Thomas Smartt

Sir William Thomas Smartt KCMG PC (Ireland, 22 February 1858 - Cape Town, 17 April 1929) was an Irish-born South African politician, and founder and leader of the Unionist Party.

He graduated in medicine at Trinity College Dublin in 1880 and left for South Africa where he went to Britstown as physician.

A keen farmer, he later founded the Smartt Syndicate, one of the largest dams in the then Cape Colony at Houwater near Britstown.

Smartt was chairman of the commission called Scab in 1892 and his report led to the Organisation nominating him as their candidate for the constituency in Wodehouse in the 1894 general election.

As acting prime minister in 1905 he supported the expansion of the colony for white settlements in Kakamas and set up a select committee for the allocation of vacant Crown land to eligible applicants.