The Old Transvaal 1834-1899

A. P. Cartwright and N. Cowan

First Edition 1978

Hardcover

Published: (Purnell & Sons)

Pages: 154

The wonderful collection of historic photographs of the old South African Republic (De Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek) and its people which this book presents was put together by Mr Nat Cowan, Custodian of the Bensusan Museum of Photography in Johannesburg.

In the course of his researches Mr Cowan noted that the art of photography and the very young republic established by the Voortrekkers beyond the Vaal, were both born at approximately the same time, 1839. This led him to a search for the first photographs ever taken in the new country. He found what he was looking for in the work of some of the itinerant photographers who made their way from the Cape to the interior in the 19th century.

Here are these early pictures, many of them published for the first time. The historians of the future will owe a debt of gratitude to Mr Cowan for the skill and the infinite care he has put into the task of getting first-class prints from the ancient glass plates (coated with collodion and other chemicals) which photographers used before the dry plate was invented.

Included in this book are photo-graphs taken during the Republics campaign against Sekukuni, the Siege of Pretoria in 1880 and the Battle of Majuba. Photographs of these historic events, of the early gold-mining camps, and of the everyday life of the people, are of such quality that the book must find its place in every collection of Africana in the country.