# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Sprigg, John Gordon

​SPRIGG, Sir JOHN GORDON (1830–1913), South African statesman, was born at Ipswich 27 April 1830, the second son of the Rev. James Sprigg, Baptist minister of that town, by his wife, Maria Gardiner. After a short school career and employment in local insurance and shipbuilders' offices, he joined in 1846 the staff of Joseph Gurney [q.v.], parliamentary shorthand writer. In 1858 he travelled to the Cape for his health. He decided to remain in South Africa, and in 1861 obtained a free farm on military tenure in British Kaffraria some thirty miles from East London.
As a member of the East London divisional council Sprigg took a leading part in advocating the annexation of British Kaffraria to the Cape Colony, provided that self-government were speedily granted to the enlarged colony (1865–1866). In 1869 he was elected member for East London, a constituency which he represented without a break till 1904. He supported (Sir) John Molteno [q.v.] in the successful agitation for self-government (1872); but subsequently, when Molteno became the first premier of the Cape, ​Sprigg attacked him because he opposed the scheme of the colonial secretary, Lord Carnarvon [q.v.], for South African confederation (1875), and because he refused to accept the findings of Sprigg's committee on the defence of the eastern frontier. Sprigg succeeded Molteno as prime minister upon the latter's dismissal during the Kaffir War of 1877–1878, and duly carried his defence measures, including a Bill which provided for the disarmament of the natives. He supported the confederation policy, harassed though he was by petty native wars, during one of which he courageously went unarmed with one companion to induce a hostile chief to surrender. Sprigg's ministry fell in 1881, nominally on the defeat of his measures for local railway construction in substitution for the Kimberley line desired by Cecil Rhodes [q.v.], but really because his disarmament policy contributed to the failure of the Basuto War.
In 1884 Sprigg became treasurer in the ministry of (Sir) Thomas Upington, and in 1886 prime minister for the second time. In July 1890 he was defeated once more on a railway Bill—for he was a great projector of railways in times of political crisis—and made way for Rhodes. He joined the second Rhodes ministry in May 1893, and, after the collapse caused by the failure of the Jameson Raid, formed a Cabinet of his own in 1896. The next year, on the occasion of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee, he attended the premiers' conference in London. Relying on a resolution of the house of assembly to furnish assistance to the navy he readily offered the Admiralty a cruiser. He was enrolled as a privy councillor and received the honorary D.C.L. of Oxford and LL.D. of Edinburgh, but on his return to South Africa he had to withdraw his unauthorized promise. In 1898 he attempted to carry a redistribution Bill reducing the advantage enjoyed by the Afrikander Bond rural constituencies as against the progressive towns, but he was defeated on a motion of no confidence and appealed to the country virtually on the issue of British or Transvaal supremacy. He was defeated and had to resign. On the fall of the ministry of William Philip Schreiner [q.v.] in June 1900, Sprigg became premier for the fourth time and governed for two years without parliamentary sanction. For a time he was inclined to approve of a suspension of the Cape constitution as the best means of furthering the federation of South Africa; but on Rhodes's death (1902) he stiffened his back; and at the premiers' conference in London in 1902 he followed the lead of Sir Wilfrid Laurier [q.v.] in crushing the scheme. Sprigg appealed to the country in 1904, but was himself rejected. He dropped out of politics till 1908 when he was returned once more for East London as a federalist, and ended his political career in a vain effort to stop the passage of the draft Union Bill. On the clause setting up the parliamentary colour bar he voted with Schreiner in a minority of two (June 1909).
Sprigg was not a commanding figure and was completely lacking in humour, but his influence in parliament was great. During his thirty-six years as a member he made himself indispensable. He was always in his seat, a ready speaker, cool, patient, courteous, possessed of considerable moral courage and boundless self-confidence. As head of a department for eighteen years he was industrious and businesslike, and as premier for thirteen years he displayed great powers of party management. He was created K.C.M.G. in 1886, G.C.M.G. in 1902, and commander of the legion of honour in 1889. He died at Wynberg, Cape Colony, on 4 February 1913.
Sprigg married in 1862 Ellen (died 1900), daughter of James Fleischer, a neighbouring farmer in British Kaffraria, and had one son and three daughters.
[The Times and Cape Times, 5 February 1913; Votes and Proceedings of the (Cape) House of Assembly; J. H. Hofmeyr, Life of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, 1913; E. A. Walker, Lord De Villiers and his Times, 1924; private information.]
E. A. W.