Sir Henry Binns, KCMG (27 June 1837 – 6 June 1899) was Prime Minister of the Colony of Natal from 5 October 1897 – 8 June 1899. Life Born into a Quaker family (the Binns family) in Sunderland, County Durham on 27 June 1837, he was the eldest son of Henry Binns (a leading member of the Chartist Movement) and Elizabeth Bowron. He attended Ackworth School in Pontefract, Yorkshire, from 1847 to 1852, before completing his education in York. Henry Binns emigrated to Natal, British South East Africa in 1858. Not long after his arrival in the colony, he turned out to play for the "Champions of Durban" against the Maritzburg Cricket Club on 2 May 1860 in what has been described as 'the first major cricket match' to have been played in Durban. Commissioned as the first adjutant of the Victoria Mounted Rifles in 1862, Binns took command of the volunteer unit (which was subsumed into the Natal Mounted Rifles in 1888) in 1875. He established himself in the sugar industry – owning the Sunderland estate and setting up the Umhlanga Valley Sugar Estate Company together with Robert Acutt in 1868 – before being appointed by Sir Garnet Wolseley (Garnet Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley) as a nominated member of the colony's Legislative Council in 1879. When the council was transformed into an elective assembly in 1883, Binns was elected member for Victoria County – originally by a majority of only one vote – retaining his seat until his death, 16 years later . An account published in the Natal Witness newspaper in 1963 described Binns, the legislator, as 'having a caustic manner in the Natal Parliament and his clashes with the Colonial Secretary became almost legendary. Both were masters of an eye-glass and the pantomimic use of these was always worth watching. The method of brandishing the eye-glass was usually a forerunner of what sort of retort was coming.' Elsewhere he has been described as 'a pungent speaker, who rarely wasted words'. One of his most important achievements as a member of the Legislative Council before the grant of responsible government in 1893 was his role in obtaining the extension of the Natal Government Railways line to Harrismith in the neighbouring Orange Free State republic. Binns was later appointed by the Legislative Council to lead a delegation to India in 1894 to obtain the approval of the Indian Government