Willem Cruywagen

Dr Willem Adriaan Cruywagen (1921 – 10 July 2013) was a moderate South African politician during apartheid, and an academic and author.

Personal life Cruywagen moved to the town of Germiston in the mid-1940s, where he taught history, geography, and music before becoming involved in politics. He married his wife, Snow, in 1949. Germiston's Bertha Gxowa Hospital had previously been named Willem Cruywagen Hospital in the 1970s, in his honour.

Politics He was elected as a member of the House of Assembly for Germiston in 1961.

He was a deputy minister and minister of the departments of Home Affairs, Bantu Affairs and National Education.

In 1979, Cruywagen became Administrator of the Transvaal, a position in which he served until he retired in May, 1988.

In the late 1980s, Cruywagen described the transformation of African councils from advisory bodies in the 1970s into local authorities in the 1980s as the "most important constitutional event in the history of this country", and recommended that black and white people jointly govern the Transvaal province.