Lieutenant Francis Alan SHEPSTONE
Reserve of Officers

Date of birth: 25th April 1879
Date of death: 12th March 1952

Died aged 72
Unknown
Francis "Frank" Alan Shepstone was born at Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu Natal in South Africa on the 25th of April 1879 the son of Theophilus Shepstone CMG and Helen Louisa Maude (nee Bisset) Shepstone of Pietermaritzburg in South Africa.

He was educated at Maritzburg College, Pietermaritzburg from the 4th of February 1889 to the 20th of October 1890 where he was described as "Clever but flighty". He moved to England where he was educated at Hazelwood School until April 1893 when he went on to Glenalmond College but left in December 1895 for Harrow School, where he was in The Grove from January 1896 to July 1897.

He served in the South African War from 1899 to 1902 with Plumer’s Rhodesian Regiment and with the Rhodesia Horse being promoted to Staff Lieutenant while serving as a Railway Staff Officer on the 5th of October 1900. He relinquished his rank on the 1st of June 1901 and was granted the rank of Honorary Lieutenant in the Reserve of Officers.

He remained in South Africa at the end of the war where he became a member of the Inner Temple in 1905, was appointed as a King's Counsel and practised as a barrister in Natal. He served as an Advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa in the Transvaal and Natal Provincial Divisions.

He was married to Marjorie Somerville (nee Sinclair) on the 16th of December 1911 at Berea, Durban in Natal; they had two daughters, Heloise Maude Dixon born on the 20th of September 1913 and Frances Helen Elizabeth born on the 9th of May 1918; they lived at Howick in Natal.

He was appointed as a Judge of the Native High Court, Natal on the 16th of March 1934 and retired in 1944.

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