Peter Ralph Randall

Peter Ralph Randall was an anti-apartheid publisher in South Africa, and was banned by the former South African government between 1977 and 1981. He later became a professor in charge of teacher education at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Peter Randall was born in Durban in 1935, the youngest of four sons. His father, Walter Kenneth Randall, worked as a journalist and court reporter for the Natal Mercury newspaper, and his mother, Elizabetha Margaretha Randall (née Powrie), was a specialist nursing sister. Randall was educated at the Open Air School, the Durban Preparatory High School, and Kearsney College, and after matriculating he trained at Natal Teachers’ Training College (NTC) in Pietermaritzburg. He also completed a BA in English and history through the University of South Africa. He was the first Kearsney matriculant to obtain a distinction in English, and he gained distinctions in English each year thereafter, from teacher training to BA level. In 1956 he was awarded a medal for best final-year student at NTC.

At NTC he met Isobel Hickman, the previous final-year medallist, and they were married in 1958 in Greytown. From 1957 to 1961 Randall was employed by the Natal Education Department, and taught at Vryheid High School and Greytown Junior School. In late 1961 he and Isobel travelled to England, and from 1962 through 1963 they were employed as teachers by Essex County Council (Peter taught at Broadfields County Primary and Mark Hall Secondary, Harlow). During this time they toured Europe and Britain in an old Bedford van, and before returning to South Africa they worked as apple-pickers.

In early 1964 they returned to Pietermaritzburg, and from 1964 until mid-1965 Randall lectured at NTC and was the warden of the men's residence. Daughter Lee-Ann was born in 1964, and in 1965 they moved to Johannesburg, where their second daughter Susan was born. Their third child Jonathan died as an infant; a second son named David was born in 1970.

While a student at NTC, Randall took an interest in radical politics and approached Peter Hunter, a lecturer with similar views, with the hope of becoming constructively involved. Hunter took him to a school in Sobantu Village in Pietermaritzburg, where teachers had to learn Afrikaans because of the Bantu Education policy, and Randall went there several times to teach Afrikaans and to learn some Zulu. Other important influences on his thinking at this time were leading Liberal Party figures such as Peter Brown, author Alan Paton and senator Edgar Brookes.

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