Isaiah Bud-M'belle, The Life of Isaiah Budlwana M'belle, by Brian Willan and Brown Maaba

Isaiah Budlwana (‘Bud’) M’belle (1870–1947) was one of the most talented Black South Africans of his generation yet today his life and many achievements have been largely forgotten. If he is remembered at all, it is as the brother-in-law of the more famous Solomon Plaatje, who married his sister Elizabeth. This biography tells his story for the first time.

Born in the Cape Colony in 1870 and of Mfengu origin, M’belle was the first African to pass the Cape civil service entry examinations. He became a highly regarded High Court Interpreter and, after Union in 1910, went on to a second career as a senior official in the Native Affairs Department in Pretoria. He was by some margin the best-paid Black civil servant in the country. His achievements extended well beyond the civil service: he played a leading role in organising non-racial cricket and rugby in South Africa, was deeply committed to the cause of education for his people and served for two years as General Secretary of the South African Native National Congress. Later in life he was involved in the Joint Councils and the All African Convention and stood for election to the Natives Representative Council in 1937.

Drawing on extensive archival research, Brian Willan and Brown Maabe trace M’belle’s life from his family’s origins in the Lenge mountains in KwaZulu-Natal, through his education at the
Wesleyan Healdtown Institution, his rise through the civil service, the books he wrote and sponsored, his trip to England in 1908 and his years in both Kimberley and Pretoria. In doing so, they uncover his triumphs and failures as well as the complexities and contradictions of his position as both government servant and spokesman for his people.

Through M’belle, readers encounter the broader landscape of Black intellectual and political culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – the networks, institutions, ambitions
and constraints that shaped an era. Isaiah Bud-M’belle restores a significant figure to his rightful place in South African history and makes an important contribution to the historiography of early
Black politics, law and intellectual life.