Theophilus Shepstone

Young Shepstone was educated at the native mission stations at which his father worked, and the boy acquired great proficiency in the indigenous languages of South Africa, a circumstance which determined his career.

In the Xhosa War of 1835 he served as headquarters interpreter on the staff of the governor, Sir Benjamin d'Urban, and at the end of the campaign remained on the frontier as clerk to the agent for the local tribes.

Shepstone's influence with the Zulus was made use of by the Natal government; in 1861 he visited the Zulu Kingdom and obtained from Mpande a public recognition of Cetshwayo as his successor.

Shepstone's force consisted of twenty-five men of the Natal Mounted Police only, but no overt opposition was made to the annexation; the republic at the time was in a condition bordering on anarchy.

All the thinking and intelligent people know this, and will be thankful to be delivered from the thraldom of petty factions by which they are perpetually kept in a state of excitement and unrest because the government and everything connected with it is a thorough sham" (Martineau's Life of Sir Bartle Frere, ch.

Shepstone remained in Pretoria as administrator of the Transvaal until January 1879;[4] his rule was marked, according to Sir Bartle Frere, who described him as "a singular type of an Africander Talleyrand," by an "apparent absence of all effort to devise or substitute a better system" than that which had characterised the previous regime.

Shepstone had been summoned home to advise the Colonial Office on South African affairs and he reached England in May 1879; on his return to Natal he retired (1880) from the public service.

A younger brother of Sir Theophilus, John Wesley Shepstone (born 1827), filled between 1846 and 1896 various offices in Natal in connection with the administration of native affairs.