Pieter van Reede van Oudtshoorn

Baron Pieter van Reede (or van Rheede) van Oudtshoorn (8 July 1714 – 23 January 1773) was a senior official and Governor designate of the Dutch Cape Colony. He was appointed Governor of the Cape Colony in 1772 to succeed the deceased Governor Ryk Tulbagh but died at sea on his way to the Cape Colony to take up his post. The Western Cape town of Oudtshoorn is named after him. He is the progenitor of the van R(h)eede van Oudtshoorn family in South Africa.

Career and death

Born the son of a nobleman in Utrecht,

In 1743 then Cape Governor Hendrik Swellengrebel granted him land in the Table Mountain valley named Garden Oudtshoorn, bounded by Hof Street and Kloof Street in the present-day suburb of Gardens. After van Reede van Oudtshoorn's death the developed estate was subdivided into three separate properties named La Belle Alliance, Trafalgar and Mount Nelson where the Mount Nelson Hotel stands today.

He was fiscal independent from September 1741 to September 1762, and bought the Drakensteyn castle. On 17 April 1773 he was given a state funeral in Cape Town and buried at the Groote Kerk. After the church building was enlarged in 1841, the stone that had covered his grave was attached to the church's eastern wall.

Baron Joachim van Plettenberg, who had been acting Governor since Tulbagh's death on 11 August 1771, was appointed Governor on 18 May 1774.

Family

On 18 January 1741 in Den Bosch Pieter married Sophia Catharina Boesses, who was born to a military officer in 1720 in Bergen op Zoom, after living together since 1736. She died in Cape Town in 1791. a magistrate of the Western Cape town of George. Bergh was one of the founding fathers of the Western Cape town of Oudtshoorn, which was named in honour of his wife's distinguished grandfather. The coat of arms of the local municipality is based on the Dutch family's coat of arms. Oudtshoorn is a twin town of Alphen aan den Rijn in the Netherlands which incorporates the historic Dutch villages of Oudshoorn, Ridderbuurt and Gnephoek.