Long-time residents of Durban will join those of us who knew him in mourning the passing of Peter Mansfield, politician turned Metro Manager and, finally, internet entrepreneur. Among his close friends was the BizNews tribe’s favourite columnist, RW Johnson, who opens a window into their special relationship in the piece below. My role in the Mansfield journey was a bit-part that goes back to 2009 when, as the owner of Moneyweb, I approached him to partner with his then-successful fledgling internet ventures health spas.co.za and All4women.co.za. It was a lengthy courtship, Peter finally selling his 70% stake in the business in 2017 to Caxton, which had acquired control of Moneyweb in 2012. We stayed in touch. He was one of the earliest BizNews Premium subscribers and, sporadically, a source of ideas and encouragement. We often regret hearing of the passing of an overachiever of one’s acquaintance. Mine is not having made the time to know Peter Mansfield better. Especially after reading RWJ’s brutally honest piece. – Alec Hogg
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By R.W. Johnson ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
I was a first year student at the University of Natal (Durban) when I first saw Peter Mansfield. The previous year the organisers of the Rag Relay (in which teams from UN-D and UN-Pmb raced one another from Pietermaritzburg to Durban) had invited the African and Indian students at the University’s City Buildings (the so-called UNNE – University of Natal Non European section) to participate and they had provided their own team, which acquitted itself well. But the National Party government had taken note and the relevant minister had now warned that if the University again broke the apartheid laws in this way, all their sporting teams would be banned from the leagues and competitions that they played in.
This produced a packed student meeting in which Peter, all alone, argued passionately that we couldn’t turn our backs on our fellow (black) students and must invite them again to run. He was sure the government was bluffing: they wouldn’t really want a big international scandal if they inflicted such sweeping revenge on sports men and women purely in the cause of racial segregation. But the campus conservatives, allied to the sportsmen, booed him and demanded that we “keep politics out of sport”. Over and over again Peter returned to the podium, pointing out that it was the government, not him, who were bringing politics into sport. It was a truly heroic lone performance, a clear demonstration that he held fast to his principles whatever the cost in unpopularity. He lost, of course.
Not long after Peter approached me and asked if I would join him in running for the Student Representative Council. We were already marked as liberals and only just scraped on. We became great friends and endlessly strategised, trying to push liberal goals past our generally unwilling and conservative student body. Despite this, Peter gradually rose to become a popular SRC President and later, a Vice President of NUSAS, the national union of students.
Peter’s father was a dairy farmer down at Ixopo and Peter was a graduate of Michaelhouse, an exclusive private school (which Peter cordially loathed). Given that he came from that background and was no intellectual, Peter might have been expected to be pretty conservative but he had arrived at his liberal principles essentially as a matter of humane good feeling. In addition he was a passionate and lifelong admirer of John F. Kennedy: when he heard of Kennedy’s death he wept publicly.
After graduation Peter stayed in Durban and was active in the Progressive Party, several times standing for Parliament. He was once declared elected only to lose on a recount, a farcical event which killed his parliamentary ambitions. Instead he devoted himself to Durban municipal politics, then dominated by a fairly sleepy and conservative United Party majority. Peter recruited other young helpers and took aim at many of these established UP councilors, blitzing them with activist campaigns and toppling several dozen of them.
The UP became the NRP and then faded away, leaving the council with a three-way split between the Progs, the Nats and extreme conservatives. Peter realised that there was no Prog majority and that there was a danger of driving that Nats into alliance with the far right, so he set up a small independent group which negotiated a Prog-Nat coalition deal whereby each party provided the mayor by turns. But Peter had realised that the mayoralty was essentially a symbolic office and instead he became the long-serving Chairman of the Management Committee – which actually ran the city.
Municipally, it was a golden age. Durban had never been so well run. Peter would work his way from department to department, sorting out long-standing problems and re-energising the staff. Alighting on the Parks dept, for example, he found morale low, called all the staff together, told them how important their work was and gave them a pay rise. He then made a point of visiting every park in turn, chatting to the staff, hearing any grievances, sorting out problems and encouraging everyone. The parks bloomed.
