AUSTIN, Henry Boase (1866 – 1951)

The Registrar of Deeds for the Orange River Colony must be a man who is not afraid of work, and one who must throw his whole heart and soul into his work, and such a man the Government have found in the subject of our sketch, Mr. HENRY BOASE AUSTIN, a South African by birth. He was born at Port Elizabeth in the year 1866, and is the eldest son of the late G. W. Austin, Esq., of the Old Country.

After receiving his education at the famous Grey College, Bloemfontein, where he remained till the year 1881, he was appointed a clerk to Attorney Fraser's office, and after remaining here for seven years he went to the Surveyor-General's Office in the year 1889. In 1897 he was promoted to the post of Chief Clerk in the Deeds Office, and after working hard in the Department for five years he was rewarded by being promoted to the position of Assistant Registrar of Deeds, and later, in 1905, to his present status of Registrar of Deeds for the Orange River Colony. During the late Anglo-Boer War Mr. Austin had an anxious time as Military Registrar of Deeds, being, as he was, in charge of all the archives in the Deeds Office. Mr. Austin is a Fellow of the Royal Colonial Institute, and a member of the Society of Arts, London, and the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Philosophical Society of the Orange River Colony.

A Mason of many years, his lodge is the Rising Star, No. 1022, Bloemfontein. His clubs are the Bloemfontein and Ramblers'. His chief hobbies are Astronomy, Photography, and Gardening.

Footnote: Henry Boase AUSTIN died at the age of 85 on 5 June 1951 in Somerset West.

Source: Men of the Times, published by The Transvaal Publishing Company, Johannesburg, Cape Town & London, printed by Eyre and Spottiswood, His Majesty’s Printers, 1906, p.525