John Paterson (Cape politician)

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 founded South Africa's Standard Bank. As a politician he was somewhat less successful, playing a role in the failed separatist movement for a British ruled Eastern Cape in the 1870s and backing Carnarvon’s ill-fated confederation plan.

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.

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