Danie Theron: fearless fighter, bold leader

An impressive 25m-high monument near Fochville in Gauteng commemorates the bravery and death of one of the most respected Boer fighters of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), writes Mike Burgess.

- Mike Burgess

The Danie Theron monument on the Gatsrand near Fochville was unveiled on 5 September 1950, 50 years after Theron was killed in a British artillery barrage.

Commandant Danie Theron was killed on 5 September 1900 in a barrage of British artillery fire near Zuid-Afrikaansche Fochville in the then Republiek (ZAR). By the time of his death, at just 28, the fearless founder of the highly effective 'Theron se Verkenningskorps' (TVK), or scouting corps, had done enough to claim immortality in the minds of most Afrikaners.

LIFE BEFORE THE WAR

Danie Theron was born in Tulbagh on 9 May 1872 and attended various schools in the Cape and Free State before qualifying as a teacher. He took up his first teaching post in Krugersdorp in the ZAR in the early 1890s, but eventually moved to the Soutpansberg in today's Limpopo.

Here, he first went on commando in the mid-1890s against Chief Malaboch of the Bahananwa people, a stint of military service that gained him ZAR citizenship. He went on to qualify as a lawyer in Pietersburg (today's Polokwane) before returning to Krugersdorp, where he started his own practice. He became engaged to Hannie Neethling, who, sadly, died of pneumonia in 1898.

By 1899, Theron was an outspoken Afrikaner nationalist and was even found guilty of assaulting The Star newspaper's editor, WF Monypenny, who had penned an editorial about the "ignorant Dutch".