The collection contains photocopies of some chapters from the book "Something to be told: A first history of St Alban's College, Pretoria".
There are also records about the predecessor of St Alban's College, being the St Birinus School, with photographs of staff and students.

Hydrographer, traveller and Captain in the Compagnie des Indes

'Efterretninger om seilatsen fra Frankerig til Indien' 1773. 147p. Ms vol.
A translation into Danish by Barthole Johan Lodde of the original pilot's guide, Memoire sur la navigation de France aux Indes, Paris 1765.
At the back of the leather-bound volume is a log-book (pp45-84) in Danish covering 30 July to 4 Oct.1786 and navigational notes, including a comment on Robben Island.

One of the original prospectors for gold on the Witwatersrand

Included are 8 ALS to Anna Swanepoel who afterwards became his wife; 2 Hg poems addressed to 'my dearly beloved Annie', and 6 other items relating to the family Bantjes. The letter-books cover the years 1887-1910 and contain copies of letters in Dutch and English relating to the flotation of mining syndicates and to Bantjes' work as Commandant of the Special Police in Johannesburg, 1900-1901. Also photograph of one of the first wagons to arrive on the Rand.

Professor of the History of Philosophy, University of Paris

'La signification du discours de la méthode': an address to the Descartes Tercentenary Celebration held by the Philosophical Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1937.

Accompanied by a translation into English by Dr. E.M. Papenfus and correspondence.

Catholic missionary

Bantu origins: the people and their language (238p. Ts vol.), published Cape Town, Struik, 1963 and The Zulu people as they were before the white man came (480p.2 Ts vols.) published Pietermaritzburg, Shuter, 1949.

Pioneer in Afrikaans literature

'Terug in lewe' deur Ben Busy [pseud.] An unpublished novel.

Journalist, newspaper editor and author

'Memoir of the life of William Howard Schröder, artist', 1894.
Ms and Ts drafts with galley proof of the 'Memoir' as printed in the Schröder Art Memento, 1894.

Professional soldier

Describes a game hunting expedition from Grahamstown to the Orange Free State, travelling via the Fish River, King William's Town, Frankfort, Queenstown, Burgersdorp, Reddersburg, Bloemfontein, Modder River, Winburg and Thaba Nchu. When an uprising broke out, Briggs joined a Boer commando under Louis Wessels which routed the attackers. Includes comments on meetings with Chiefs Sandile and Moroka and President Brand.

Published in Sotho war diaries 1864-1965, edited by K. Schoeman (Cape Town, Human & Rousseau, 1985).

Lady Anna D'Urban and Henrietta Margaretha D'Urban, wife and daughter of Sir Benjamin D'Urban, Governor of the Cape 1834-1838

Poetry, prose, epigrams, acrostics, music, scraps, silhouettes, playing cards, original paintings and sketches. The pictorial items relate to Antigua and British Guiana 1823-1829 and the Cape of Good Hope 1834-1840. There are holograph lines written by Sir Benjamin and Lady Anna D'Urban.

The Cape scenes include sketches by Sir J.E. Alexander, C.D. Bell, F.A. Campbell, J.S. Davison and A. Wylde and there are some flower paintings by M.A. Andrews, M. Schmid and some reputed to be by A. Roupell, author of Specimens of the flora of South Africa by A Lady, London, Nicol, 1849. Other pictorial material includes items on Gibraltar and Sardinia by C.W. Furlonge, a sporting scene by G. Hall, views of the bathing house on St. Vincent and India, together with European paintings by W.H. Piers.

Author of Natal en Nieuw gelderland, Arnhem, 1861

A free translation into Dutch, written in two copy books, of 'The early history of the Zulu-Kafir race of South Eastern Africa' by Sir Theophilus Shepstone, published in the Journal of the Society of Arts 29 Jan. 1875.