Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1854 (Creation)
Level of description
Fonds
Extent and medium
Manuscript, 72 pages, transcript
Context area
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Biographical history
James Lycett had been an “influential Freemason, businessman, prospector, hotelier (?) and amateur actor and manager.” In 1855, he again performed with a theatre company called the “Amateurs of Cape Town, 1848-1857.
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Scope and content
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.
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Notes area
Note
LEGEND
p1 L (left) or p1 R (right) - Transcription identifies pairs of pages in sequence but the journal does not number the pages.
xxx = illegible
[ ] = Guiguet comment
[? With words] = Guiguet guessing
Retained from the original text as follows:
Mr. C. is John Calvert
( ). The text sometimes gives (?)
( _____some brackets are opened but not closed – transcription shows this
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Punctuation – often lacks apostrophes, commas or periods.
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Archivist's note
The transcript of the diary was provided by Dr Kristina Guiget, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in 2024.