Jan S. Marais

Last updated

Jan S. Marais
BornApril 23, 1919
Fraserburg, Northern Cape, South Africa
Died2009
Alma mater Stellenbosch University
OccupationBanker
Known forFounder & chairman of the Trust Bank of Africa
SpousePeggy
Children1 daughter

Jan S. Marais (April 23, 1919 - 2009) was a South African banker and politician. He was the founder and chairman of the Trust Bank of Africa, one of South Africa's largest banks. He was a National member of the Parliament of South Africa, and a critic of apartheid.

Contents

Early life

Jan S. Marais was born as Johannes Stephanus Marais on April 23, 1919, in Fraserburg, Northern Cape. [1] [2] He graduated from Stellenbosch University. [2]

Banking career

Marais was the general manager of Federale Volksbeleggings, an Afrikaner investment company. [2]

Marais founded the Trust Bank of Africa in 1954, [2] and he served as its chairman. [3] By the 1970s, it had become "one of the country's major banks." [3] Marais subsequently sold the Trust Bank to Sanlam. [2]

Marais served as the non-executive chairman of FundTrust, an investment company, until it went bankrupt in 1991. [2]

Politics

Marais was a critic of apartheid. [2] As the chairman of the South Africa Foundation in the 1970s, he argued that the Anti-Apartheid Movement hurt South African businesses. [4] Marais sold Trustbank to join the National Party and served as a member Parliament of South Africa as the representative of Durban, the only time ever that the liberal constituency was won by the National Party. He stood until 1981. [2] He used his platform as a politician to call for the repeal of the Group Areas Act. [2]

Personal life and death

Dr. Jan S Marais was born in the Karoo, in the town of Fraserburgh, Northern Cape, South Africa. After school, as the oldest son, he had to manage the farm. Within months he reorganized the farm and spend his time reading detective stories and had only one dream, to become a train driver! His father knew better and send him to university where he went from class to class with no direction. A senior played a joke on him by inviting him to a statistic class where they were writing a test to Marais's surprise. That was the first time that he thought that he should visit the same class twice. He went back the next week for his results but the lecturer did not hand it out. After class, he asked if there is a Mr. Marais and asked him to stay behind. He handed Marais his test for which he had full marks! After a short interview, he took Marais under his wing up to the time that he went to work for the Federale Volksbeleggings. From there he was later sent to study in America. He did his master's degree on Successful People and later with his return to South Africa, started the TrustBank that changed banking worldwide. The change in his bank's approach towards their clients stemmed from the time that he saw Mary Poppins as a little boy. There was a scene where a child approaches the bank with a little porcelain pig containing all her savings... When she enters the bank the atmosphere was so thick with the counters protected by bars back then. The small child got so scared, dropped her savings and it scattered all over the floor while she was running out. Marais decided that day that he would like to change this one day. He felt it should be an inviting, appreciating atmosphere as the bank wants people to entrust their savings with the bank. That was one of many things that made his banking system unique at the time. One of his claims to fame from those days was that all female workers got hair and clothing allowance and were encouraged to wear mini dresses. Marais had a wife, Peggy, who died in the 1980s, and an adopted daughter, Carla, she had three children. [2] He resided in Seapoint during the early TrustBank days and later in Cape Town city center. After the Fundtrust debacle, he moved to Durbanville. to his death. [2]

Marais died in 2009. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. G. Strijdom</span> Prime Minister of South Africa from 1954 to 1958

Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom, also known as Hans Strijdom and nicknamed the Lion of the North or the Lion of Waterberg, was the fifth prime minister of South Africa from 30 November 1954 to his death on 24 August 1958. He was an uncompromising Afrikaner nationalist and a member of the largest, baasskap faction of the National Party (NP), who further accentuated the NP's apartheid policies and break with the Union of South Africa in favour of a republic during his rule.

The Afrikaner Broederbond (AB) or simply the Broederbond was an exclusively Afrikaner Calvinist and male secret society in South Africa dedicated to the advancement of the Afrikaner people. It was founded by H. J. Klopper, H. W. van der Merwe, D. H. C. du Plessis and the Rev. Jozua Naudé in 1918 as Jong Zuid Afrika until 1920, when it was renamed the Broederbond. Its influence within South African political and social life came to a climax with the 1948-1994 rule of the white supremacist National Party and its policy of apartheid, which was largely developed and implemented by Broederbond members. Between 1948 and 1994, many prominent figures of Afrikaner political, cultural, and religious life, including every leader of the South African government, were members of the Afrikaner Broederbond.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marais Viljoen</span> South African politician

Marais Viljoen, was the last ceremonial State President of South Africa from 4 June 1979 until 3 September 1984. Viljoen became the last of the ceremonial presidents of South Africa when he was succeeded in 1984 by Prime Minister P. W. Botha, who combined the offices into an executive state presidency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stellenbosch University</span> University in South Africa

Stellenbosch University is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Saharan Africa, together with the University of Cape Town - which received full university status on the same day in 1918. Stellenbosch University designed and manufactured Africa's first microsatellite, SUNSAT, launched in 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graaff-Reinet</span> Place in Eastern Cape, South Africa

Graaff-Reinet is a town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is the oldest town in the province. It is also the sixth-oldest town in South Africa, after Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Simon's Town, Paarl and Swellendam. The town was the centre of a short-lived republic in the late 18th century. The town was a starting point for Great Trek groups led by Gerrit Maritz and Piet Retief and furnished large numbers of the Voortrekkers in 1835–1842.

