A unicorn, stars, and a blue kudu
by
Mike Oettle
WHEN a family has borne a particular coat of arms for centuries, it is hard to admit that it cannot prove its right to those arms.
That is the situation in which the Oettle[1] family, of Württemberg[2] (and several countries outside Europe),[3] finds itself. Branches of the family in both Urbach[4] (near Stuttgart) and Tübingen have borne a certain coat of arms since before the Thirty Years War.[5]
Yet the arms actually belong to a family in Franconia[6] surnamed Oettel, and while it is probable that there is a blood connection between the two families, this cannot be proved by reference to written records – precisely because of the Thirty Years War (1618-48), since during that conflict, parish records in many parts of Germany, especially Württemberg, were destroyed.
While it is possible that DNA testing will prove a connection, this lies in the future.
The consequence is that no Oettle can gain legal title to this particular coat of arms. And this writer has come to the conclusion that it is necessary to make a change – in fact, five changes.
The changes he has made are entirely within the tradition of armorial differencing, especially as practised in Germany.
A line drawing of the Oettel arms is shown at left.
The new arms, incorporating the five changes, can be seen at right. They may be blazoned:
Arms: Gules chapé ployé
azure, overall a unicorn clymant argent, armed, crined and unguled or, langued
gules, between three estoiles or.
Torse: Or, azure, argent
and gules.
Mantling: Dexter or and
azure, sinister argent and gules.
Crest: A demi-kudu issuant
azure, attired and unguled or, langued gules, striped argent.
Motto: The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.
The changes, starting at the heart of the shield, are:
1. The unicorn is no longer restricted to the red portion of the shield, but is overall (in other words, encroaching on the blue portions).
2. There are now three stars, one in each corner of the shield, instead of six, three in each blue segment.
The arrangement (2 and 1) is the same, although they are now widely separated – this can be seen as symbolising the way in which the family has spread across the world.
3. The stars have also been changed from mullets of six points (Sternen, in German) to estoiles (wavy-armed stars).
This originated in a misunderstanding. The blazon for Oettel, as it appears in Rietstap’s Armorial Génèral, mentions étoiles. The writer, as a teenager, presumed that these were in fact estoiles, but a correct English translation of the blazon for Oettel would refer to mullets of six points. After four decades, the writer has become rather attached to estoiles, and decided to keep them.
4. The last change is that the crest is no longer a unicorn, but instead a kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros), a South African antelope found in numbers close to Port Elizabeth, as well as much further north.
Changing the crest is a common German method of differencing a coat of arms.
Since the kudu is a popular charge, the writer chose to show it in armorial colours. This not only makes it unique, but allows a relative to use a kudu in other colours to emphasise that it belongs to a different branch of the family.
5. Not a change as such, but an addition, is the motto.
This is taken from Proverbs 14:27 (King James Version). The verse in full reads: “The fear[7] of the LORD[8] is a fountain of life that one may avoid the snares of death.”
Before this verse, the Book of Proverbs asserts (1:7) that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, and in 9:10 that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. This third reference to fear is an affirmation of the first two, but also a fulfilment.
The wording of the motto is as familiar to the writer as his own name. His great-grandmother Marie[9] Oettle used it often, and made several wooden shields (one of which appears at left) which bear this inscription in poker-writing.[10] One of these shields hung in the Vredendal home of his grandfather Erich[11] Oettle for three decades, and another hangs in the writer’s study.
Equally familiar was a carving made by Erich when he was a schoolboy, of the Oettel arms, which hung in the entrance hall of his Vredendal home (the two shields were in fact back to back on the same wall).
The writer does not currently have an illustration of this carving, which is in the hands of his cousin Erich.[12]
Two members of the family had copies made of the carving. The first was Theo[13] Oettle senior, who had a copy made by a professional wood-carver while he was living in Cape Town around 1960. This copy is apparently in the hands of his son JT.[14]
The second, interestingly, was Theo[15] Oettle junior, who also hired a wood-carver to produce a copy in the mid-1970s. This copy – which is in Auckland, New Zealand, where Theo died in 2005 – is shown at right.
Because Theo jnr was an adopted son, he instructed the carver to incorporate interlinked annulets as his mark of difference.
Dr George[16] Oettle had a full-colour illustration of the Oettel arms (and one of the Spühler arms) in his home in Oaklands, Johannesburg.
The writer has not so far been able to trace a full-colour illustration. The line drawing shown above is courtesy of herald Michael Waas of the heraldische Gemeinschaft Westfalen.
