Andries Massdorp

Sir Andries Ferdinand Stockenström Maasdorp, KC (14 January 1847 – 18 March 1931) was chief justice of the Orange River Colony. He was knighted in 1904 as a Knight Bachelor.

Early life and education

Maasdorp was the second of the five sons of Gysbert Henry Maasdorp and his wife, Anna Maria Hartzenberg.

Career

In 1871, he was admitted to the Inner Temple as barrister, and from March 1872, practised at the Cape bar. In 1890, he became a Queen's Counsel, then a King's Counsel upon the death of Queen Victoria in January 1901. In the late 1890s, he moved to Pretoria and practised at the Pretoria bar from 1897 until 1899. When a dispute arose between President Paul Kruger and Chief Justice John Gilbert Kotzé, Maasdorp sided with Kotzé. With the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Boer War, he returned to the Cape Colony and once again practised at Grahamstown.

In 1902, he became Chief Justice of the Orange River Colony and after South Africa became a Union, he became the Judge President of the Orange Free State Provincial Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa. He was knighted in 1904 and retired from the bench at the end of 1919.

Personal life

Maasdorp married Agnes Catherine Thomson Hayton in 1880 and they had three sons and two daughters.