Education
He studied medicine eventually at Edinburgh university, graduating with Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. He travelled in Europe and studied a range of agricultural practices too.
farmer Afrikaner politician District Surgeon
He studied medicine eventually at Edinburgh university, graduating with Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. He travelled in Europe and studied a range of agricultural practices too.
He spent much of the next few years under house arrest on his farm (he had signed up as a medical officer with the Boer army, during the war, and was soon captured by the British Interestingly, his internment on Oak Valley was only granted on condition that he paid for the services of two British soldiers to guard him for the duration of the war!) Antonie Viljoen was a farmer extraordinaire growing everything from grape vines to potatoes. These were initially grown and maintained by his farm labourers, largely as their own separate concern, however they constituted the first known deciduous orchard in the region. Viljoen was elected to the Legislative Council (Upper House) of the Cape Parliament in 1903, for the South Western Circle.
Foreign the year he was on the council, he worked primarily on healing the wounds between the English and Afrikaner ethnic groups after the Anglo-Boer War.
In 1904 he was elected to the House of Assembly (Lower House) of the Cape Parliament, for the Caledon district. In this capacity, he worked on conservation (banning the sale of certain species of wild flower, and cooperating on the founding of Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden).
Viljoen was part of a liberal grouping in parliament, who strongly supported women"s suffrage and the extension of the multi-racial Cape Qualified Franchise. His most famous contribution was in being part of the first attempt to extend the vote to women of all races, with fellow MPs JW Sauer and James Molteno on 4 July 1907.
Viljoen was in fact the Member of Parliament who first tabled the motion.
At the formation of the Union of South Africa, he was also elected to the Senate, where he continued his policies of pushing for a more inclusive, multi-racial, and gender-sensitive future for the country. In later life he served on the boards of Old Mutual and the National Bank of South Africa. He was knighted in 1916, and died at his Oak Valley farm in Elgin in 1918.