George Thompson, who arrived in the Cape about 1818, was a successful merchant in Cape Town. He married a Dutch woman and travelled widely in southern Africa in the early years of the 19th century. Much of this travelling was to expand the business of his company amongst the 1820 settlers of the Eastern Cape. He also travelled up to Kuruman and across to the Augrabies Falls on the Orange River.
Paravicini di Capelli was an artillery-captain at the time of the Batavian Republic and aide-de-camp of the Cape governor, General Jan Willem Janssens. He travelled with the governor into the interior, keeping an official journal as well as his own, and was active in preparations of the Cape against attack by the British, travelling widely during this period. In 1804 he returned to Holland.
Stanford's second volume of reminiscences records his life in Pondoland as chief magistrate, up to its annexation, the impact of the South African War, the creation of Ndabeni, Cape Town's first location and the Native Affairs Commission of 1904.
Joseph Tindall, a Wesleyan missionary, worked in South-West Africa, initially with Jonker Afrikaner in Damaraland. His journal includes much information about local customs and conflicts between Damara groups. This work lacks the usual historical introduction.
Sir Walter Stanford served for many years in the Native Affairs Department of the Cape Colony, retiring in 1907, when he began to write his memoirs. This first volume describes his youth, education at Lovedale College and his work in the Native Affairs Department during the 1870s, concluding with the Cape Native Laws and Customs Commission in 1881-3.
Dr Theodor Wangemann was a director of the Berlin Missionary Society who came out to South Africa in 1866 to visit the mission stations throughout the country. This work, one of several which Wangemann wrote and a typical example of nineteenth-century German missionary literature, describes mission work in the Lydenburg district of the northern Transvaal.
Archdeacon Merriman was appointed Archdeacon of Grahamstown by Bishop Robert Gray in 1848. his instructions were to expand the church in the Eastern Cape by establishing new congregations and building churches in the small townships. He was to 'awaken 'religious instincts long dormant through lack of opportunity' and to 'preach to barbarous people the saving grace of Christianity.' In accomplishing these goals he travelled widely throughout the eastern frontier regions of the Cape Colony, commenting on Dutch and British settlers and meeting many of the Xhosa leaders.
Andrew Smith, a British doctor, journeyed to Natal in 1832, ostensibly for scientific purposes, but almost certainly operating under instructions. The text includes an account of his visit to Dingane and notes on the different tribal groups which he encountered, the Cape Town Merchants' Memorial of 1835 and some of the records of the South African Land and Emigration Association
Gerald McKiernan was an American trader, operating in South West Africa in the last decade before German colonial rule. The manuscript consists of a narrative of 5 years' travel in Africa, from 1875 to 1879, and a diary which he kept from 1877 to 1879. The author travelled widely, probably reaching well into Angola.
This volume is a companion to The Wreck of the Grosvenor, published by the VRS in 1927. It includes various accounts of the wreck, the journal of William Hubberly, a survivor of the wreck, as well as some Dutch material on the event. The volume concludes with a full list of the ship's company and passengers.
