Sir John George Fraser was a prominent Orange Free State lawyer, politician, statesman and member of the Volksraad. He was knighted in 1905.
Early years
Born in Beaufort West he was the eldest son of the marriage of the Rev. Colin Mackenzie Fraser to Maria Elisabeth Sieberhagen ; they were married on 20 February 1840 and had nine children. Fraser was educated in Scotland between 1852 and 1861 at the Free Church Institution of Inverness and Marischal College in Aberdeen about negotiations regarding the proposed Customs Union, the building of railways and defence pacts. Fraser distrusted Kruger. Fraser stood for election to the position of President of the Orange Free State in 1896 and was defeated by Marthinus Theunis Steyn. He resigned his position as President of the Volksraad in 1896. He remained in Bloemfontein during the Anglo-Boer War. Following the departure of the Boer Army from Bloemfontein and the imminent arrival of the British Army, on 15 March 1900 John Fraser, accompanied by the Landdrost, Mr. H.D. Papenfus and the Sheriff, Mr. Raaff, went out and surrendered the city to Lord Roberts. John Fraser was knighted in 1905 and elected as a Senator in the first Union Parliament in 1910.
Family
John Fraser's father was the Rev. Colin Mackenzie Fraser, who was one of a large group of Presbyterian ministers "imported" to the Cape of Good Hope in the 1820s and 1830s to "anglicise" the Dutch Reformed Church. He married Anna Amalia Muller on 27 February 1828. They had seven children, one of whom, Colin MacKenzie Fraser II, was the Minister of the Dutch Reformed Church at Philippolis and was the father of Rachel Isabella Fraser, who later married future President MT Steyn. John Fraser was married to Dorothea Ortlepp on 18 April 1866. They had eleven children. The second daughter, Maria Elizabeth Carolina Fraser, married Gideon Brand van Zyl who served as Governor General of the Union of South Africa from 1945–50 and was appointed to the Privy Council by King George VI in 1945. He died in Bloemfontein on 22 June 1927.
