John ("Jock") Paterson (1822 – 1880) was a prominent politician and successful businessman of the Cape Colony, and had a great influence on the development of Port Elizabeth where he was based. He ran newspapers, established the Grey Institute and played a significant role in founding South Africa's Standard Bank.
Early life and business ventures
Born and raised in Aberdeen, Scotland, Paterson studied at Marischal university college and emigrated to Port Elizabeth in 1841 to take up a position as a school master. Later he successfully persuaded Sir George Grey, then the Governor of the Cape Colony, to take an interest in his proposals for new boys schools and Grey made land and funding available to Paterson for their founding.
He had a notoriously volatile temperament. On 7 May 1845, he secretly started his first business, the Eastern Province Herald newspaper, with his partner John R. Phillip as the official owner. As he was still contracted by the state this was an illegal activity so his involvement remained clandestine. After the two men fought, Paterson stopped publication in 1850 and started a new newspaper, the Eastern Province News which he soon renamed to the original name in 1854. He later sold the newspaper in 1857 to his friend Robert Godlonton who owned the Grahamstown Journal, though he continued to use the paper as a platform for his opinions. Philip meanwhile had opened the competing Port Elizabeth Mercury newspaper.
Paterson was however already a successful businessman. He had made a series of property investments on the outskirts of the expanding town of Port Elizabeth, and a range of other business enterprises. He also briefly served as the Consular Agent for the United States in Port Elizabeth, and gained much American business for his trading firm though this. He had a lifelong interest in boys schools, and founded several in his life, including Grey High School, an elite school for boys in Port Elizabeth that he founded in 1856.
Political career
Paterson's temperament led him to be intensely drawn to politics, from relatively early on. His early activity involved lobbying for increased European immigration, and the widespread anti-convict agitation of 1849.
First Parliamentary term and Eastern Cape separatism (1854-1858)
In 1854 he was elected to the first Cape Parliament as one of the two members for Port Elizabeth (together with Henry Fancourt White). From the beginning of his political career he made the secession of the eastern part of the Cape Colony a priority. He felt very strongly that the Xhosa people of the eastern Cape frontier were a severe threat to the colonists' safety and that this threat was not helped by the Cape government's relaxed attitude to the frontier.
His proposed solution was a view which he held for the remainder of his life – that the white eastern Cape deserved a greater degree of separation, or to become the seat of the Cape's parliament and government. In this, he differed from the radical members of the "separatist league", who were based further east in Grahamstown, were led by Robert Godlonton, and who proposed absolute and immediate separation. He also angered Godlonton's Grahamstown clique by his blocking of their Kowie harbour proposal, which he saw as potentially taking shipping activity away from Port Elizabeth. The separatist movement began a gradual decline due to a growing fear in the Midlands around Port Elizabeth and Graaff-Reinett that if they attained separation then they would fall under the domination of Grahamstown.
He resigned from politics in 1858 due to his wife's fatal illness.
Business interlude (1859-1873) In 1859 he made a business trip to Britain where he had a great deal of family and business connections, and he even made a bid for a seat in the British parliament, which he eventually decided against.
In 1862 he founded Standard Bank, now one of the largest banks in southern Africa. However he later suffered several business failures and declared bankruptcy in 1867.
In 1872, the Cape attained self-rule (or "responsible government" as it was known) and an economic boom ensued as the new locally elected government began vast infrastructure projects across the country. Paterson, financially uplifted by the economic boom, re-entered politics.
Return to Parliament (1872-1877)
Separatist League (1872-1874)