Two of the writer’s cousins have already expressed a dislike for making any changes at all. But as has been pointed out to them, if they make no changes they are displaying the arms of the Oettel family, to which they are unable to prove any connection.
Consequently, the writer has assumed the arms illustrated above (the assumption of arms is legal in South Africa). However it will be necessary in due course to register them, as there is no other way to ensure legal title to them.
Any other Oettle in South Africa may use the same shield (or, if he prefers, revert to mullets rather than estoiles). It will be necessary for another Oettle to adopt a different crest – it can be a kudu in other colours, or it can be a crest of his own choosing. The silver unicorn of the Oettel family would, however, not be a permissible choice.
In addition to the full armorial achievement (shield, helmet, crest, torse, mantling and motto), two heraldic badges are also shown – emblems in the armorial tradition which are not coats of arms in themselves, but which incorporate elements of the arms.
The first shows the kudu crest in a red annulet inscribed with the motto, while the second shows the three estoiles on a background blue above and red below, in a gold annulet.
Lastly these are brought together in a standard, which shows the arms at the hoist end, while the kudu badge and two images of the estoiles badge appear on the colours of the shield. Separating the three badges are two bands of white inscribed with the motto.
Most of the artwork shown here is the work of Barrie Burr, and broadly follows British traditions in armory. The image below is a drawing in a more Continental style by Dutch heraldic enthusiast Ton de Witte, while the last, further down, combines the armorial achievement of shield, helmet, crest, mantling and motto with the standard, shown on a lance with an estoile for a finial.
Oettle and related names:
The family
surnamed Oettle is one of a group
found in various dialect regions of
In New High German, this name would be rendered as Öttolein. However, the name is encountered only in dialectal forms. In both Württemberg and Baden it is Oettle; in German-speaking Switzerland it is Oettli;[18] in Franconia it is Oettel and in Austria it is Oettl.
Other names found in other parts of Germany may also share this derivation. I am informed that Oertel[19] may be another variant. Another family represented in South Africa is Oettler – I have no information as to what region of Germany it hails from.
Not all these families are necessarily related. Even in Urbach, the hometown of Georg Johann Oettle, there are two distinct groups of Oettles: those that bear the arms of Oettel, and those displaying an entirely different coat of arms incorporating mining tools.
At any rate the Oettle family (those bearing the arms of Oettel) believe themselves to be descended from a mediæval missionary bishop named Otto. He apparently undertook a mission to carry the Gospel to the pagan Avar people, who established an empire in central Europe between the 6th and 9th centuries, establishing themselves in the Danubian plain (in what is now Hungary) in the mid-6th century.
According to family tradition, Otto had a large family of sons, all of whom bore a strong resemblance to their father, hence the byname (and later surname) which could be translated as “little Otto”.
It is argued, especially by Roman Catholic correspondents, that it was not possible for a bishop of the Catholic Church to be a married man in the middle to late Middle Ages. It is true that the episcopacy had been reserved to celibates in both the Eastern and Western branches of the Church since about the 2nd century.[20]
However this ignores the role of Irish missionaries in the German-speaking regions. The Celtic Church, early separated from Rome, retained the ministry of married men – its abbots were married, and succession to an abbacy was frequently passed from father to son. It is entirely likely that many of the missionaries sent to Germany both before and after the time of the Englishmen St Willibrord and St Boniface were married men.
If these included bishops, it is entirely possible that an alternative line of episcopal ordination existed in that frontier region. While the territorial sees would largely have been filled by men of Rome’s choosing, and hence celibates, it is entirely possible that a married bishop could have undertaken a missionary work.
It is worth mentioning that a German family well represented in South Africa bears the name of an Irish missionary, St Kilian. The surname is usually attributed to devotion to the saint in question, yet it is possible that these are descendants of that missionary.
Oettle family in Urbach and South Africa:
The South African Oettle family traces its lineage back to the marriage of Leonhard[21] Oettle, of Urbach, to Maria (dates uncertain, nor is Maria’s maiden surname known). Their son Johannes Georg Oettle married Magdalena Gläser on 1 February 1717.
The first birthdate we have on record is that of their son Johann Jacob (*09-04-1817) who on 24-04-1744 married Anna Maria Rube. Their son Felix (*17-09-1748 †15-08-1823) married Eda Maria Löwenlenz on 24-09-1772.
