Johannesburg. During World War I, Feetham was an officer in the South African Cape Corps and served in East Africa and Egypt.
He resigned from Parliament in 1923 to become a judge. In 1930 he was appointed Judge President of the Natal Provincial Division, and in 1939 became Judge of Appeal in Bloemfontein.[6]
References
- ↑ The Round Table, Volume 56, Issue 222, 1966 (p.205)
- ↑ Papers of the Hon. Richard Feetham, The Bodlean Library
- ↑ The Round Table, Volume 56, Issue 222, 1966 (p.205)
- ↑ Jansen van Rensburg, Fanie. "Protest by Potchefstroom native location's residents against dominance, 1904 to 1950". The Historical Association of South Africa. Retrieved 01-08-2012.
- ↑ The Round Table, September 1935 Issue
- ↑ Papers of the Hon. Richard Feetham, The Bodlean Library