South Africa General

The Hardijzer Photographic Research Collection (HPRC) contains a considerable number of Cabinet Card format photographs of Anglo-Boer War soldiers, both Brit and Boer. Images in these formats are popular collector’s items, more so when the soldier whose likeness has been captured is known.

The Cabinet Card format photograph replaced the smaller Carte-de-Visite format photograph. The Cabinet Card format became the preferred photographic format produced by studios worldwide, also during the Anglo-Boer War.

The first South Africa-based photographer to have introduced the Cabinet Card format photograph was the Cape Town-based photographer SB Barnard (September 1867). This format only became universally adopted in 1868 and was in use until the early 1900s.

Ironically, even though introduced in 1867 in South Africa, the Cabinet Card only superseded the Carte-de-Visite format in South Africa from 1872 onwards. Although the popularity of this format waned internationally by the early 1900s, South African photographers used this format until the mid-1910s.

Once the photograph was captured and developed, it was pasted on a standard-sized cardboard (15.9 cm x 10.8 cm). The resultant Cabinet Card often contained the preprinted details of the photographer as well as the town where the studio was located. South African photographers mainly ordered these pre-printed cards from the UK or France.

During the Anglo-Boer War, soldiers, mainly British soldiers, had their likeness captured either before they left their hometowns in the United Kingdom, or whilst on South African soil, or their return home – these surviving images provide for a rich documentary military...

"The geographical map ... although static, implies a narrative; it is ... an Odyssey." Italo Calvino, Collezione di Sabbia, Milan 1984.

I had just completed cataloguing the Schrire Africana map collection of more than 600 items that had been dormant for almost half a century. Catalogues tend to be formal, technical and predictable. One of the maps was a scarce sea chart (see main image and click here for a high res version) I had not seen before and that was not mentioned in any of the reference books on maps of southern Africa. In a sale catalogue I found a brief description of the chart. it piqued my curiosity.

Here is an English translation of the full title: “Sea chart of a Part of the Ethiopian Sea; stretching from Rio St. Lucia to Cabo del Cado, along the coasts of Suffalo (Sofala) and Mozambique, also containing the island of Madagascar and its dependent islands. In Amsterdam by Johannes van Keulen, sea chart and book seller at the corner of the New Bridge Alley.”

The map title

The detailed title did not...

A motto developed by myself over the years in my ongoing search for elusive historical photographs is: “Do not underestimate what could be found in drawers or little boxes”, resulting in me always curiously opening drawers or boxes when visiting antique shops, charity stores or attending car boot sales in that they may just contain some photographic surprises.

It then so happens that I opened a small Royal Arms Specials cigar box in a coastal antique shop a few years ago. What did it contain?

Some one hundred photographs from the Anglo-Boer War period. This cigar box was found in one of my favourite antique shops in Kalkbay (a shop that sadly no longer exists). Kalkbay, a coastal town in the Western Cape, has always been a reliable source for finding antique South African photographs.

On analysing the content of the cigar box, the original amateur photographs (8,5 x 8,5 cm in size) were found to be images captured by the war correspondent David Steward Howie. Howie was attached to the newspaper Times of Natal.

The photographs are not of professional quality but have become valuable historical documents in their own right.

Most of the photographs, with some duplication, were pasted onto pieces of paper on which Howie captured handwritten notes. Although McCrachen (2015) only has Howie recorded as a reporter for one publication, the assumption must be made that the duplicated images were possibly meant for another publication.

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In the article below, Roger Stewart reveals the motivations, passions and dilemma of being a collector. The piece is drawn from the text of the author's presentation to the Owl Club of Cape Town. For more information contact Roger - roger@africanamaps.com or https://www.africanamaps.com.

The heritage items I have collected for twenty-five years are printed, antique maps. After a few years of rather chaotic collecting, I decided to focus on a specific category of maps: miniature maps (<150 square cm or <23 square inches) of Southern Africa. Why? Because they made evolving geography knowledge during the age of discovery and colonialism accessible to children and adults in Europe with insufficient means to purchase the very expensive folio atlases. The were also affordable: more expensive per square centimeter but the area was small. They also required technical skill in engraving, printing, and binding. A few even promoted some of the first famous consumer brands. Mindful collecting was my mental salvation during a year of recuperation after a near-death medical experience. However, the decision to focus seems to have precipitated the onset of the aggressive form of collecting.

Within a month of searching, I found a ‘once in a lifetime’ map – the scarce map from the Atlas produced by Aniello Lamberti. I now set my mind on collecting all, from the first printed miniature map until the end of the second Anglo-Boer War. Good luck played a role during my pursuit and so I almost accomplished my goal. A few maps on my ‘must-collect’ list...

"We often remain totally ignorant of the proportions and perfect symmetry of the whole. In the wide system of created objects, nothing is wanting, nothing is superfluous: the smallest weed or insect is as indispensably necessary to the general good, as the largest object we behold. Each has its peculiar part to perform, conducive ultimately to the well-being of all.”

These words were written over 200 years ago by British explorer and scientist extraordinaire William John Burchell, who spent four years travelling beyond the colonial border between 1811 and 1815, leaving a valuable record of his observations and encounters in the interior in two volumes, and over 500 paintings, drawings and etchings.

William John Burchell

Now more than ever, these words are particularly pertinent in our 21st century world, as we relentlessly continue to destroy those smallest weeds and insects and upset the delicate balance of all things on earth. 

Southern Africa has an incredible diversity of flora, but around one in four South African plant species is at risk, while many are critically rare or endangered, and a number are already extinct in the wild. 

Burchell wrote eloquently of his travels in South Africa, in Travels in the interior of Southern Africa, in two volumes published in 1822 and 1824, with a map detailing his route. But the second volume...

