Carl von Brandis

Captain Carl von Brandis (1827 – 22 June 1903) was a cavalry officer in Austrian and British service, and later a mining commissioner and landdrost (magistrate) in the South African Republic (Transvaal). He is most commonly known for being the Witwatersrand's first mining commissioner and Johannesburg's first landdrost.

Early life
Carl von Brandis was born into a military family from Lower Saxony. Both his father and grandfather served under the Duke of Wellington in the Iberian peninsula during the Peninsula War and later at Battle of Waterloo. Following a family tradition, von Brandis would start his military career in 1842 training for two years at the Hanoverian Cadet Institute.

Military career
After the completion of his military training he joined the Austrian Army and took part in the First Italian War of Independence. Von Brandis then met Baron Richard von Stutterheim who was recruiting men for a British German Legion, part of the British Army's recruits for the Crimean War. He would become a captain in the Legion during 1856 in 2nd and 5th Light Infantry. He would not see fighting in the Crimean War, the fighting ending before they could be deployed and members would settle in the Eastern Cape in 1857 with the legion disbanded in 1859.

South African career
After being disbanded, von Brandis and his wife settled in the Orange Free State were he became its Chief Constable and a private secretary to President Marthinus Wessel Pretorius. He was appointed to the position of Landdrost of Winburg in 1864. And in 1864, the couple left for the South African Republic were he became a prosecutor and Landdrost's clerk at Wakkerstroom. By 1876 he was the Commandant of Lydenburg and 1879 he became Landdrost of Winburg. He was appointed Chief Clerk in the office of the State Attorney E. J. P. Jorissen. In 1886, he was promoted to Mining Commissioner in 1886 and sent to the Witwatersrand. In November 1886, von Brandis was appointed as Chief Landdrost by President Paul Kruger when the Witwatersrand goldfields were proclaimed. During the Second Boer War 1899-1902, he remained in Johannesburg and towards the end of the war when the British occupied Johannesburg, he was appointed Registrar of Births and Deaths by the British administrator Alfred Milner.

Marriage
In Hannover, von Brandis married his first wife on 28 January 1856, Matilda Hṻhne, but the marriage lasted just over a year and she and his only child died on 13 May 1857. He would remarry in 1858, when he met and married Jane Margaret Hohne in Cape Town, Cape Colony.

Death
He died on 22 June 1903 at his home in Johannesburg and was buried in Braamfontein Cemetery. His legacy was honoured in the form of a street in Johannesburg and statue on the corner of Von Brandis and Pritchard Streets, in front of the Supreme Court commemorating the first Johannesburg magistrate.