Grobler was the brother-in-law of
Andries Potgieter, a leader of the
Great Trek and thus he followed him in 1838 into the Transvaal region. He was the first
Landdrost in both
Potchefstroom as well as
Ohrigstad and in 1852 he was one of the signatories of the
Sand River Convention, which recognised
Transvaal independence from Britain. He was elected to
Volksraad, and served several times as the
Chairman of Volksraad.
Presidency In 1860, Grobler became the acting President of the Executive Council of the South African Republic due to the declaration by the
Volksraad (parliament) that
Marthinus Wessel Pretorius was not allowed to be the simultaneous president of the
South African Republic as well as the
Orange Free State. In December of the same year, Grobler was ousted in a coup d'état by
Stephanus Schoeman which was the catalyst for the
Transvaal Civil War which eventually led to the defeat of Schoeman by
Paul Kruger. Grobler died in 1876 on his farm called Waterval in the Rustenburg District of the ZAR. == See also ==