These papers contain the document entitled "Copy of the whole proceedings on the trial of John Mills, Will. Guttridge, John Newberry and William Laws for piracy, held at the Government house on the 26th, 28th & 29th days of June and on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th & 6th days of July 1798. His Excellency George, Earl of Macartney, President of the Court".

Certified a true copy by George Rex, Crown Advocate. Mill, Newberry and Laws were sentenced to death by the Court.

The collection consist of articles, reports and talks by Ellen Hellman, as well as letters, booklets and press clippings. Also included are photographs, which were taken by Ellen Hellmann, and which often accompanied her research and reports.

Correspondence, personal documents, biographical notes, memoranda, photographs and a scrap-book relating primarily to the acquisition of his Africana library, its transfer to the University of the Witwatersrand and destruction by fire in 1931 and to his voyage round the world in 1932-1933 to try and make good his losses. Correspondence is mainly with H.R. Raikes, Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand, but other correspondents include Sir William Dalrymple, M.W. Gray, J.D. Rheinallt Jones, P.W. Laidler, J.H. Pim and General J.C. Smuts.

Also correspondence of Dr. P.H. Butterfield re., his biography of Dr. Gubbins.

Contains correspondence, circulars, telegrams, orders, duty and occurrence books, patrol reports, case dockets, charge sheets, lost and found lists, returns and statements.
Subjects are poll and dog tax, stock disease and theft, crime, registration of voters, agricultural census and the administration of the police at Van Reenen.

Arthur Aaron Boss (1861-1955) was a soldier and stockbroker. His diary, dated 22 February - 29 June 1879, relates to the campaign against Chief Morosi, the taking of the mountain and death of the Chief which resulted in the decline of the Baphuti tribe. It is accompanied by a plan of the mountain, a typscript of the diary by Dr P.H. Butterfield (30 pages) and an article on the campaign in The Star, 29 June 1929. The original can be found in the Johannesburg Public Library.

The collection almost entirely contains handwritten notes for speeches, talks and addresses. Dr Mary McLarty was a Transvaal Provincial Councillor and educationist, and the speeches are prepared in that capacity. Apart from politics, she was vastly interested in education, churches, Hospitals and nursing, girl guides, the role of women and adolescents, race relations and literary subjects, plus a range of notes on various places of the world.

The Humphreys collection includes historical photographs concerning mining, the Anglo Boer War, early Johannesburg, amongst others. Most of the photographs formed part of Humphreys Collection of Africana. The photographs were given to Historical Papers by the Gubbins Africana Library in 1999, and have been added to the existing Humphreys collection of papers. There are loose photographs, albums, images on glass, filmstrips, postcards, and negatives on film and on glass.

The photographs have been sorted and most are stored with the photographic collections, unless indicated otherwise. Some duplicates and some photographs of limited interest have been grouped in their categories and stored with the original collection of papers.

The photographs taken by the Barnett brothers are Copyright 'The Star' newspaper.