Felix and Eda’s son Michael[22] (*27-04-1788 †14-09-1855) married Anna Maria Rube.[23] Their son Johann Georg (*31-08-1823 †15-10-1881) married Christiane Buob (*05-02-1825 †18-03-1884).
Johann Georg and Christiane’s son Georg[24] (*24-08-1847 †18-06-1919) received a university education, and as a graduate was called up for military service in 1870 as an officer. Württemberg was, together with Baden, Bavaria and Saxony, allied with the North German Confederation in the war declared that year against the French Empire.[25]
As an officer, Georg was able to decide whether or not to bear arms, and chose not to carry either sword or pistol. When the war was over, and the German allies had joined as the German Empire (1871-1918), Georg foresaw that there would be further wars in which Germany was involved, and was unwilling to see another generation of his family go off to war.
When he married Maria[26] Caroline Spühler (*17-09-1857 †06-10-1932) in 1877, the couple decided that they would have to emigrate in order to ensure that their sons would not be conscripted. The following year they took ship in Hamburg, intending to go to New York, where Georg had an uncle.
However, when the ship reached London (where it was moored in the Pool of London for about a week), the captain received an inducement to take a cargo to the Cape of Good Hope. Having discussed the matter with friends in London, Georg was ready when he captain called the few passengers together and gave them an undertaking that he would ensure that they were landed in New York. However, Georg then said to the captain: “Sir, I see the hand of the Lord in this. I want you to take me and my wife to the Cape of Good Hope.”
So it was that Georg and a heavily pregnant Marie landed in Cape Town, and their son Georg Samuel was born in Claremont.[27] Georg had meanwhile made contact with the Collegiate School for Girls in Port Elizabeth, which was looking for a teacher of German. The family moved to the town on Algoa Bay, where Georg (who became known as George) and Marie were to live for the rest of their days.
George was soon noticed by the committee of the Port Elizabeth Public Library, and in June 1878 was appointed assistant librarian of this private association, housed at the time in a wing of the Port Elizabeth Town Hall. In 1882 he became librarian, a position he held until his retirement in 1903.
A highlight of his career at the library was the decision to build a new library. The library committee had held a share in the Commercial Hall, on the corner of Main Street and Chapel Lane. This building had been commandeered in 1854 as a magistrate’s court, but the erection of a new court building in Baakens Street had seen the magistrate move out of the hall in 1899. During its years as the courthouse, however, the library committee had also acquired the remaining shares in the building.
A bequest from William Savage (*1824 †1896) provided the funds for erecting a new library. The architect, Charles Cheers, never saw the building himself (remaining in England while it was built). George planned the internal arrangements for the building and its classification systems. The library building’s completion was delayed by the South African War of 1899-1902, but in 1902 it was formally opened. It was later the main library of the Port Elizabeth City Library Service, and retains that role today in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality.
Born to George and Marie in Port Elizabeth were Marie, Emil Frederich (*06-10-1881 †10-03-1972), Carl Maximilian (*14-11-1882 †28-04-1957), Julius Theodore and Irene. The four boys (starting with Georg Samuel) all attended the Grey Institute, in Belmont Terrace, overlooking the Donkin Reserve and the harbour. The girls attended a school in Richmond Hill which became known as Erica Girls’ Primary, and in due course both became teachers there.
Some years later George’s brother Christian Frederich and his wife Auguste (known as Guste) also came to South Africa, settling in the Oranje Vrij Staat, first at Rouxville and afterwards at Smithfield, where he had a trading store and became a Justice of the Peace. When he retired, however, he moved to Cape Town, and was followed there by his entire family.
George, a leading figure among the Plymouth Brethren[28] in Port Elizabeth, believed that his sons should not spend all their time as adults chasing after profit, but should be in employment which would allow them time to do “the Lord’s work”. Georg Samuel joined the Cape Government Railways, soon to be joined into the South African Railways and Harbours. Emil (now known as Erich) was sent to the South African College in Cape Town to study law, and in due course became a magistrate with the Union Department of Justice. Carl Maximilian (known as Max) joined the Customs Service at the Port Elizabeth Customs House. Julius (known as Lu) joined Barclays Bank DCO.
Georg Samuel (known, like his father, as George) was selected to become General Manager of the SAR&H, but the general election of 1924, which put a National Party government in power, put paid to that. The new Minister of Transport decided that he did not want an “Engelsman”[29] to run the railways for him, and another man was picked instead. George had in the meantime spent a year with the South African Consulate-General in New York, and decided to settle in the United States. Returning to South Africa, he fetched his children (his wife having died a few years before) and went to live permanently in the US.
