J.H. Meyer

J.H. Meyer (born 1899) was a magistrate and an Afrikaans playwright.

Biography

Born Jan Hendrik Meyer on 27 June 1899 on the farm Platjiesdrift in the district of Humansdorp, as one of seventeen children to Cornelius Meyer en Martha Maria Munro. He was educated on the farm school and later attended the school in Humansdorp, where he matriculated. In 1918 he joined the civil service, evewnually becoming a magistrate. He served in various places, eventually settling in Boshof in the Orange Free State.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

He started out writing poems as a schoolboy, which he recited at the local debating society, but later shifted to plays. Using the nom de plume of Meyhendi Zhann he wrote a number of pieces, most of them unpublished. The two published works are Wanneer Plig Moet Swig ("When duty must give way", published 1933) and Gedwarsboom ("thwarted", published 1935).