Full name: Carl Hugo Linsingen Hahn (his mother’s maiden name was von Linsingen)

Born: Paarl, 7 January 1886. According to the church register, he was born in Paarl, but according to a passport application, made in 1947, he was born in Karibib in South West Africa (now Namibia). His father, the Rev. Carl Hugo Hahn of the Lutheran Church, was in Paarl from 1883 to 1921. He was baptised in Paarl. On his wife’s passport application, a decade before his, his place of birth is given as Paarl.

Deceased: Grootfontein, Namibia, 27 September 1948

Clubs: Pirates, Hamiltons

Province: Transvaal

International career: 1910: 3 tests

Hudie Hahn’s grandfather, Carl Hugo Hahn, was born near Riga in Livland in 1818. He went to Germany and joined the Rhenish Mission Society. After ordination he went to South West Africa to work amongst the Hereros, where he established himself with Chief Jonker Afrikaner in Windhoek in 1842. He was active in the field of linguistics. He left the Rhenish Mission Society’s service in 1873 and went to Paarl. He died in Cape Town on 24 November 1895.

His son, the Rev. Carl Hugo Hahn, was born at Reheboth in South West Africa in 1846. He was a minister in Cape Town and then at Paarl. He was educated in Germany, joined the Rhenish Mission Society, but left it and went to Cape Town in 1875, where he assisted his father. From 1883 to 1921 he ran a parish in Paarl. He died in Gordon’s Bay on 29 October 1933. His wife was of German extraction. They had ten children. His maternal grandfather, Baron von Linsingen, died in one of the Frontier Wars.

In World War I Hudie Hahn, who was also called Cocky, joined the Imperial Light Horse in which he held the rank of Major. From 1920 to 1926 he was the Native Commissioner in Ovamboland and in 1947 he served on the Public Services Commission in Windhoek. He was twice part of a Union of South Africa delegation to the United Nations. His wife was the daughter of the Anglican Bishop of Damaraland.

He was a fast wing three-quarter in his playing days and played in all three tests against Tommy Smyth’s 1910 British Isles tourists.