Carl von Brandis

Captain Carl von Brandis (1827 – 20 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 the Battle of Waterloo. He did not see fighting in the Crimean War; the fighting ended before the Legion could be deployed. Its members settled in the Eastern Cape in 1857 and the Legion was disbanded in 1859. 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 Von Brandis married Matilda Hṻhne in Hannover on 28 January 1856. The marriage lasted just over a year, before she and their only child died on 13 May 1857. In 1858, he met and married Jane Margaret Hohne in Cape Town, Cape Colony.

Death He died on 20 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 a statue on the corner of Von Brandis and Pritchard Streets, in front of the Supreme Court commemorating the first Johannesburg magistrate.

Link to gravestone in Braamfontein cemetery.