Nicolaas Jacobus de Wet
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The Right Honourable Nicolaas Jacobus de Wet KC |
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| Officer Administering the Government of South Africa | |
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In office 17 July 1943 – 1 January 1946 |
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| Monarch | George VI |
| Prime Minister | Jan Smuts |
| Preceded by | Patrick Duncan |
| Succeeded by | Gideon Brand van Zyl |
| Chief Justice of South Africa | |
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In office 1939–1943 |
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| Appointed by | Jan Smuts |
| Preceded by | James Stratford |
| Succeeded by | E. F. Watermeyer |
Nicolaas Jacobus de Wet PC KC (11 September 1873 near Aliwal North – 16 March 1960) was a South African politician, lawyer, and judge who was Chief Justice of South Africa and acting Governor-General from 1943 to 1945.
De Wet was born and went to school in Aliwal North, and attended Victoria College in Stellenbosch. He then went to Downing College at the University of Cambridge, from which he earned his LLB (First Class, with the Chancellor's Medal) in 1895. He was admitted as an advocate (the South African equivalent of a barrister) in 1896. During the Anglo-Boer War he was military secretary to General Louis Botha, commandant-general of the Transvaal forces, and acted as an interpreter at the peace conference that ended the war in 1902.
After the war, de Wet joined Botha in politics, and was a member of the Transvaal legislative assembly from 1907 to 1910. He was a legal adviser to the Transvaal delegation to the 1908-1909 National Convention that drew up the Constitution for the Union of South Africa. In 1913, he was appointed a King's Counsel. He was also a founder member of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns ("South African Academy for Science and Art") in 1909.
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