Recent Activities

As part of its wish to make HiPSA known to a new generation of historians, the society sponsored prizes of two HiPSA volumes for the best history essays by first-year students in the UP Department of Historical and Heritage Studies. Details of the awards held on 3 May 2023 are below. Congratulations to the two winners! We hope this [...]

HiPSA Exco member Prof Chris van der Merwe is currently attending the Vrystaat/Free State Kunstefees/Arts Festival in Bloemfontein (2-8 October 2022). On display is our volume "Selections from the Letters of President M T Steyn 1904–1910"; edited by Con de Wet and Elizabeth van Heyningen; translated by Chris van der Merwe (VRS series II-48 (2017) - see [...]

On 29 September 2022, our Chairman Prof Howard Phillips gave a keynote address to the South African Society for History Teaching in Genadendal (organised by Dr Francois Cleophas, a member of HiPSA's Council) on the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. The global pandemic reached deep into South Africa, including the village of Genadendal, and left its mark on it [...]

The South African Historical Society held its annual conference in East London on 28 - 30 June 2022. The conference was attended by the Chairman of HiPSA, Prof Howard Phillips who arranged a display of HiPSA publications. If you look carefully, you will see advance copies of our 2022 volume ICU ‘I See You’: The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union [...]

David Culpin, editor of "Francois Le Vaillant: Travels into the Interior of Africa via the Cape of Good Hope" Volume II, gave a lecture on Le Vaillant at the Academie Francaise in Cape Town on 9 March 2022. The 50 socially-distanced chairs were all filled, some by HiPSA members who had been invited to attend. We sold several [...]

This year's volume, Francois Le Vaillant: Travels into the interior of Africa via the Cape of Good Hope Vol II, was launched for a second time at the Plettenberg Bay History Festival held on 25/26 February 2022. The editor, Professor David Culpin, gave a lecture on Le Vaillant during this occasion. The photo below shows Culpin talking at the launch, [...]

The 2020 publication by HiPSA, Volume III-2 Sol T Plaatje: a life in letters, edited by Brian Willan and Sabata-mpho Mokae, won the 2021 S.A. Literary Award in the Creative Non-Fiction Category. Both editors paid a special tribute to HiPSA, Sabata-mpho Mokae saying, ‘Thank you for your decision to publish the book and your support throughout the [...]

Historical Publications Southern Africa regularly donates some of our volumes to the History departments of various Universities as book prizes for deserving students. On 30 April 2021 the prize for the best History essay by a first-year student in the Department of Historical and Heritage Studies at the University of Pretoria was awarded to Ms Shemara Nalimuthu. The prize was [...]

A wildfire that started on the slopes of Table Mountain on Sunday, 18 April 2021 swept across the upper campus of the University of Cape Town ravaging the Jagger library, which bore the brunt of the devastation. The University of Cape Town’s Jagger Reading Room was left in ruins. (Photo: Gallo Images / Die Burger / Jaco Marais) [...]

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic our Society's publication In a time of plague: Memories of the “Spanish” flu epidemic of 1918 in South Africa has become very topical. A substantial number of reviews of the publication, edited by Prof Howard Phillips, have recently appeared in journals and newspapers as well as on-line. The latest review by Elsabe Brits [...]

REPORT OBTAINED FROM RHODES UNIVERSITY WEBSITE (https://www.ru.ac.za/) Dr Shell presenting Dr Cornelius with a copy On 18 February 2020, the Cory Library hosted the launch of Indoda Ebisithanda (The Man Who Loved Us): The Reverend James Laing among the amaXhosa 1831-1836, edited by Dr Sandy Shell, Senior Research Associate at Cory Library. This volume was compiled from the journals [...]

A new Council of the Society was elected on 27 November 2019 and held its first meeting on 10 February 2020. The members of Council appear in the photo below HiPSA Council (10 Feb 2020) Back row from the left: Mr Rolf Proske, Mr Andrew Duncan, Prof  Susan Newton-King, Dr Anton Ehlers, Dr Russell Martin, Mr [...]

On 17 March 2018, in a somewhat cramped Protea bookshop on a hot Stellenbosch morning Francois Cleophas, Elizabeth van Heyningen, Chris van der Merwe and Con de Wet presented a thoroughly interesting talk on the 2017 volume, Selections from the Letters of President M.T. Steyn, 1904-1910. There was a small but very engaged audience present. A call to join the [...]

The 98th AGM was a momentous occasion as the great majority of the members present, as well as others voting by proxy, decided that the time has come to change the name of the Van Riebeeck Society. The name was originally chosen as a compromise and an attempt at unifying the Dutch/Afrikaans and English groups in the country. The [...]

The VRS has won the prestigious Archives Advocacy Award for 2016-2017 presented annually by the Western Cape’s Department of Cultural Affairs. The citation for the award reads: "The Van Riebeeck Society, founded in 1918, has done a lot of good work over many years promoting archives by publishing transcribed primary sources. In this way, the society has made available archival [...]