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.