Annie Botha

Unknown painter: Mrs. Louis Botha, Botha House, Pennington, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Further text on the plaque: "An appreciation from / the Womens South African Party". Annie Botha ( Emmett; 3 July 1864 – 20 May 1937) was a South African civic leader and political hostess. She was the wife of Louis Botha, who served as the first Prime Minister of South Africa. She established an orphanage in South Africa and, with Georgiana Solomon, co-founded and chaired the South African Women's Federation.

Biography Young years Botha was born Annie Frances Bland Emmett on 3 July 1864 in Swellendam to John Cheere Emmett (Swellendam, 19 March 1822 – Pretoria, 26 January 1905), a farmer, and his wife, Helen Laetitia Bland (also Helena Letitia du Plessis Bland or Helena Aletta Emmett, born at George, Western Cape, 9 December 1833 – died 1895). Annie was an elder sister to Transvaal Boer War Bittereinder general Joseph James Cheere Emmett (J.C. Emmett, Swellendam, 19 January 1866 – 16 August 1933). She was raised in the Anglican faith and her family were members of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa. Botha later converted from Anglicanism to Dutch Reformed Protestantism. The charity campaigned for the preservation of Afrikaner culture and people. She stepped down as chairwoman after her husband's election as Prime Minister of the Transvaal Colony but was nominated for a lifetime honorary presidency within the organization.

Botha established the Louis Botha Home for Orphans and Children in Need. In 1911, she travelled to England to attend the wedding of Hamar Greenwood and Margery Spencer.

After her husband's death in 1919, Botha settled on a farm in Rusthof and spent winters in Sezela, where she died in 1937.