Showing 60 results

Archival description
Only top-level descriptions With digital objects
Print preview View:

Abbe Nicolas Louis De La Caille, Notebook

  • ZA HPRA A892
  • Fonds
  • 1746 - 1754

The notebook contains observations made by De la Caille at the Cape and elsewhere; a list of expenses in connection with his observatory at St. Martin (Paris); and details of the mathematical basis for his calculations, including lists of formulae and trigonometrical proofs, used as an aide-memoire during his travels. There are calculations of some star coordinates, apparently made at the Cape, and, most important of all, a calculation of the difference in latitude between the Cape and Klipfontein for his determination of an arc of the meridian.

Nicolas Louis de la Caille

Sarah Anne Le Mesurier, Diary

  • ZA HPRA A26
  • Fonds
  • 19 April 1836 - 26 May 1843

In her diary she describes social activities in India and at the Cape of Good Hope. 44 pages relate to the Cape, where she was married on 19 April 1836, and where she and her husband stayed for two periods from 22 April to the 22 September 1836 and again from 9 February 1839 to the 17 September 1840.

Sarah Anne Le Mesurier

James Lycett, Journal

  • ZA HPRA A72
  • Fonds
  • 1854

Journey: August 8, 1854 – November 11, 1854

The James Lycett Journal describes a “Journey to Namaqualand from Cape Town, commenced on Tuesday August 8th, 1854 in company with J. Calvert Esq., Coachman John Southgate, and Daangie, a Hottentot” (p.1) Another man named March, described as a “Hottentot boy,” also travelled with them. The Journal ends on November 11, 1854, with Lycett alone in Hondeklip Bay.

The Lycett party was part of the Namaqualand copper boom of 1854, and crossed paths with other prospectors, local farmers, and some government officials, including Charles Davidson Bell, Surveyor General, and Dr. William Guybon Atherstone, who later reported on the geology of the region to the Government. Atherstone kept three notebooks of his 1854 trip to Namaqualand, which describe similar struggles of travel but offer a different perspective on the people he met - including John Calvert.

The Atherstone notebooks are held in the Albany Museum in Grahamstown (Makhanda) in the Section that used to be the Settler Museum. My thanks to Dr. Elizabeth van Heyningen, Honorary Research Associate [HRA], History Department, University of Stellenbosch, for this information.

Lycett, James

Diocese of Cape Town, Chronicle

  • ZA HPRA AB1159
  • Fonds
  • 1847 - 1865

Kept by Sophy Gray, the wife of Robert Gray, first Bishop of Cape Town, this volume contains the chronicle of the Province, together with an index. The entries were done in fine calligraphy.

Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA)

Caroline Douglas, Album

  • ZA HPRA A1080
  • Fonds
  • 1852 - 1868

The sketch book includes drawings of the Malays of Cape Town, Khoisan of Algoa Bay and Swellendam, Fingoes of Algoa Bay and Zulus of Natal. Also scenes such as an ox wagon on trek; Wynberg Church and the Botanical Garden, 1852; Umlass Lake, Natal; cartoons of M. Jourdan of Mauritius, 1868 and a flower painting of sparaxis.

Caroline Douglas

Constitution of the Church of the Province of South Africa

  • ZA HPRA AB2891
  • Fonds
  • 1870

Text of the original Constitution, inscribed by Sophia Gray, and signed and sealed by the Bishops of Cape Town, Grahamstown, St Helena and Maritzburg, amongst others.

Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA)

George Wyndham Hamilton Knight-Bruce, Diary

  • ZA HPRA AB265
  • Fonds
  • 23 May - 5 December 1888

George Wyndham Hamilton Knight-Bruce (1852-1896) was the Bishop of Bloemfontein (1886-1891) and the Bishop of Mashonaland (1891-1894).
His Diary contains the account of a pioneer trek through Mashonaland.

Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA)

Anthony, V.C. Booth, Papers

  • A1755
  • Fonds
  • 1879-1898

Anthony, V.C. Booth (Colour-Sergeant in the 80th Regiment)

Papers relating to the Battle of I Ntombi River during the Zulu War, 1879. Including: typed copy of a letter from Booth to his family, 14 March1879, describing the engagement in which he won the V.C.; interview with Booth published in The County Express, 9 April 1898; typed copy of a letter from Major C.Tucker to his father, 19 March 1879, describing the battle; hand-drawn plan of the battle; photograph of Booth and his family

Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje, Siege diary

  • ZA HPRA A2550
  • Fonds
  • 1899 - 1900

Handwritten diary of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje (1876-1932), interpreter, journalist, author and politician. The diary was written during the Siege of Mafeking, which took place during the South African War of 1899-1902. It contains the only known surviving written account of the Siege by an African. The first entry is dated Sunday, 29 October 1899, and the last entry Friday, 30March 1900.

The diary makes reference to entries in the Mafeking Mail, a newspaper which was published as a Special Siege Slip during the Siege of Mafeking from 1 November 1899 - 31 May 1900.

Further reference needs to be made to the Centenary Edition of "The Mafeking Diary of Sol T. Plaatje", edited by John Comaroff and Brian Willan with Solomon Molema and Andrew Reed, published in 1999:

The Centenary edition has been greatly improved from its first edition, providing the historical context around the diary, Sol Plaatje's life and the Siege of Mafeking during the Anglo-Boer war. At the same time it has included parts which the diary omits, and it explains circumstances and historical events around the diary:

1) A letter to which Sol Plaatje refers as "public property" in his entry of the 8 December 1899 in the text of his diary, and which he meant to reproduce, but which he omits thereafter. The letter was written by Colonel Baden-Powell to General Snyman, dated 8 December 1899, and it was reproduced in the Mafeking Mail on the 11 December 1899.

2) A document by Colonel Baden-Powell dealing with the writer's threat to penalize 'grumblers' when their compensation claims were considered after the siege, published in the Mafeking Mail, 29 March. The editors of the book chose to reproduce the document in full, following Plaatje's entry of Friday 30 March 1900, where he made reference to the document.

3) The entry for Friday 30 March 1900 is the last of Plaatje's diary. The editors of the book mention some further 20 sheets of blank paper remaining in the notebook in which the diary was written, which are no longer present.

4) The Introduction and Endnotes in the book mentions earlier notes, written on loose paper. One of these notes which has survived exists in the collection A979 of Silas Molema and Solomon Plaatje, in Aa3, General correspondence, 1916-1920. It is part of a page which contains a correspondence presumably written to Silas Molema, dated 28 November 1919, written in ink. The part related to Plaatje's notebook is written in pencil, and it has the page number 7 written above the text, which reads as follows: ".... applied these remarks in order to pull them together a bit. 'It will take them 12 months, shelling every day to completely destroy a town like [Mafeking]. They will only knock a house or two down. I saw some good rocks down at your place and if you remained behind them you are perfectly safe.' We spent some of the 48 hours in sleep, when it was night, and the balance in preparing shelters."

5) The last entry of 30 March 1900 is followed by a letter, which the editors of the book explain to be the copy of a letter from Plaatje to Isaiah Bud-M'belle, Plaatje's brother-in-law. Although undated it is said to have been written at the end of February 1900.

There are a further 3 pages which cannot be related to the diary but seem to originate from the same notebook.

Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

2-WB - Wernher & Beit Papers

  • ZA BWRMA BWRMA-2
  • recordgrp
  • 1800s-1900s

The collection contains to a large extent the correspondence with the London office. Please see the full listing in the inventory.

Barlow World Rand Mines Archive

Results 1 to 10 of 60