Frederik van Zyl Slabbert was a South African political analyst, businessman and politician. He is best known for having been the leader of the official opposition – the Progressive Federal Party (PFP) – in the House of Assembly from 1979 to 1986.

The following lists events that happened during 1954 in South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Early life of Jan Smuts</span>

Jan Christian Smuts, OM, CH, ED, KC, FRS was a prominent South African and Commonwealth statesman, military leader, and philosopher. He served as a Boer General during the Boer War, a British General during the First World War and was appointed Field Marshal by King George VI during the Second World War. In addition to various cabinet appointments, he served as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924 and from 1939 until 1948. From 1917 to 1919 he was one of five members of the British War Cabinet, helping to create the Royal Air Force. He played a leading part in the post-war settlements at the end of both world wars, making significant contributions towards the creation of the League of Nations and the United Nations. He did much to redefine the relationship between Britain and the Dominions and Colonies, leading to the formation of the British Commonwealth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephanus Schoeman</span>

Stephanus Schoeman was President of the South African Republic from 6 December 1860 until 17 April 1862. His red hair, fiery temperament and vehement disputes with other Boer leaders earned him the moniker "Stormvogel den Noorden," "Storm bird of the North."

Paul Roos Gymnasium is a public, dual medium high school for boys in the town of Stellenbosch in the Western Cape province of South Africa, which opened on 1 March 1866 as Stellenbosch Gymnasium. It is the 12th oldest school in the country.

Afrikaans literature is literature written in Afrikaans. Afrikaans is the daughter language of 17th-century Dutch and is spoken by the majority of people in the Western Cape of South Africa and among Afrikaners and Coloured South Africans in other parts of South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini. Afrikaans was historically one of the two official languages of South Africa, the other being English, but it currently shares the status of an "official language" with ten other languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huguenots in South Africa</span>

Many people of European heritage in South Africa are descended from Huguenots. Most of these originally settled in the Cape Colony, but were absorbed into the Afrikaner and Afrikaans-speaking population, because they had religious similarities to the Dutch colonists.

Volkskas Beperk was a South African bank founded in 1934 as a cooperative loan bank, becoming a commercial bank in 1941. In 1991, by which time it had become South Africa's largest Afrikaner bank, Volkskas merged with United Building Society, Allied Building Society and Trust Bank to form Amalgamated Banks of South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fraserburg</span> Place in Northern Cape, South Africa

Fraserburg is a town in the Karoo region of South Africa's Northern Cape province. It is located in the Karoo Hoogland Local Municipality. The town has some of the coldest winters in South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas P Stratten</span> South African engineer

Thomas Price Stratten was a South African engineer. He went to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, followed by two years at American General Electric. He returned to South Africa in 1929 to the position of assistant electrical engineer at De Beers Consolidated Mines. He took senior positions at Iscor, the Union Corporation and Escom. After a time spent in the Directorate of War Supplies, he went on to successfully expand SAPPI's operations and was president of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers during the 1940s.

The Langlaagte Reformed Church was the 28th congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) on the Transvaal and the second in Johannesburg after the Johannesburg Reformed Church (NGK) (1887). The congregation is well known as the spiritual home of the Langlaagte orphanage, later named the Abraham Kriel Children’s Home after Rev. Abraham Kriel, who founded it as pastor of Langlaagte.

The Parkhurst Reformed Church was a congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) that was active from 1944 to 1996 in the Johannesburg suburb of Parkhurst.


The Jan Marais statue is situated in Stellenbosch, South Africa, and is located on the Rooiplein within the Stellenbosch University’s campus.

References

  1. ↑ "Johannes Stephanus (Jan) Marais, founder of Trust Bank, is born in Fraserburg, OFS". South African History Online. 23 April 2012. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Barron, Chris (25 October 2009). "Jan S. Marais: Flamboyant Founder of Trust Bank". Sunday Times. Retrieved 19 March 2018– via PressReader.
  3. 1 2 Burns, John F. (21 November 1976). "Industry Mellows In South Africa". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  4. ↑ Nixon, Ron (2016). South Africa's Global Propaganda War. London, U.K.: Pluto Press. p. 62. ISBN   9780745399140. OCLC   959031269.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.