Jan Christian Smuts was born on the 24 May 1870, on the farm Ongegund in the district of Riebeeck West, near Cape Town. He was educated at Victoria College in Stellenbosch and studied law at Cambridge in the UK. He returned to South Africa after his studies at Cambridge in 1895. In June 1898, Smuts was appointed State Attorney for the Zuid-Afrikaanche Republik.

He must have been one of the most intelligent creatures to wonder the face of the earth as he taught himself to read and write the Greek language in seven days, this in anticipation of a visit to Greece. During his life-time he was awarded twenty-nine degrees from different universities throughout the world.

After the start of the Boer War and the fall of Pretoria in June 1900, Smuts took to the field and led a Boer unit in the area of Vereeniging and Potchefstroom. He also lead an expedition into the Cape Colony and he and his men operated mostly in the western part of Cape Colony. The towns of Springbok and Concordia were taken and O’Okiep was placed under siege. Smuts participated in the peace meetings at Vereeniging and was there when the surrender was signed at the end of May 1902.

After the elections of February 1907, he was appointed Minister of Education and colonial secretary in the Botha government. In May 1910, the Union of South Africa was achieved under a constitution he helped to write. He was also Minister of Interior, Defence and Mines in the first Union Cabinet. Due to his reconciliatory attitude towards the English, he was unpopular with his kinsmen. He also antagonized Afrikaner Nationalists by not reprieving Jopie Fourie, the only rebel executed after a failed Boer rebellion in 1914-1915.

When WWI started, the British government thought it desirable if the South African forces could capture German South West Africa and destroy the powerful wireless transmitters there.

Before joining the war on the British side, Premier Botha and Smuts had to put down an open rebellion in South Africa by units of their armed forces and some influential veterans of the Boer War. In February 1916, now Lieutenant-General Smuts, took command of the Allied forces in East Africa. Here he entered the chase for German Colonel Paul Lettow-Vorbeck who managed to evaded capture until the end of the war.

In January 1917 Lieutenant-General Smuts left for England where he had been appointed a member of the Imperial War Cabinet. He resigned from this position in December 1918. In 1919 he attended the Paris Peace Conference with Premier Botha and, following Botha's death, became Prime Minister of the Union. In 1921 he merged the Union Party and the South African Party and strengthened his power base. Due to his severe handling of the Rand Rebellion in 1922 he lost the next election, in 1924, to J. B. M. Hertzog and his National Party (NP). In 1933 Smuts became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice under Premier J.B.M. Hertzog. Their coalition led to the formation of the United Party in 1934.

In September 1939 he was again Premier and Commander-in-Chief of the South African and Rhodesian Forces from 1940-1945. In September 1941 he was awarded the rank of Field Marshal by the British. At the war’s end, in Europe in May 1945, Premier Smuts was in San Francisco working with other delegates on the United Nations Charter. In 1948, support for the NP under Dr D. F. Malan grew and the United Party was defeated in elections held in the same year. Thus ending his political career. He then retired to his home in Pretoria.

Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts died at home in Irene near Pretoria on 11 September 1950. He was buried with full military honours in Pretoria.

Recognition for his service to the British Empire he is one of two South Africans to be honoured with a statue by the British, this can be seen in Parliament Square, London. The other South African is Nelson Mandela.