Erich served as magistrate in various places before spending eight years in Bethulie in the Orange Free State. He then became Chief Magistrate of Klerksdorp in the Transvaal, and subsequently served as Chief Magistrate of Windhoek (South West Africa) and of Paarl (Western Cape) before retiring. He was then appointed Petrol Controller in Wynberg, where he served for a while before settling in Vredendal, where he had bought a farm in 1912.
Max rose to become head of the Customs House in Port Elizabeth, was then transferred to a similar position in Durban, before serving as head of the Customs Service in Pretoria.
Julius (Lu) became a senior bank official in Pretoria but, because he and his wife chose not to entertain clients, was held back from further promotion. He married late, and had no children.
Marie left teaching to marry Dr Howard Welles Reynolds, a British-born medical doctor based in Cape Town who was the first radiologist in practice in South Africa. Irene, however, remained at the Erica school until her retirement. She eventually died in Port Elizabeth at a great age.
George’s intention that his sons should not be conscripted was realised, since there was no conscription for either the South African War nor the First World War (1914-18), although Lu did volunteer for service in the 1914-18 conflict. In the Second World War George’s grandsons Eric George (*27-03-1919 †28-07-1999) and Max Hugo (*13-10-1924 †31-12-1999) (both sons of Erich) both volunteered, Eric (the writer’s father) eventually becoming a lieutenant and an infantry platoon commander in Italy. Max rose to the rank of sergeant.
However, conscription became a reality for George’s great-grandsons, and starting with the writer, several did national service. One of them, Johann Lochner Oettle (second son of Eric’s brother Albertus Malan Oettle [*05-03-1923]), volunteered for the Permanent Force. His sister Hilde was the first female Oettle to serve in the military[30] when she worked as a psychologist in the SA Medical Service.
After all these generations of war it is perhaps ironic that the following generation has largely not done military service at all, since post-apartheid South Africa has an excess of soldiers.
After the war both Max and Eric became interested in aviation. Both qualified as pilots, but it was Max especially who became a keen flier. He owned and operated a De Havilland Tiger Moth, which he used for travelling in his work as an electrical engineer, initially for the Electricity Supply Commission and afterwards for Cape Provincial Hospitals. He afterwards owned a DH Leopard Moth, which he unfortunately crashed shortly before his engagement. Shortly before his death in 1999 he was able to publish (privately) a volume of his flying reminiscences.
Among George’s grandsons, two distinguished themselves in the field of medicine.
The first was Alfred George (known as George, son of Carl Maximilian), who was the last Oettle to attend the Grey (by then known as Grey High School and located in Mill Park, Port Elizabeth), and was its dux scholar in 1936. He attained the degree MBBCh at the University of the Witwatersrand (commonly called Wits University) and subsequently specialised in cancer research, working for a time at Oxford University but principally employed at the SA Institute of Medical Research in Johannesburg, where he was head of the Cancer Research Unit.
His much younger brother Thomas Howard Godfrey (*06-06-1926, known as Godfrey, and as a boy, Gos) put himself through Wits Medical School following a dispute with their father, and subsequently worked in England and later in Australia, serving for many years as principal medical examiner for the state of New South Wales.
George’s sons George Julien and Charl Andrew also became medical men. Julien is a professor of surgery at the Wits Medical School, while Charl practices as an obstetrician and gynæcologist in Worcester, Western Cape. Both did postgraduate work in Germany, Julien having studied in Berlin and Charl in Tübingen. Their brother Edmund Eric is a veterinary surgeon (and a winemaker), and their cousin Johann Theodore is an anæsthetist.
Among the grandchildren of Christian Oettle, Carl Oettle was a well-known actor in South Africa, often appearing on stage and on radio.
Besides George Samuel and Godfrey, emigrants in the family include Theo jnr, who settled in New Zealand in 1999, and the movie stuntman Jason (*19-08-1975), adopted son of the writer’s brother Noel Maxwell (*10-12-1952), who lives in Berlin.
To read about the writer, see here.
[1] In Germany, this surname is pronounced with an umlaut sound: Ött-le.
Georg Samuel (George) Oettle always used to say that the name rhymed with absolutely – this is its usual South African pronunciation.
The BBC Pronouncing Dictionary misleadingly instructs its readers to make it rhyme with bottle – an ironic error, since the entry probably arose from the prominence in the 1960s of Dr George Oettle (Alfred George Oettle [*22-06-1919 †08-11-1967], eldest son of Carl Maximilian Oettle).
