Thomas Charles Scanlen
| Thomas Charles Scanlen | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Prime Minister of the Cape Colony | |
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In office 9 May 1881 – 12 May 1884 |
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| Monarch | Victoria |
| Governor | Hercules Robinson |
| Preceded by | John Gordon Sprigg |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Upington |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
9 July 1834 Albany, Cape Colony |
| Died | 15 December 1912 (aged 78) Salisbury, BSAC Rhodesia |
| Nationality | British |
| Spouse(s) | Emma Thackwray, Sarah Ann Dennison |
| Occupation | Politician |
Sir Thomas Charles Scanlen KCMG (9 July 1834 – 15 December 1912) was a politician and administrator of the Cape Colony.
He was briefly Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, from 1881 to 1884, during an especially turbulent period in the Cape's history, dominated by conflicts such as the Basuto Gun War. He was also the Cape's first locally-born Prime Minister.
Scanlen was born 9 July 1834 on Longford Farm in the district of Albany in the Cape Colony. His family were of Irish ancestry, and had arrived in the eastern Cape among the 1820 Settlers. In 1845 his family moved from Grahamstown to Cradock, Cape Colony. Here he married Emma Thackwray on 1855, and the couple had several children.
Scanlen's father Charles was elected as parliamentary representative for Cradock in 1856. Thomas succeeded his father as representative of Cradock in 1870, and was to serve in the Cape Parliament for a total of 26 years.
At the time he first entered parliament, the nation was split between the supporters of John Molteno's movement for "responsible government" (local democracy) and supporters of the British Imperial Governor Wodehouse. Scanlen's first move was to declare official neutrality in this conflict, claiming that he was as yet far too ignorant of the issues. He eventually gave his cautious support to the responsible government movement, which triumphed in 1872. He turned down the new Prime Minister's unofficial offer of a government position, but gave the Molteno government his support for its various infrastructure and development projects. When the Molteno government was overthrown by an imperial intervention, Scanlen moved into opposition against the new aggressively pro-imperialist government of Gordon Sprigg, dubbed "The Settler Ministry", as it was composed entirely of British Settlers from Sprigg's own frontier region of the Cape.
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