Reformer, noun

Forms:
Occasionally with small initial.
Origin:
EnglishShow more Reform + English agential suffix -er.
historical
A member of the Reform Committee (see Reform sense a); Reform Committeeman, see Reform sense a.
1896 P.A. Molteno Sel. from Correspondence (1981) 31The generosity of the Transvaal Executive in releasing the bulk of the Reformers ought to have an excellent effect.
1897 F.R. Statham S. Afr. as It Is 299However anxious the reformers might be to exchange shots with some hostile force, and thus raise a plea for British intervention, there was no one to oblige them.
1899 J.P. Fitzpatrick Tvl from Within 263The period of gaol life afforded the Reformers some opportunity of studying a department of the Transvaal Administration which they had not before realized to be so badly in need of reform.
1914 Rand Daily Mail 17 Dec. 1If President Kruger’s Government ought to have pulled the ‘reformers’ and those connected with the ‘Jamieson [sic] Raid’, against the ‘wall’, then General Botha would be wrong in making this appeal.
1924 L. Cohen Reminisc. of Jhb. 126It has often been asked if the four Reformers condemned to death were ever in serious peril of being hanged. I should think at one time they were in a position of the greatest danger...What saved the Reformers was Paul Kruger’s horror of blood-guiltiness.
1926 M. Nathan S. Afr. from Within 14In 1896..President Kruger commuted the death sentences of the leading ‘Reformers’ at Johannesburg.
1972 Std Encycl. of Sn Afr. VI. 181Sixty of the Reformers were arrested and pleaded guilty to charges of high treason.
1989 J. Crwys-Williams S. Afr. Despatches 94Younghusband kept himself aloof from the intrigue, but allowed himself to be persuaded by the Reformers, whose ardour towards the armed uprising in Johannesburg was cooling rapidly, to go to Cape Town, see Cecil Rhodes and persuade him to postpone the raid.
A member of the Reform Committee (see Reform sense a); Reform Committeeman, see Reform sense a.
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

18961989

Browse Related Words

By Category

Colonial
Organisations Parties and Movements

By Origin

English

By Usage

historical
Reformed, adjectiveadj.refugee camp, noun phrasen. phr.
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary Unit for South African English