[2] The Kingdom of Württemberg, as it existed from 1806 to 1918. It remained a state of Germany after 1918, but in 1945 it was subdivided into French and US occupation zones. Click here for a map showing these zones.
In 1952 the territories of Württemberg, Baden (the former Grand Duchy of Baden, 1806-1918) and Hohenzollern (the ancestral lordship of the former emperors, a tiny statelet in the Black Forest adjoining both states) were merged as the Land Baden-Württemberg.
The arms of Baden-Württemberg are those of the Hohenstaufen dukes of Swabia (Schwaben), a large tribal duchy which existed in the early years of the Holy Roman Empire. The former states of Württemberg, Baden and Hohenzollern are recalled by the placement of small shields of their arms above the principal shield. Austria, which (in the pre-Napoleonic era) also had a large number of small pockets of land across the region, is similarly recalled. Also included are the arms of the Palatinate, parts of which are also included in the new state (a legacy of the Napoleonic era).
The parts of the Swabian duchy that fall outside Baden-Württemberg are Alsace (French since 1918), the Bavarian district of Schwaben (in the south-western corner of that Land) and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland – the cantons Aargau, Appenzell,* Basel,* Bern, Glarus, Luzern, Nidwalden, Obwalden, Sankt Gallen, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, Solothurn, Thurgau, Uri, Zug and Zürich. (Those marked with an asterisk are subdivided into half-cantons, but in both cases both half-cantons are German-speaking.)
[3] Some members of the South African branch of the family have since the 1920s settled in the United States, and more recently in Britain, in Australia and in New Zealand.
Other members of the family are known to have emigrated from Germany direct to the United States.
Various South African members of the family have also lived briefly in these and other countries.
[4] The Gemeinde Urbach is a merger of the former villages of Unterurbach and Oberurbach.
Between the two lies the Schloss Urbach, which was at one stage owned (acquired by purchase) by Johann Georg Oettle, father of Georg Johann (George).
[5] A series of conflicts between 1618 and ’48, involving various alliances, but largely fought on German soil between the Holy Roman Emperor and his Catholic allies against the Protestant princes.
[6] The northern parts of the Kingdom of Bavaria were in the 19th century divided into regions called Oberfranken (Upper Franconia), Mittelfranken (Middle Franconia), Niederfranken (Lower Franconia) and Oberpfalz (Upper Palatinate).
These regions mostly came under Bavarian rule in the Napoleonic era. The Oberpfalz had previously fallen under the electorate of the Rhenish Palatinate, while a variety of smaller principalities, notably the prince-bishoprics of Mainz and Würzburg and the Margravate of Nuremberg, held other parts of it.
The Rhenish Palatinate became part of the Bavarian kingdom by inheritance and remained part of Bavaria until 1945, when it fell under French occupation. It was incorporated into the Land Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate) in 1949.
[7] The word fear in this context does not refer to abject, cowering fear. Cruden’s Complete Concordance defines it this way: “The fear of God means that reverence for God which leads to obedience because of one’s realization of his power, as well as of his love to man.”
[8] The word LORD, written with the letters O, R and D in small capitals, is a rendering in English of the Hebrew custom of avoiding the Divine Name.
Where the Hebrew letters YHWH appear in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, it is traditional in synagogues not to pronounce the name Yahweh, but to say Adonai, meaning “the Lord”.
If a Jew refers to the divinity while his head is uncovered, he will even avoid the word Adonai, and instead say Adochem (the Name of the Lord).
[9] Marie Oettle, née Spühler (*1857 †1932), wife of Georg Johann Oettle (*1847 †1919). She was pregnant with her first child, George Samuel Oettle, when the couple arrived in Cape Town.
George was born in Claremont, then a separate town in the Cape Peninsula.
Marie grew up in Lausanne, in Canton Vaud, Switzerland.
Georg Johann, known in South Africa as George, grew up in Urbach, Württemberg. He became the public librarian in Port Elizabeth.
[10] Poker-writing: letters created on a wooden surface by burning the wood with a red-hot metal poker.
[11] Emil Frederich Oettle (*1881 †1972), known in adulthood as Erich, the writer’s grandfather and second son of Georg Johann Oettle, the first Oettle to settle in South Africa.
[12] Emil Frederich Oettle, also known as Erich, elder son of Albertus Malan Oettle (*05-03-1923).
