SCRAPBOOK

156 pages, covers detached and spine missing, half leather held together with an elastic band, containing clippings from newspapers and journals, pages 28 – 41 are blank, postcards, photographs, letters, illustrations, diagrams, are also included.

The album belonged to Lieut -Col Sir Albert H. Hime who was Prime Minister of Natal throughout the War.

Interesting items include: Inside the front cover – 3 black and white pictorial postcards laid down depicting Lord Roberts, Sir Redvers Buller, and the late President Kruger.

Pages 5 – 27: Newspaper clippings focussing on the War and Natal extracted from the Natal mercury, Times of Natal, South Africa, and the Times 

Loosely inserted:4 page manuscript account headed The Volksstem- Field force Edition - Unity makes strength – Elandslaagte, Natal Wednesday 13 December 1899.The defeat of the English at Mud River. Account received from General Cronge (sic)

Page 51: Letter signed by T.M.C. Nourse delivered by a released prisoner to the Premier of Natal about the shocking treatment of self and fellow prisoners.

Page 57: The Ladysmith Bombshell being the front page of the first issue printed on 18 November 1899. Pencilled in the top right hand corner Col Dartnell. Two other issues also have this ownership mark. Hime must have obtained this material from Sir John Dartnell after the Siege. (They had been friend since 1870's.)

Pages 58,60, 62 and 64: 2 photographs on each page of the Tugela Road and Railways bridges, and the Boer Dam and the Ladysmith Town Hall.

Several extracts from the Ladysmith Bombshell and Ladysmith Lyre pasted down.

[Page 103]: Letter signed by Col. J.R. Royston, Ladysmith 28.12.1899 to the Prime Minister, Natal reporting deaths from various causes and the state of affairs during current Siege in Ladysmith. Pages 146 – 155: 11 photographically reproduced artists views of the surrounds of Ladysmith.

Standard Encyclopaedia of South Africa vol.5 page 523: Sir Albert Henry Hime, 29 August 1842 – 13 September 1919 was a Royal Engineers officer and later a prominent politician in the Colony of Natal. He was appointed to Natal in 1875 as Colonial Engineer, with a seat in the Executive and Legislature. As a road and bridge engineer he was responsible for a considerable improvement in the colony's communications, and in 1884-5 helped to survey the Natal-Orange Free State boundary. In 1897, after a temporary retirement from public life, he was elected to the Natal legislature and served as Minister of Lands, Works and Defence, and as Prime Minister from 1899 to 1903. In the Royal Engineers he held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was knighted (K.C.M.G.) in 1900 and appointed Privy Councillor in 1902. Himeville in Natal was named after him.

From an insert with the scrapbook: Sir John Dartnell 1839 – 1913 was Commandant of the Mounted Police and Volunteer Forces of Natal 1874 -1903; Chief Commissioner of Natal Police 1894 ; served in various wars and acted a Secretary for Native Affairs, Commissioner of Mines and Inspector of Prisons.

John Robinson Royston CMG, DSO 29 April 1860 – 25 April 1942 was a South African-born military officer who rose to the rank of brigadier general.A farmer and citizen soldier, during the late 1870s and early 1880s, Royston served in the Natal Mounted Rifles as an enlisted soldier and fought during the Zulu War. Later, during the Second Boer War, he was commissioned and fought at the Siege of Ladysmith. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Royston