Willem Cornelis Janse van Rensburg

Who was Willem Cornelis Janse van Rensburg?

Willem Cornelis Janse van Rensburg was the second president of the Executive Council of the South African Republic of the South African Republic, from 1863 to 1864.

He was born near the town of Beaufort West, the son of Hendrik Janse van Rensburg and his second wife, Martha Magdalena Oosthuizen. Van Rensburg married Elizabeth Maria Jacoba du Plessis in 1838.

Initially he travelled with a party of Voortrekkers to Natal, and was one of the party of Van Rensburgs who survived an attack by a group of Zulus at Rensburg koppie. He subsequently travelled to the Transvaal and settled on a farm in the Rustenburg area in 1848.

Van Rensburg was elected as a member of the South African Republic's Volksraad in 1850, a post which he held until June 1855. During this period there was a major political conflict between the ZAR's first president and writer of its constitution, Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, and its commandant-general, Stephanus Schoeman, who rejected the constitution. Van Rensburg supported Schoeman and in return the latter appointed van Rensburg as a provisional commandant. Van Rensburg subsequently represented Schoeman in negotiations with Pretorius's faction. In 1858, when Schoeman fell ill, Van Rensburg was appointed as acting commandant-general.