Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd

Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd (1901-1966) was a South African professor of psychology, newspaper editor, and politician. He is best known for his role as the "architect of apartheid" when he was Minister of Native Affairs during the 1950s and his popular yet polarizing stint as prime minister from 1958 until his assassination in 1966.

Personal life

Verwoerd was born on September 8, 1901 in Amsterdam. Two years later, his father, Wilhelmus Johannes Verwoerd, decided to emigrate from the Netherlands to South Africa as an expression of solidarity with the Afrikaners who had been recently vanquished in the Anglo-Boer War. The Verwoerd family settled first in the Cape Colony, where they resided for ten years before moving to Bulwayo, Rhodesia and then to South Africa's Orange Free State province.

Education and academic career

Verwoerd earned his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch in 1924. He spent the next few years furthering his studies in Germany before returning to Stellenbosch, where he was appointed professor of psychology in 1928.

Nationalist editor and politician

Verwoerd left academia in 1936 to assume the editorship of Die Transvaler, a new Afrikaner nationalist newspaper.

Legacy

Verwoerd is among the most polarizing figures in South African political history.