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Served: Staats Artillerie. Awarded the DTD (Dekoratie voor Trouwe Dienst).

Heinrich Sebastian Davel Du Toit

Born: 21 October 1874, Middelburg, Cape Colony, South Africa.
Died: 8 July 1933, Pretoria, South Africa.

Heinrich Sebastian Davel Du Toit, son of Arie Gerhardus Jacobus du Toit and his wife, Martha Margaretha Maria, born Davel, received his schooling in Graaff-Reinet. In June 1894 he moved to the South African Republic (Transvaal), where he obtained a teaching certificate in September 1895.

Subsequently he taught at the Artillery training camp in Pretoria and qualified as an Artilleryman, but during 1898 was a teacher at the S.P. van Wyk Botha Burgerschool in Pretoria. During the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) he served as a Lieutenant in the State Artillery and was seriously wounded in the battle of Modderspruit, Natal. After recovering from his wounds he continued fighting until the end of the war in May 1902. He was promoted to captain and was wounded many more times.

After the war Du Toit went to the United States and qualified as a mechanic and agronomist in Peoria, Illinois. For a short time he was employed in the construction of the Panama Canal, but then visited various countries, including Russia, to study their agricultural practices.

Upon his return to South Africa he was appointed as Dry Land Agronomist in the Department of Agriculture of the Transvaal Colony in December 1908. After the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 he was appointed as Dry Land Agronomist in the Department of Agriculture of the Union in October 1912. For many years he was in charge of the experimental station at Lichtenburg, but was later transferred to Pretoria.

In 1916 he was appointed chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into Wheat, and in 1920 chairman of the Drought Investigation Commission. The latter commission recommended the paddocking system in stead of the widely practiced kraaling of stock, for better control of grazing, and also made various recommendations aimed at improved soil conservation.

Later Du Toit became head of the agricultural train that travelled around the country to promote scientific farming. By 1929 he was chief of the Division of Agricultural Education and Extension in the Department of Agriculture. He retired in October 1932.

Du Toit was the author of two semi-popular books,
Drooge-land Boerderij
(also published in English as Dry land farming, Potchefstroom, 1913, 127 p) and
Grond Konserwasie (also published in English as The conservation of our soil Pretoria, 1929, 66p). The first of these was aimed at farmers, the second at schools and the general public.

In recognition of his contributions to agriculture he was awarded an honorary MSc (Agriculture) degree by the University of Stellenbosch in 1924. For some years he was a member of the councils of the University of Stellenbosch and the University of Pretoria. In 1909 he married Magdalena C.K.M. Hamman, with whom he had a son and two daughters.

List of sources:
Dictionary of South African biography
, Vol. 3, 1977.
Du Toit, H.S.
Drooge-land boerderij
. Potchefstroom: Die Unie Lees- en Studie-Biblioteek, 1913.
Du Toit, H.S.
The conservation of out soil
. Pretoria, 1929.
National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System (NAAIRS).
www.national.archives.gov.za/naairs.htm
Documentsrelating to Du Toit, Heinrich.
National Archives Repository (TAB), Source MHG, Vol. 0, Ref. 82013: Death notice, Heinrich Sebastian Davel du Toit.
Union of South Africa.
Final report of the Drought Investigation Commission, October 1923
. Cape Town: Government Printer,1923.
Union of South Africa.
Public service list
, 1914.
Compiled by:
C. Plug

Kaptein H.S.D. du Toit

Source:
Page 181 & 182 – ‘Boere Offisiere 1899 to 1902’ by Jacques Malan 1990
*ABO & DTD application Vorm of Lieutenant JP van Der Merwe



Heinrich Sebastiaan Davel du Toit was born on 21 October 1874 on the family farm Compassberg in the Sneeuberge between Middelburg and Graaff Reinet.

After completing matric at the Graaff-Reinet College, he went to the ZAR in 1894 where he got an appointment as a teacher. During the time he was a teacher, he took three teaching exams.

He initially taught school in Middelburg (Tvl.), where he met Carolus Trichardt (son of Colonel SPE Trichardt, who was the head of the ZAR State Artillery from 1896 to Oct 1900) about whose memories he published articles in the Graaff Reinet Newspaper.

Later he was a teacher at the ZAR Artillery School and about 1897 he was appointed second Lieutenant in the ZAR State Artillery. He took part in the campaign against Malaboch in 1898 and before the Boer War, he once took part in a spying trip in Northern Natal. They narrowly escaped by going to a well-meaning German abbey, where they were given priestly robes and thus escaped back across the border.

He handled the Long Toms in the Natal campaign and was very badly wounded at the battle at Modderspruit. He suffered a total of 27 wounds during the war, apart from 38 pieces of shrapnel taken out of his back. Pieces of embedded lead tormented him until he died.

When the British approached Pretoria, he had himself mounted on his horse to escape, while the blood was still running down his breeches.

He participated throughout the remainder of the war to the end. He took part in the battle at Donkerhoek and Berg-en-Dal and then served under General Beyers and fought in the Northern Transvaal, where he destroyed the last two Long Toms at Lydenburg and Haenertsburg.

His appointment as Captain was signed by Generals Louis Botha and Schalk Burger (as Acting President of the ZAR).
He left some writings about the war, which he wrote after his retirement in the 1930’s. One was about the battle at Houtbosberg, where the Natives and the Australian Bushmen attacked the sick Boers and the wounded.

The ZAR State Artillery's discipline was very good. According to Naude, in ‘Vechten and Vluchten van Beyers and Kemp’, he also did a lot to drill the Boer forces under General Beyers.

After the war, he did not want to remain under British rule and emigrated to the USA, where he qualified as an Agricultural Engineer. He also traveled extensively in Europe and among other things studied agricultural methods in Russia.

After the Transvaal gained self-government as part of the Union Of South Africa, he came back and was appointed Government Agronomist in charge of the agricultural experiment station at Lichtenburg.

(*It was in this capacity that he signed the application by Lieutenant & Adjutant Jacobus Petrus van der Merwe of the ZAR State Artillery for his ABO medal and the Decoration for Loyal Service)

He became a member of the Union of South Africa Militia in 1910 and held the rank of colonel. Because of his wounds, he did not take part in the 1914 Rebellion, although his sympathies lay there.

In 1917 he was appointed Government Head of the Department of Agricultural Education and Extension, where he remained until his retirement in 1931. He died in 1933 of a ruptured appendix. He was buried with full military honors. He was awarded the ABO medal, the Decoration for Loyal Service, as well as the Ribbon for Wounds.

Source:
Page 181 & 182 – ‘Boere Offisiere 1899 to 1902’ by Jacques Malan 1990
*ABO & DTD application Vorm of Lieutenant JP van Der Merwe