Statue of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, Bronze monument in Church Square, Cape Town, South Africa.
The statue depicts Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr in formal clothing, with his hat held behind his back, standing on a stone pedestal. The monument was cast in bronze and stands in the center of Cape Town's business district at Church Square.
Sculptor Anton van Wouw created the monument in 1920 to honor Hofmeyr, who served in the Cape Colony parliament from 1879 to 1909. The work was completed after Hofmeyr's death and became a memorial to his role in early modern colonial history.
The inscription on the copper plaque comes from a speech Hofmeyr delivered in 1905 and shows the importance of his political message. You can read these words as you pass by and understand why they mattered to the country's history.
The monument is located at Church Square in downtown Cape Town and is easy to reach on foot. The site sits in a busy area with many other historic buildings, so you can visit it as part of a broader exploration of the district.
In 2015, activists covered the monument with white material, sparking a broad debate about how South Africa deals with colonial-era memorials. This event made the statue a symbol of conversations about the past and how societies represent their history.
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