Lucas Cornelius Steyn, PC, QC (21 December 1903 – 28 July 1976) was Chief Justice of South Africa and, as such, acted as Governor-General on two occasions.
Steyn was born in 1903 on a farm in the Orange River Colony, shortly after it had fallen under British rule during the Boer War.
And soon after that he was appointed Chief Justice, ahead of the noted liberal judge of many years' appellate experience, Oliver Schreiner.
This unprecedentedly rapid ascent reflected Steyn's favour with D. F. Malan's Afrikaner nationalist administration.
True to his appointment by an Afrikaner nationalist government, Steyn's jurisprudence was executive-minded and critical of English influences on South African law.