Sir John Osbaldiston Field, wat van 1928 tot 1930 ‘n leerling van die Stellenbosch Gimnasium was, het ‘n lang en uitsonderlike loopbaan in Brittanje se koloniale diens gehad en dit met goewerneurskappe op St Helena en die Gilbert en Ellice-eilande afgesluit.
Met sy aftrede het hy na Suid-Afrika teruggekeer en ook weer met sy alma mater kontak gemaak voor hy in 1985 na ʼn lang siekte gesterf het.
Ons argivaris, Mariena Kotze , het die storie van dié enigmatiese persoonlikheid nagevors en gevind dat hy bo moeilike persoonlike omstandighede in sy skooljare moes uitstyg om later in sy loopbaan op sy kollegas ʼn indruk te maak met sy intellektuele vermoëns, geduld en dapperheid. Lees meer deur hieronder:
Sir John Field
John Osbaldiston Field attended the Stellenbosch Gymnasium from 1928 up to 1930 and passed his matric examination with interesting subjects such as Latin and Greek. His class teacher, Mr Rossouw, wrote next to his first term results: does his best under difficult circumstances.
John was the son of Frank Osbaldiston Field and Gertrude Caroline Payne, a British couple who had settled in the Himeville and Underberg region in Natal. He had recently lost his father when he arrived at the Stellenbosch Gymnasium where he was a boarder at Industria Hostel.
In his obituary in the local newspaper called The Mountain Echo ( March/April 1985) it was mentioned that John received enormous help and support from Dr Hugh Stayt and his wife Mrs ‘Peter’ Stayt from the time that he was a little boy of ten or eleven and new to South Africa after his father had passed away. The Stayts were well known cattle farmers in the Himeville and Underberg region. They also encouraged and helped John to attend the Stellenbosch Gymnasium and also to go to Magdalene College, Cambridge where he did extremely well.
In a letter to Paul Roos Gymnasium in 1977 he mentioned that he took his B.A. with First Class Honours in Archaeology and Anthropology and later also received his M.A. degree.
In 1936 he joined the Colonial Administrative Service in Nigeria and spent the next 23 years in various posts in the provinces and at headquarters where his last post in Nigeria was being Deputy Chief Secretary in the Nigerian Federal Government. In 1952 he was appointed Commissioner of the Cameroons and also held the position of United Kingdom Special Representative for the Cameroons on the United Nations Trusteeship Council. In 1962 he was appointed Governor of St Helena Island. From 1969 he became administrator of Montserrat for a short period up to 1970 when he was appointed Resident Commissioner and Governor of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. He retired from the service in 1973 and returned to South Africa to settle in Himeville.
John was appointed Companion of the order of St. Michael and St. George (C.M.G.) in 1959. He was created a Knight Bachelor in 1962 and made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (K.B.E.) in 1967.
John married Irene Margaret Judd in 1943. They had no children. He died on the 22 February 1985 in Himeville after a long illness. As for John the man, friends mentioned that his most outstanding qualities apart from his intellectual powers were his patience and courage. It was in the Cameroons at a most difficult time that a colleague said: “John Field is the only thing that stands between us and chaos”.
John Field was passionately loyal to the Queen and to England. That is why he felt he could never become a citizen of South Africa, much as he loved this country.
Mariena Kotze
Paul Roos Gymnasium Archives
Information:
- PRG Archives
- The Mountain Echo March/April 1985
- The Himeville Museum
- The Himeville, Underberg and Bulwer Historical Society