[13] Andrew Max Theodore Oettle, second son of Carl Maximilian Oettle, third son of Georg Johann Oettle.
[14] Dr Johann Theodore Oettle.
[15] Theodore John Oettle (*1949 †2005), adopted son of Eric George Oettle, and the writer’s adopted brother.
[16] Alfred George Oettle (*1919 †1967), eldest son of Carl Maximilian Oettle (*1882 †1957). Dr George was a highly regarded cancer researcher. For more about him, see here.
[17] The name Otto is derived from the Germanic od, meaning rich. Even the form Otto is apparently a pet-form or diminutive.
The usual English form of the name is Odo, although this appears to have disappeared from common knowledge. It seems to be regarded as a curiosity of authors like J R R Tolkien.
[18] An Oettli who settled in Baden was, I am informed, obliged to change his name to Oettle.
[19] There are South African families surnamed Oertel.
Rietstap illustrates three entirely different coats of arms for the name Oertel. Only one of these has any similarity to the arms of Oettel, in that it employs the same shield division.
This name also has an umlaut pronunciation: Ör-tel. However in South Africa it is frequently pronounced as Ur-tel.
[20] The reservation of the episcopacy (the office of bishop) to celibate men goes back to the post-Gnostic reaction in the Church.
The Gnostic heresy had been characterised by the leadership of women. The men who led the Church in its reaction to Gnosticism responded by not only eliminating women from the ministry and leadership of the Church, but further by reducing women to a subservient position, and by eliminating married men, where possible, from ministry.
These limitations are attributed to St Paul, who argued strongly for celibacy in the ministry. However, Paul argued equally strongly for married men in the ministry, and for the equality of male and female.
The presence of women in the Church’s ministry is attested by various early documents.
By the 11th century, Rome was beginning to insist that not only bishops but priests also should be celibate, yet north of the Alps and in Britain it was not uncommon for priests to be married men.
[21] The Oettles of Urbach were researched by Dr Charl Oettle (Charl Andrew Oettle, second son of Dr George Oettle), on a visit to the town in May 1986.
He was initially misinformed that the family had originated in Nördlingen, in the Bavarian district Schwaben, and this incorrect information has found its way into print.
[22] The name of this Michael Oettle came as a surprise to the writer, who was about 37 years old when he learned that this ancestor (born 1788) had the same first name.
The writer was named Michael Eric, for his father’s friend Mick Corbett. His second name was taken from his father.
Unlike the English name Michael, pronounced as Maik-el, the German form has a soft CH sound: Mi-chail.
[23] Michael’s wife has the same given names as his grandmother. It seems likely that they were from the same family, although I do not at present have any information in this connection.
[24] Georg was apparently baptised Johann Georg, but was known in Germany as Georg Johann, and in South Africa as George.
[25] The Second French Empire, with Napoleon III (Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, President of France from 1848-52) as its emperor. On being defeated in 1871, France overthrew its emperor and became, for the third time, a republic.
[26] The name appears in the marriage register as Maria, but she was known as Marie.
[28] The Plymouth Brethren are a sect – by now a grouping of sects, since they have split several times over – founded by a man named John Nelson Darby, previously a priest of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland.
They call themselves Brethren, or simply Christians, but because there are other churches also known as Brethren they are known to outsiders by the label Plymouth, since Darby founded his first congregation at Plymouth in England in 1831.
The movement is characterised by an absence of clergy or even formally acknowledged leadership, a situation which has led to the emergence of self-proclaimed prophets.
After starting the movement in England, Darby spent several years in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, including Lausanne, home of the Spühler family, who were among his converts. Georg joined this church following his marriage.
[29] From a Nationalist point of view, any official who primarily spoke English was an Englishman (in Afrikaans, Engelsman).
The Oettle children in Port Elizabeth had been raised multilingually, speaking French to their mother and German to their father, and then attending English-medium schools. At the Grey (at the time very much an English grammar school) the boys learned Dutch and Latin, and George also sent them to stay on a farm at Addo, where they learned fluent Afrikaans.
All four boys were dux scholars at the Grey.
[30] At any rate the first woman from among the descendants of George and Marie to serve in the South African military.
Before her marriage, Eric’s wife, Pamela Craggs, had served in the Special Signals Service, the highly secret organisation that operated radar stations along the South African coast during the Second World War.
Also in the SSS was Joan Human, later the wife of Charles William Massey and also grandmother to Andrew John Frederich Oettle. Both Pam and Joan became corporals.
Vir Afrikaans, kliek hier
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