John Charles Molteno - Later Life and Family

Later Life and Family

In person, Molteno was described as straight-talking and good-natured, with an easy laugh and a mischievous smile; politically outspoken and vigilant. His strongest political opponents on the other hand, accused him of being fierce, stubborn, and too much influenced by Saul Solomon (a liberal MP whom Molteno held in high regard). In Lord De Villiers’s biography he is summed up as "a fighter, who did not mind hard knocks, as long as he could return them."

Molteno was unusually tall and powerfully built. In Southern Africa he acquired the nickname the "Lion of Beaufort", though his British opponents reputedly referred to him in private as the "Beaufort Boer". The nicknames were both reportedly due to his deep booming voice, his height, and the large beard he grew in later life.
The Dictionary of National Biography adds "Sir John Molteno was a man of commanding presence and great physical strength. In private life, he was of most simple and unostentatious habits."

Molteno was married three times and had a total of nineteen children, founding a large and influential South African family. His immediate descendents included politicians & members of parliament, shipping magnates and exporters, military leaders, suffragists and anti-Apartheid activists.

Although born and raised a Catholic, Molteno was tight-lipped on the subject of his religious beliefs (Unusually so for a man known to be frank and direct). According to his son and biographer, he disliked denominations and was a freethinker.

The "Lion of Beaufort" died on 1 September 1886 and was interred at St Saviour's in Claremont, Cape Town.

The town of Molteno, in the Stormberg Mountains of South Africa, is named after him.