Jean van der Poel (1904–1986) was a South African historian.
She studied at the University of Cape Town (UCT), completing her doctorate, on railways and customs policies, at the London School of Economics, for which she was awarded magnum cum laude and which won her the Royal Empire Society prize.
[1] Her doctorate studies were financed by the Donald Currie Memorial scholarship.
[2] In 1929, van der Poel returned to South Africa and declined a position at UCT as lecturer for a post as history teacher.
In 1938 she decided to move to UCT, where she became a senior lecturer in 1954 and was offered the King George V chair of history in the 1960s, which she declined.