Daniël Hendrik Celliers du Plessis (12 March 1898 – 13 July 1981) was the Head of the South African Railways and co-founder of The Afrikaner Broederbond.

Roots and education

Du Plessis was born on 12 March 1898 in

Colesberg Colesberg is a town with 17,354 inhabitants in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, located on the main N1 road from Cape Town to Johannesburg. In a sheep-farming area spread over half-a-million hectares, greater Colesberg breeds many ...

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when i ...

. He was the son of Izak David du Plessis and Hester Cornelia Cecilia Lessing. Du Plessis and his family moved from Colesberg, to

Parys Parys (pronounced ) is a town situated on the banks of the Vaal River in the Free State province of South Africa. The name of the town is the Afrikaans translation of Paris. The name was given by a German surveyor named Schilbach who had partic ...

Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( nl, Oranje Vrijstaat; af, Oranje-Vrystaat;) was an independent Boer sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeat ...

and then to

Germiston Germiston, also known as kwaDukathole, is a small city in the East Rand region of Gauteng, South Africa, administratively forming part of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since the latter's establishment in 2000. It functions as ...

, Transvaal. He studied Languages and Dutch literacy through St. John College in Johannesburg. He married Susanna Seugnette du Toit in 1928. Out of the marriage 4 children were born. He died in Johannesburg, Transvaal , South Africa on 13 July 1981.

Career

He worked as an office clerk for a short while at an attorneys firm. In middle 1915 he started a career at the South African Railways. He worked himself up through the ranks and in 1952 he became the Head of the South African Railways, taking over from W.H.L. Heckroodt. He remained in that position until his retirement in 1961. Johannes Hugo succeeded him. Highlights of his career included : *1946 – leader of a mission to South and North America to investigate the modernisation of the railways administration. *1947 – Member of the Royal Commission to report on the status of Railways in Australia. * 1961 – After his retirement he was chairman of the government Commission on the status of third party insurance.

Broederbond

In middle 1918, du Plessis, together with his school friend H.J. Klopper and two others founded the Afrikaner Broederbond. It took place in his house. The other two were H.W. van der Merwe and J.F. Naude. The organisation was founded to look after

Afrikaner Afrikaners () are a South African ethnic group descended from Free Burghers, predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th and 18th centuries.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: ...

White interest. It focussed on poverty and was a male only organisation. H.J. Klopper was the first chairman. The organisation in later years became the

Afrikanerbond The Afrikanerbond (''Afrikaner League''), established in 1994, is the successor to the Afrikaner Broederbond, formerly a South African secret society. Unlike its predecessor, membership is open to anyone over the age of 18 years who identifies w ...

, and is today a non-sexist, non-racial and non-secretive.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:du Plessis, Danie 1898 births 1981 deaths People from Colesberg Afrikaner people Railway executives 20th-century South African businesspeople