By the late 1980s he had become concerned at the decline of the inner city and asked me if I knew anything about exhibition/conference centres. I got all the brochures from the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre and we spread them out on the floor. “Just what we need”, Peter said and began to push through the International Conference Centre – entirely financed from the city’s own funds.
Then came De Klerk’s speech of 2 February 1990. Peter immediately set up a sort of shadow council composed 50-50 of IFP and ANC. He promised them that nothing would go through against their will but that it was essential that they learned how to govern the city since they would soon be in charge. This made everything very complex: each measure now had to be negotiated through the Prog-Nat coalition and the IFP/ANC chamber as well. Only Peter could have done it.
A particular problem was Mike Sutcliffe, one of the ANC leaders. “He just gets them to vote no to everything, it’s a conditioned reflex”, Pete said. In particular this halted all progress on the ICC. In the end Peter went to the ANC boss, Jeff Hadebe, and explained that it was vital, if he took over Durban, that there was a pipeline of projects coming his way. If he agreed to the ICC now, he would get the benefit later. Hadebe saw the point, over-ruled Sutcliffe and the ICC went ahead. It was a huge success. Throughout this period Peter lived on an expenses allowance of R3,500 a month. When the ANC took over Sutcliffe became City Manager – doing Peter’s job – with a salary of several million Rands a year.
When 1994 arrived, Peter announced he was stepping down. The city was in fine shape. Despite the huge expense of the ICC, Durban was one of the few large cities in the world with zero debt. The DP, IFP and ANC all asked Peter to run on their lists but he was adamant. All else apart he was now in his 50s, had no savings and realised he needed to make some money if he was ever to retire. “The future of business lies with the internet” he told me, “so I will set up an internet business”. What, I asked, did he know about the internet ? “Absolutely nothing”, he said.
Yet he did just that and soon there was a busy little office full of young women typing at computers and a clearly working business. I visited this office on many occasions. Peter often impressed on me how fragile the business was but after about ten years he sold it for a good price and retired in comfort. Meanwhile, under ANC rule Durban had become a cesspit of corruption and the city was not only heavily indebted but faced virtual bankruptcy. Peter grimaced at the news but said little.
Peter had always been attractive to women, had been married twice, with a daughter and a son, and there was a long succession of girl friends. But to his own great frustration he never seemed able to manage a permanent relationship. He spent a lot of time in therapy and analysis and reading psychological literature, trying to work this out. We often discussed it.
In the end he gave up and told me that when he was small his mother had repeatedly told him that she had never wanted to give birth to him or to have him as a child. “I guess if your own mother keeps on emphasising that you are unwanted, it’s pretty difficult ever to get over that”, he told me. “At any rate, I’ve now stopped trying to get over all that and I find I’m happy on my own.” It was very tragic. His mother had effectively ensured that he would never feel entirely trusting or comfortable with a woman. Yet I never heard Peter express any animus against his mother. His mother had denied him her love but at some level I don’t think he ever quite gave up hoping for that love.
We kept in touch to the very end. He died on 4 January 2025 and we had had a long, good phone conversation only two days before. Our friendship had lasted over 60 years. Peter was often not an easy man – he could be moody, there were long silences and some people found him difficult. I didn’t. To me he was always a fine and loyal friend, a warm companion and a man of great principle. From the time I first met him he was always concerned to serve the public and to show humanity to people of all races. He was completely honest and incorruptible.
I’ll never forget a trip to Namibia we made together in 1990. At one point we stopped in the middle of the desert and wandered down to a dried-up river bed. Peter was on a ledge higher up than me and he began to laugh: “I wouldn’t stay there too long”, he said. “We may have company.” I scrambled up and looked back. Everywhere around where I’d been standing were the footprints of a large lion. That rather summed Peter up to me: laughing in the face of danger.
Oddly, perhaps, it brought back memories of that Rag Relay debate all those years ago. Peter was a brave man, never scared to stand up for principle whatever the cost. He simply didn’t care if what he stood for made him disliked or unpopular. He was focused on getting things done, and getting them done right. He achieved a great deal and left many people in his debt. I was proud to be his friend.
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