With an Introduction by Nicolas Barker, the book also includes Lady Anne Barnard’s Panorama of Cape Town, published in full colour, as a foldout, measuring 1.2 meters long. Now for the first time, some 200 years after Lady Anne selected and bound up her sketches and watercolours, the entire series is published in full colour by the kind permission of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres. These watercolours convey a vivid and enthralling picture of the Cape landscape, architecture, inhabitants and natural history at the end of the 18th century. Limited to 1000 copies only, the book will be welcomed by artists, art enthusiasts and historians alike.
OLD NECTAR, A Garden for all Seasons
Una van der Spuy is one of South Africa’s best-known gardeners, the author of nine gardening books, and the garden she has created at her home in the Jonkershoek Valley near Stellenbosch, has been visited and admired for decades. Now an irrepressible 97, van der Spuy has distilled a lifetime of knowledge and experience in this volume about her famous garden, which, as well as being a National Monument, features regularly in overseas books and magazines. Old Nectar, illustrated with some 200 photographs, shows off the several different gardens that make up Una van der Spuy’s creation and provides a wealth of information that will help readers choose plants to suit their particular climatic conditions.
Preserving A House, Jos Baker
Many of us have visited the delightful cottage, Klein Zoar, and been entertained by Jos and her fund of interesting, hilarious and romantic stories about the house and it’s history. Now Jos has produced a hard-cover coffee-table book detailing the history and the years of dedication given to the house by herself and her late husband David.
The book is available from Wordsworth and selected booksellers or signed copies can be ordered via Meriel Bartlett on (021) 434 4011. Cost R220 plus R15 p&p. Proceeds go to the NSRI.
Andrew Jones
Healers, Helpers and Hospitals
A History of Military medicine in the Anglo-Boer war Prof. J.C. (Kay) de Villiers
The Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902) was a “little war” fought in a remote corner of the British Empire. This conflict in Southern Africa, however, represented a watershed in military medicine, and the way armies take care of their soldiers in war. This extensive work covers all military medical aspects of the conflict: from the influence of Red Cross societies and foreign aid from Belgium, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, the United States of America and the Netherlands to the clinical aspects of military medical care. Healers, Helpers and Hospitals contributes to our canon on this war which continues to intrigue readers and historians from all over the world.
Tales of Shipwrecks at the Cape of Storms by John Gribble and Gabriel Athiros R250 from bookshops
In less than five hundred years more than two thousand ships have been consigned to a watery grave on the South African Coast and the number of souls lost untallied. Table Bay itself is littered with about four hundred wrecks, seventy of which are buried under the reclaimed land of the Foreshore.
Tales of Shipwrecks of the Cape of Storms records the intriguing stories of a few of these.
The Black Countess by Dr Richard van der Ross
Dr Richard ‘Dick’ van der Ross has done it again. After bringing out his introductory volume in 2005 on Cape Slavery Heritage entitled ‘Up from Slavery’, he has brought out a new book entitled ‘The Black Countess’. Here Dr van der Ross takes up the challenge from the brief summary of a story of Martha Solomons provided in the first volume. Martha Solomons, born to a slave mother, became Lady Grey, the Countess of Stamford, and the benefactor that made it possible to establish the Battswood Training College for teachers, who were descendents of slaves. Dr van der Ross was once the principal of Battswood. This book is the in-depth story of the life and times and genealogy of Martha and Harry Grey.
The Palace by Boet Dommisse
The Palace is a companion volume to Admiralty House - Simon’s Town, also by Boet Dommisse. Both buildings date from the 1780s when they constituted the Widow Hurter’s Lodging House and Annex. The origin of the name itself reflects the flamboyant time in its history, and is in sharp contrast to the sad role it played as a hospital during the Anglo Boer War. The story continues as the Palace became an army barracks through two World Wars, and later recalls the experiences of young naval officers who lived there more recently. Finally the recent restoration, under the auspices of the South African Navy, is described in detail.
The book is available from good bookshops, or direct from the author for @ R250 incl p&p. Please phone Mr Dommisse on 021 786 1147.
Port Elizabeth by Margaret Harradine This book contains chronological historical information, with old photographs on alternate pages. Sells for R250.
Hills Covered with Cottages by Margaret Harradine This book contains old photographs which the author collected over many years in her capacity as head of the historical section of the Port Elizabeth Library. The book is the size of a telephone directory and is crammed full of photographs of buildings, each identified with erf number and other information. Sells for R300.
Margaret Harradine is recognised as the local historical authority on matters pertaining to Port Elizabeth. Her two books are available at the Parsonage House Museum at No 7 Castle hill, Port Elizabeth (contact Grizel Hart at castlehill@isat.co.za)
The Gibson Brothers of the Red Star Line Author: Bernhard Louw 132 pp, soft cover in colour Price: R130 Published by JBZ Louw, PO Box 6480, Welgemoed 7538. belou@mweb.co.za Tel.: 082 787 8702/021 913 8266. Order from the publisher Also available in Afrikaans
Synopsis: This privately published non-fiction book is a valuable addition to South African historical writing and traces the remarkable success of three exceptionally enterprising young Englishmen who, with little capital, came to South Africa in the 1870’s and successfully established a mail-coach enterprise that became the largest privately-owned transport business in the country in the exciting diamond and gold-rush days of South Africa.
Throughout its history South Africa has afforded enterprising people opportunities to excel and the story of the Gibson brothers and The Red Star Line is an outstanding example of this. Soon after arriving in South Africa in 1871 two of the Gibson brothers acquired a cape cart and set out on the long journey to the diamond fields, completely ignorant of the roads or watering places for their horses, where they arrived after 23 arduous days and shortly after diamonds had been discovered at Colesberg Kopje. This journey already tells us something about these exceptional young entrepreneurs.
Together with their third brother they first founded a mail-coach business – the Red Star Line – to transport passengers, mail and freight between Wellington and Kimberley and the gold fields of the Eastern Transvaal and later, the Witwatersrand. They also established a public tram service in Kimberley and, at the turn of the 19th century, acquired the ‘Sea Point Railway’. From transport they diversified into urban property development and established ‘Park Estate’ – a residential area in present day Observatory, Cape Town – where they built numerous elegant houses. And finally they established a model cattle farm, strategically situated on the Jukskei River near the present-day hub of Sandton, in Gauteng, with some of the finest breeding stock imported from Holland and England.
Although the Gibson brothers retained close ties with their country of origin, their descendants, including some who very successfully followed in their footsteps, remain firmly rooted in the soil of Africa to this day.
About the author Dr Bernhard Louw, who documented and published the history of the Zulch family in South Africa a decade ago, has a particular interest in history and genealogy and is a former teacher who later became Director-General of National Education. He also spent several years in the private sector before finally retiring from the post of General Secretary of the South African Academy of Arts and Science in 2000.
