Minutes of Trustees, Committee and Subscribers and copies of correspondence.

'Journal of a voyage from England to Bombay, China and the Cape of Good Hope in 1832 and 1833'

Describes his voyage as assistant surgeon on the 'Duchess of Atholl' in the service of the East India Company. Pages 398-433 relate to a visit to the Cape from 15-24 January 1833, in which he comments on the social life at the Cape, a visit to Mr. Cloete at Constantia to see his vineyards and cellars, and on George Thompson, the traveler.

The journal is illustrated with color drawings of the 'Duchess of Atholl' and the flags of the East India Company and pen and ink hand-drawn map of the Cape and geological sketch of the Mountain and Table Bay.

Poet, journalist and 1820 Settler

'Ten letters of Thomas Pringle (1826-1833) together with his The Desolate Valley: a South African Scene and The Wild Forester of Winterberg: a South African Ballad' 34p.

Correspondents are Mrs. W.B. Rawson, A. Watts and T. Wilson and the subjects of the correspondence are literature and the slavery question. 'The Desolate Valley' was published in African Sketches, London, Moxon, 1834 and 'The Wild Forester of Winterberg' under the title of 'The Forester of the Neutral Ground' in Afar in the desert, London, Longmans, 1881.

Originals are in the John Rylands Library, Manchester.

'Hottentot or Free Person of Colour: contract of hiring and service of husband and wife including children'.

Drawn up between T. Stringfellow of Grahamstown and Richard Dick, prize negro and his wife, whereby they agreed to serve as domestic servants for six months and to be paid fifteen shillings, plus food and lodging. Signed by T. Stringfellow and marks made by R. Dick and his wife in the presence of P. McRosty, Clerk of the Peace.

The papers consist 6 items probably relating to the period 1827-1834. There are prints of Lamb himself and of Christ's Hospital, a wash drawing of Lamb's house at Islington, a letter from Lamb to Thomas Pringle, page-proofs of Pringle's African sketches, London, Moxon, 1834 and a note in Lamb's handwriting attached to the proofs. The papers are of South African interest because of the Pringle proofs which contain manuscript revisions and comments by Lamb, Thomas Pringle (1789-1834) was a Scottish poet, 1820 settler to South Africa, librarian at Cape Town and co-founder with John Fairbairn of the South African Commercial Advertiser, who incurred the displeasure the governor Lord Charles Somerst because of his political writings and had to return to England in 1826. From then until his death he was secretary of the Anti-slavery Society and concentrated on his literary pursuits. Pringle is important as being the first poet to write in English on South African subjects.

In 1828 Pringle published Ephemerides: occasional poems written in Scotland and South Africa, Smith, Elder & Co. London.?.

Out of the 6 poems in the page proofs, 4 had been published in this volume. It appears that even after publication Pringle was willing to polish up and revise his poems. Not only did he submit them to Lamb for criticism but also to S.T. Coleridge. In the Quarterly Bulletin of the South African Library - Vol. 23 No. 3, March 1969; p. 68, -? Dr Lewin Robinson describes the Pringle page proofs, with manuscript revisions and corrections by Coleridge, which had been acquired by the South African Library at a Sotheby's auction in 1968.

The Lamb papers were bought in May 1972 by the Library from Francis Edwards, the London dealer. According to Dr Lewin Robinson the Lamb papers cane up for auction at Sotheby's in 1968 at the same time as the Coleridge papers. The provenance prior to this is lost, other than that Pringle's widow gave the proof sheets to Adam White (1817-1874), the British naturalist, according to notes by White in the papers.