John Gordon Sprigg

The Right Honourable Sir John Gordon Sprigg GCMG
Prime Minister of the Cape Colony
In office 18 June 1900 – 21 February 1904
Monarch	Victoria Edward VII
Governor	Alfred Milner Walter Hely-Hutchinson
Preceded by	William Philip Schreiner
Succeeded by	Leander Starr Jameson
In office 13 January 1896 – 13 October 1898
Monarch	Victoria
Governor	Hercules Robinson Alfred Milner
Preceded by	Cecil John Rhodes
Succeeded by	William Philip Schreiner
In office 25 November 1886 – 16 July 1890
Monarch	Victoria
Governor	Hercules Robinson Henry Brougham Loch
Preceded by	Thomas Upington
Succeeded by	Cecil John Rhodes
In office 6 February 1878 – 8 May 1881
Monarch	Victoria
Governor	Henry Bartle Frere
Preceded by	Sir John Molteno
Succeeded by	Thomas Charles Scanlen
Personal details
Born	John Gordon Sprigg 27 April 1830 Ipswich, Suffolk United Kingdom
Died	4 February 1913 (aged 82) Cape Town, Cape Province South Africa
Nationality	British
Political party	Progressive

Sir John Gordon Sprigg, GCMG, PC (27 April 1830 – 4 February 1913) was a British administrator, politician and four-time prime minister of the Cape Colony.

Sprigg was born in Ipswich, England, into a strongly Puritan family. His father was a pastor and his strictly conservative up-bringing had a lifelong effect on Sprigg's values (until the end of his life, one of Sprigg's proudest claims was that his ancestor had been one of Oliver Cromwell's chaplains).

He was educated at Ipswich School, as well as a series of other private schools. He started his career in a shipbuilder’s office, and then switched jobs to become a short-hand writer and reporter. However, his fragile health caused him to emigrate to the Cape Colony in 1858 to recuperate, and here he decided to settle. He managed to acquire a free farm in what was known at the time as British Kaffraria (near what is today East London), and began to get involved in local politics.

His newly acquired property lay near the Cape's frontier, and was therefore surrounded by a large population of non-Christian Xhosa people – whom Sprigg regarded with considerable suspicion. This led him to become very concerned about issues of frontier security, and he regularly prioritised such issues in his political career.

In 1869, he became the member of the Cape Parliament for East London.
He notably ran the Commission for Frontier Defense which recommended that the defence of the Cape Colony be separately administered for the Eastern and Western halves of the Colony and (ominously) that the Cape's defences be racially segregated. Both suggestions were rejected outright by the Prime Minister at the time, John Molteno, a strong advocate of racial and regional unity in the Cape.

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