William Porter, Ulster-Scot who was ‘father of Cape Liberalism’ in South Africa

On the contrary, William Porter was attorney general of Cape Colony from 1839 to 1865 and was credited by J L McCracken as being ‘the father of Cape Liberalism’ in a book almost 30 years ago.

William Porter was born in Limavady into a family which was both politically and religiously liberal on September 15 1805.

The Rev William Porter, his father, was a Limavady Presbyterian minister, a prominent advocate of ‘New Light’ Presbyterianism and the first moderator of the break-away Remonstrant Synod of Ulster in 1831.

Both his father and Mary Scott, his mother, were the offspring of Tyrone tenant farmers whose radicalism stopped short of membership of the United Irishmen or participation in the 1798 rebellion.

Presbyterians of all hues in west Ulster were less likely to be United Irishmen than their co-religionists in Antrim and Down. (However, the Rev James Porter of Greyabbey, who was hanged in front of his manse in 1798, was a distant relative.)

William Porter Jnr embarked on an apprenticeship with John Classon, a successful Dublin-based iron and timber merchant, the brother of the Rev William Porter's second wife, Eliza. (Mary Porter had died in 1809.) The Classons were also ‘New Light’ Presbyterians and politically liberal.

The Porters formed part of an extended liberal network.

Frank Dalzell Finlay, the proprietor and editor of the politically liberal Northern Whig, was the husband of William Porter's sister, Mary Ann. His elder brother, John Scott Porter, who like their father and two half-brothers was a unitarian minister, was a lifelong friend of Joseph Chamberlain's father.

An eloquent public speaker, Porter’s interests were literary and historical. When it became painfully obvious that Porter had no aptitude for business, Frances Classon, John Classon’s unmarried sister, shrewdly suggested a legal career and John Classon generously supported him in his legal studies financially. As a result, he was called to the Irish bar in 1831.

During the eight years he practised on the north-east circuit he took no active part in Irish politics, though his close associates at the bar were leading liberals whose views were broadly similar to his own.

As a good Presbyterian liberal, he deplored sectarian strife and party spirit as ‘the bane and curse of Ireland’, had little if any love for landlords and admired Daniel O’Connell’s consistent opposition to slavery.

His only regret about ‘Catholic emancipation’ was that it had not come sooner. Granted in 1825, it would have almost certainly created a better atmosphere in Ireland than it did in 1829 when it was ‘wrung from a reluctant ministry’.

He regarded the Act of Union as a good measure but disapproved of how it was passed. Although he did not share O’Connell’s ambition to repeal the Union, this did not prevent him from greatly admiring the man and his achievements.

A tacit understanding arrived at in February and March 1835 between O’Connell and Lord Melbourne’s Whig administration (‘the Lichfield House compact’) made the second half of the 1830s a period favourable to the advancement of Roman Catholics and liberal Protestants.

Somewhere in the region of 30 to 40% of government appointments in this era went to the former and many others went to the latter.

Porter was a beneficiary of the pact because on March 19 1839 the London Gazette announced the appointment of Porter as attorney general of the Cape Colony. The post carried an extremely lucrative salary of £1,200 per annum and permission to practise at the Cape bar in cases in which the Crown was not involved.

Porter’s arrival in the colony in September 1839 more or less coincided with his 34th birthday and he was to spend his next 34 years in the Cape. In his own words, he brought with him ‘an unspeakable hatred of oppression of every kind’ and this remained his guiding principle throughout his career in the Cape.

The role of attorney general was a hybrid one in which the line between what was legal and what was political was often blurred but he used the role to promote, and win acceptance for, his liberal convictions and insistence on equal justice for all, blacks and whites, masters and servants.

His professional ability, personal magnetism and the high regard in which he was held by the colonial office in London enabled him to become the most influential public figure of his day in the Cape.

Strictly speaking, he may not have been a brilliant lawyer but he was certainly a learned one and had an immense capacity for hard work. His linguistic skills and gift for lucid exposition, his melodious voice and physical presence – he was tall and handsome – also helped. So too did his courtesy and consideration for others irrespective of racial, religious, or linguistic background. He even won the respect of those who did not share his convictions.

Remarkably, in 1854 he drafted a constitution for the colony which enabled men of colour to participate in parliamentary elections and vigorously defended his colour-blind franchise against all quarters.

After retiring as attorney general in 1865, he was elected to the Cape parliament where in 1870 he introduced a bill to abolish capital punishment to which he was resolutely opposed. In 1872 he was offered the newly created position of prime minister of the Cape but declined, pleading ill-health. He also declined a knighthood and the role of chief justice.

The following year he returned home to live with his brother the Rev John Scott Porter in Belfast.

In his absence he was elected first chancellor of the University of the Cape of Good Hope, of which he was a generous benefactor, in 1876.

He died, aged 75, on July 13 1880 after a short illness and a week after his brother.

His will reflected his affection for the Cape in the large donations he made to a wide variety of causes and institutions there.