The office of veldkornet (field cornet) in the Cape Colony
reference (encyclopaedic) · consulted 2026-07-31
- Type
- reference (encyclopaedic)
- Repository
- Wikipedia; Dictionary of South African English; ancestors.co.za
- Consulted
- 2026-07-31
The citation as it was given
Background for the ward names that appear on every diagram in this project. The veldkornet was a civilian officer of a ward (wyk) within a drostdy district, subordinate to the landdrost and acting as his representative: head of the local militia, justice of the peace, road supervisor, game conservator, stock inspector, proclaimer of laws and coroner; he kept the population register, took the census of people, stock and taxable assets, COLLECTED THE QUITRENT, could apprehend without warrant, and was the official channel of communication between government and inhabitants. TERTIARY. The point for this project is that the ward officer is why a farm diagram names a man at all: he was the person who knew both the ground and who was on it. [TO VERIFY]
Kept verbatim. This project contradicts published genealogies and corrects a family's own oral tradition, so every claim has to be checkable by someone who was not in the room.
Nothing in the model cites this source yet.