Willem Eduard Bok, also known as W. Eduard Bok (

Den Burg Den Burg is a town in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the municipality of Texel on the island of the same name, and lies about 12 km north of Den Helder. Overview Located in the middle of the island, Den Burg is the larg ...

Texel Texel (; Texels dialect: ) is a municipality and an island with a population of 13,643 in North Holland, Netherlands. It is the largest and most populated island of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. The island is situated north of De ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, 28 June 1846 –

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

Transvaal Colony The Transvaal Colony () was the name used to refer to the Transvaal region during the period of direct British rule and military occupation between the end of the Second Boer War in 1902 when the South African Republic was dissolved, and the ...

, 1 November 1904) was a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

-born

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

Boer Boers ( ; af, Boere ()) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape Colony, Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controll ...

politician, civil servant and statesman, who served as first State Secretary of the

South African Republic The South African Republic ( nl, Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, abbreviated ZAR; af, Suid-Afrikaanse Republiek), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer Republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it ...

(Transvaal) from 1880 to 1889.

Biography

Career

Bok started his career as sales-agent in

Zaandam Zaandam () is a city in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is the main city of the municipality of Zaanstad, and received City rights in the Netherlands, city rights in 1811. It is located on the river Za ...

. In 1876 he moved to

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends ...

, where he gained the confidence of

Paul Kruger Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904) was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and President of the South African Republic (or ...

and

Piet Joubert Petrus Jacobus Joubert (20 January 1831 – 28 March 1900), better known as Piet Joubert, was Commandant-General of the South African Republic from 1880 to 1900. He also served as Vice-President to Paul Kruger from 1881 - 1883. He served in Fir ...

, and acted as their secretary during negotiations about the position of the Transvaal in 1877-1878. At the declaration of independence he became the first State Secretary of the South African Republic, a position he would hold for almost a decade. Afterwards he was appointed Government Commissioner in Johannesburg. In his capacity as State Secretary Bok registered the gold claims in the

East Rand The East Rand is the urban eastern part of the Witwatersrand that is functionally merged with the Johannesburg conurbation in South Africa. The region extends from Alberton in the west to Nigel in the east, and south down to Nigel. It includes ...

area of the Transvaal.Keller, Bill
Boksburg's Goofy White Smiles.
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' September 19, 1993. The town of

Boksburg Boksburg is a city on the East Rand of Gauteng province of South Africa. Gold was discovered in Boksburg in 1887. Boksburg was named after the State Secretary of the South African Republic, W. Eduard Bok. The Main Reef Road linked Boksburg ...

outside

was named after him.Room, Adrian. ''Placenames of the World.'' McFarland & Company, 2006. Bok Street in the

Johannesburg CBD The Central Business District, commonly called Johannesburg CBD, is one of the main business centres of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is the densest collection of skyscrapers in Africa, however, due to white flight and urban blight, many of the b ...

is named after him. Bok was decorated by the French Republic with a knighthood in the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...

and by the Portuguese government with a knighthood in the Order of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception of Vila Viçosa.

Family

Bok married Pretoria 23 December 1878 with Martina Gerardina Johanna Eekhout (1856-1910), with whom he had five children. His eldest son and namesake Willem Eduard Bok, Jr. studied law and became a justice in the Supreme Court of the

Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa ( nl, Unie van Zuid-Afrika; af, Unie van Suid-Afrika; ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Trans ...

References

Notes

Literature

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bok, Willem Eduard 1846 births 1904 deaths Dutch emigrants to South Africa People from Texel South African Republic politicians