The Biography of DOUGLAS MITCHELL (1980) - SIGNED by Three Former State Presidents of South Africa and others

Publisher's grey cloth binding with dust jacket.

x + 181pp. Illustrated. Binding tight. Contents clean. Jacket in good condition.

This copy contains many important signatures. On the verso of the half-title page it is signed by the FIRST State President of South Africa, C. R. Swart (1961-1967), the SECOND State President of South Africa, Jim Fouché (1968-1975), and the FOURTH State President of South Africa, Balthazar Johannes (John) Vorster (1978-1979). An old South African postage stamp is pasted beneath the signatures containing the portraits of the first four Presidents of South Africa. Nic Diederichs's signature is not present as he passed away three years before the publication of this book.

It is additionally signed by Sir David Pieter De Villiers Graaff, who was the leader of the United Party from 1956-1977 and also leader of the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly, and Arthur Hopewell, a United Party M.P. who was the Natal Whip from 1953-1971, and Chief Whip from 1971-74.

On the title page the book is signed by the subject of this biography, Douglas Mitchell, the biographer Terry Wilks, and E. C. Wilks, the biographer's father, to whom this book is dedicated, who was a lifelong political contemporary of Douglas Mitchell.

Sir De Villiers Graaff wrote the foreword which is additionally signed in ball point.

A six-page facsimile of signatures of those who served with Mitchell is tipped-in at the front endpaper.

'DOUGLAS MITCHELL holds a unique place in the modern history of Natal. For four decades he served his Province, in turn, as Provincial Councillor, member of the executive Committee, Administrator, Member of Parliament for South Coast and Natal leader of the United Party.'