Charles Fichardt

Charles Gustav Fichardt (20 March 1870 – 30 May 1923) was a South African cricketer who played in two Test matches in 1892 and 1896. He was also a Boer soldier in the Second Boer War and later a politician and a prominent advocate of Boer independence.

Life and career Fichardt was educated at Grey College, Bloemfontein, and later in Scotland and at Hamburg. A vigorous batsman and lob bowler, he represented Orange Free State from 1892 to 1909.

Fichardt made the top score in the match, 54 not out, when an Orange Free State XXII played the English team in 1892, and made his Test debut two weeks later. When the next English team visited in 1895–96 he took 6 for 93 in their first innings when they played an Orange Free State XVI. His Test contributions during these tours were less successful.

Fichardt was elected mayor of Bloemfontein in 1897. He fought for the Boers with General Piet Cronje at the Battle of Paardeberg in 1899. He was captured, but escaped. In 1906 he was one of the founders of the Orange Union Party, which advocated self-government for Orange Free State. He became editor of the Bloemfontein Friend, the newspaper of the Orange Union Party.

He was one of the founders of the National Party in Bloemfontein in 1914. He sat in the Legislative Assembly of the Orange River Colony from 1907 to 1910, and in the Union House of Assembly (representing Ladybrand) from 1910 until his death in 1923.

Fichardt and his wife Catharine had two sons and a daughter. He died after an operation, aged 53.