Thomas Upington

Thomas Upington (1844 - 1898) born in Cork, Ireland was a British administrator in South Africa. He was premier of Cape Colony between 1884 and 1886. The town of Upington in South Africa is named after him.

Sir Thomas was born in Rathnee, near Mallow in 28th Oct. 1844. He was educated at Cloyne Diocesan School, Mallow, Co. Cork (where, in 1863,he obtained Mathematical Honors in the Hilary Examinations) and at Trinity College, Dublin. He was a frequent speaker in the Law Students’ Debating Society and spoke against the motions ‘That Insurance Companies are liable to compensate for all accidents arising from the Erith accident’ in 1864; ‘That the anonymous character of the Press detracts from its value’ in 1866; and ‘That the Unanimity required in Juries fails to Advance the course of Justice’ in 1867, the year he was called to the Irish Bar. He became secretary to Lord O’Hagan (Lord Chancellor of Ireland) in 1868. In Jan.1870 he appeared as register to the court in the appeal to the Visitors of the King and Queen’s College of Physicians by Dr MacSwiney against his rejection from a Fellowship in the college. In May that year he attended a banquet to celebrate the centenary of the College Historical Society and the menu, which was published on 5th May in the Irish Times, has to be seen to be believed. Thomas was sufficiently athletic to play on the team of the Bar in a match against the Viceregal Lodge towards the end of the month, was sufficiently well got to have private entree at he Levee held by the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin Castle in February 1872, and was sufficiently prominent to be mentioned in the Irish Times as one of people to visit the Fine Art Gallery in Grafton Street to view Mr Turner’s surberb Historical Painting of “The Irish House of Commons, A D 1790” in 1873.

Thomas emigrated to the Cape Colony in 1874 (probably for his health) and was elected to the Cape Legislature in 1878. While he was Attorney General, in 1879 he was active in the war on the Northern border. (against the Zulus under Chetywayo?), although in a civil capacity - he did not hold any military command - and was on “the northern bank of the Orange River at the time of the last attack only it was thougt Claus Lucas would have surrendered, and in that case Mr Upington wished to superintend the neotiations himself” Irish Times 6th June. He is recorded as having raised Upington’s Foot and served in the so-called “9th Kaffir War, 1877-79” for which he received the "South Africa Medal 1877-9 (sometimes called the South Africa General Service Medal 1877-9 and sometimes the South Africa War Medal 1877-9). Upington's Foot was one of the many, 240 of them, mostly small South African locally raised units which took part. It had only 30 members and fought against the Gcalekas and Gaikas in the Transkei. . He became Prime Minister of the Cape in 1884, in which capacity he travelled with Gordon Sprigg, Treasurer General for the Cape Government, “to Bechuanaland, in the endeavour to effect a peaceful arrangement”. He was in symathy with the Boers in this controversy concernh Bechuanaland and was accused of propounding Parnellite principles and denounced in Cape Town as a Fenian whose ‘offence is rank’, and who “has been fraternising with Mynheer Van Dunk instead of sticking with John Bull”. In 1885 he became Lieutennant Colonel, commanding the 1st Administrative Battalion, made up of the Cape Town Highlanders and two small corps. In February 1887, Capt. Quinn, Sec. of the Irish National Hunt Steeplechace Committee, and Keeper of the Macth Book in Ireland, agent in Ireland was sued for £350.0.0, being the price of a racing filly Light Wine which he had bought in 1886 and shipped to the Cape for Upington but had not been paid for it. Later in 1887, Thomas was made a Knight companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (per South Africa, 17th December 1898, pp. 591-2). The Pall Mall Gazette, in 1890, described him as “the crack speaker, brilliant and sarcastic . . . The clubland of Capetown looks to him as its humouous and sententious orace: he is a good hand at cards and the best of good company. . . He often looks and often professes to be with one foot in the grave, and his most brilliant efforts are said to be made after a few weeks’ light diet of champagne (doctor’s orders). His robustest friends, however, expect him to survive to crack jokes on their epitaphs.” Sir Thomas Upington died on 10th December 1898 at Wynberg, South Africa. He was survived by his widow, Mary Elizabeth Guerin of Edenhill, Mallow (or Fermoy), Co. Cork, and his children: Beauclerk, Arthur., Edith, Florence and Evelyn.