Gert Rudolph

Who was Gert Rudolph?

Gerhardus Jacobus Rudolph was the grandson of the South African Rudolph progenitor, Johan Bernhard Rudolph.

He was a member of a scouting expedition, set up by Piet Uys, which left the Eastern Cape Uitenhage and Albany area on 8 September 1834. Gert, as he was affectionately known, farmed together with Piet Uys in the Lower Bushmans River area of the Eastern Cape. Amongst the approximately 21 whites that made up the group were: the scout J.H. de Lange, Johannes Stephanus Maritz and two brothers of Piet Uys, the thirty-four-year-old Jacobus Johannes and the fifteen year-old Johannes Zacharias. The expedition wanted to establish if it was possible to acquire arable areas in Natal that could have been successfully farmed. At the same time it would also have been an adventurous hunting expedition that could have returned profitable gains.

Gert later was the leader of one of the Voortrekker groups to have left the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa to escape the British Colonization of the Cape of Good Hope as well as the continual cross border raids by the Xhosa to their north.

He was the first cousin of Gert Maritz, a well known Voortrekker leader in early Natal history.