John Xavier Merriman (15 March 1841 – 1 August 1926) was the last prime minister of the Cape Colony before the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. Early life He was born in Street, Somerset, England. His parents were Nathaniel James Merriman, curate of the parish of Street and later third Bishop of Grahamstown, and his wife Julia Potter, aunt of John Gerald Potter. He emigrated to the Cape Colony with his parents in 1849, aged 8. He was educated at the Diocesan College in Rondebosch, Cape Town, and then at Radley College in England. He returned to South Africa in 1861 and entered politics in 1869. At the time politicians normally needed to rely on a supplementary career for income, and Merriman found a secure secondary occupation as a wine farmer at Schoongezicht, Stellenbosch, after having unsuccessfully tried a range of different professions, from surveyor to prospector to factory manager to merchant. Political career The "great object" of Merriman's life was parliament, and his parliamentary career (over 50 years) was one of the longest in Cape history. During this time he gained a reputation for great eloquence, elegant epithet and a brilliant wit, but also for erratic volatility with dramatic changes in his views. Responsible Government (1869–1878) At the time that he entered parliament, the Cape Colony was in the transition stage of representative government. In the Cape Parliament, he represented, firstly the district of Namaqualand, then Wodehouse and finally Victoria West. He began his career as a conservative and an opponent of "Responsible Government" (government by an elected or "responsible" executive, rather than an appointed one), until it was successfully attained for the Cape Colony in 1872. He then became a leader of the opposition to the Cape's first elected government. By 1875 however, he had converted completely, and the leader of the responsible government movement, now the Cape's first Prime Minister, John Molteno, recognised the young Merriman's competency and invited him to serve in his cabinet. He thus served in the Molteno government from 1875 to 1878, where he oversaw the biggest expansion of infrastructure that the Cape had ever undergone. Merriman's extraordinary gift for administration later led Molteno to trust him with pushing ahead the Cape's new railway and telegraph systems, in piloting the first South African Irrigation Act (1877) through parliament, and in protecting the Cape's internal affairs from any British government