South African Whos Who - 1915

                      South African Who's Who, 1915,  An Illustrated Biographical Sketch Book Of South Africans, also incl. South African Who's Who in Business.

 In 1907 the first South African Who's Who was published in Durban. Ken Donaldson was the editor as well as the proprietor. For the 1910 edition, Men from the Mines, he personally visited every mine on the Rand and interviewed where possible every member of staff (staff would be considered at monthly paid and not the actual miners underground).

The 5th issue (1911) contains nearly 4,000 biographies, mostly illustrated. Critics were reminded that the books consists mainly of Colonists and consequently did not exhibit that exclusiveness associated with similar publications where class distinctions were more defined. The idea of the photographs was Donaldson's own and suggested that these make the volume doubly interesting. By the sixth issue in 1912 Donaldson labelled himself as a Book Canvasser.  He tried to incorporate as many different professions as possible and even tried to go as far as finding an executioner. 

By 1915 Ken had been requested to add a business section to the South African Whos Who but also found that it was also an almost impossible task owing to the amount of additional labour required. After the issue of the last edition in July, 1913, he decided to put forward the date of publication from July to January, and thus gain the extra six months necessary to make the innovation and produce the volume in January that year.