This article is based on a talk by Dr Mpho Manaka to the Archaeological Society on 1 June 2023. It was titled: Herstory lost in Memory: The Amnesia on the Commemoration of African Women in the South African War .

Dr Mpho Manaka, who recently completed her PhD at the University of Pretoria, presented an illustrated talk on a neglected aspect of our history, namely the experiences of African women in the concentration camps set up during the South African War of 1899-1902.

It is a difficult aspect of the war to research as, unlike the rich trove of recollections and diaries left behind by Boer women interned in these camps, Black people left no record of their camp experience other than a handful of testimonies collected by researchers at Wits University during the 1970s. The only recorded recollection by an African woman is that of the nonagenarian Emilia Mahlodi Pooe who as a young woman was interred at the Vredefort Road camp for two and a half years. For the remainder, the experiences of black women must be sympathetically inferred from those of their counterparts in the white camps.

Shelters at the Black camps (War Museum of the Boer Republics)

Nevertheless, the letters of Emily...

Tabvla Moderna Secvnde Porcionis Aphrice [A modern map of the second part of Africa] is the first printed map of Southern Africa. It was produced by Martin Waldseemüller, a German priest and the most influential cartographer of the early sixteenth century. This map was included in the 1513 and 1520 editions of Ptolemy’s Geographia, published by Johann Schott in Strasbourg, France.

The map (50.5cm x 36.0cm) was printed from a woodblock. The place names on the map include numerous landfalls and coastal sightings recorded by Portuguese maritime explorers. The interior is mostly vacant, and the reason is explained on the map in Latin: ‘Hec pars aphrice antiquoribus mansit incognita’ [This part of Africa remains unknown to the ancients]. The empty spaces have not been filled with decorative elements or mythology – this practice became popular in the seventeenth century.

The map does show the ‘Mons Lune’, the Mountains of the Moon, just south of the equator. According to Ptolemy, these mountains (possibly the range now known as the Rwenzori Mountains) were the supposed source of the Nile, (‘paludes nili’, on the map). The details of the geography of Waldseemüller’s map come from the 1502-1506 manuscript map of the world by Nicolo de Caverio, now at the French National Library in Paris.

Examples of the Waldseemüller map are uncommonly on the market.

The Laurenz Fries map

Laurenz (Laurent) Fries was a French physician and mathematician born ca.1485 in Mulhouse, France, He settled in Strasbourg, where he became interested in the...

If a pioneering contractor, in the popular image, was big, bold, blustering and boozy, then George Pauling fitted the bill. He was an enormous man who stood back for nobody, but his reputation as the leading railway contractor in the development of Southern Africa during the late 19th century was only partly due to his physical presence. His success was mainly based on shrewdness, common sense and a huge capacity for hard work – and, it may be said, a talent for making friends in the right places.

George Pauling

Pauling was born in 1854 in India, where his father Richard was Resident Engineer on the Delhi Railways. He came from a family whose construction connections stretched back to Elizabethan times – an ancestor reputedly worked for Wren on the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, while another built the British Museum. The elder Pauling appears to have been somewhat erratic, and at the age of 15 George was forced to contribute to the family finances by taking a job with Firbanks, a well-known firm of railway contractors. It was a tough introduction to the working world, but young George gradually worked his way up to the position of timekeeper, where his dealings with the navvies taught him a lot about handling labour in the construction industry. He caught the eye of a member of the...

There’s a war out there! Picture this…A dark smoke-filled room, the smell of burning oil, and the near-rhythmic sound of an instrument in use – the magic lantern.

The dimly lit room is filled with a curious audience eagerly awaiting the start of the show – a projection of images on a blank wall or screen.

What follows has them mesmerised. War-related images are projected one after the other from a single light source, fuelled by an oil lamp or by an electric light source. Occasional gasps and murmurs of awe can be heard from those in attendance.

The theme for the evening – The Anglo-Boer War. 

The audience has a boundaryless interest in examining the sketches and drawings, alive with movement, which conjures scenes of their countrymen’s heroism and sacrifice, the Tommy Atkins of Britain.

The atmosphere is one of excitement, wonder, and anticipation. Ultimately there is even a parent in the audience who states: “My son is there”, adding to the patriotic emotions and stirring the curiosity of the remainder of the audience.

The audience hangs onto every word uttered by the ‘storyteller’ standing and narrating the images being projected one by one, and in doing so, assisting in creating mental images for the audience of the war down south.

Narratives became important during these magic lantern show evenings. Given the theme of war, the narrator, or storyteller, was in all probability triumphant, patriotic, and at times melodramatic in approach.

For the audience, it remained a unique visual...

Carol Hardijzer is a prolific contributor to The Heritage Portal. He has built one of the largest private collections of historic photographs in South Africa and has written a spectrum of articles on the history of photography (click here to browse). You have been on countless research journeys with Carol over the years and now you can get to know him a little better...

Tell us a little about where your name and surname originate from.

I am a first-generation South African – a born-and-bred Pretorian. My father originated from Holland (he arrived in South Africa at 27), whilst my mother is of German descent. She grew up in Namibia. I inherited my first name from my maternal grandfather. It is not an uncommon Germanic name and originates mainly from Poland. The family narrative has it that my great-great grandfather, as a young man, did some work for King Carol of Romania (1839 -1914). The King was also of German descent. So impressed was my great-great grandfather by the King, that he decided to name his son (my grandfather) Carol. Pope John Paul II, born in Poland, also had the first name Karol. Only seven individuals in South Africa carry the Hardijzer surname, five of whom were born with it. 

What draws you to historical photographs?

I have often paused to ask this question myself. What is the attraction? There are several possible answers to this question.

Firstly, I am a natural collector with a strong visual orientation. Here there might be a deeper-lying...