THE PILGRIM DIGGERS OF THE SEVENTIES (1949)

Publisher's printed wraps.

46pp.

A very scarce booklet being a detailed and informative record of the early days of Pilgrim's Rest, a gold rush town founded in 1873. Originally written in 1928, but only discovered twenty years later among an accumulated mass of old papers in the Pilgrim's Rest offices of The Transvaal Gold Mining Estates, Limited. The author, Rev. Gerald Herring, was located and he consented to its publication which was done with the keen support of the Company's Chairman Mr. G. V. R. Richdale. 

The author states in his foreword that, for the most part, the account had been put together from old letters, conversations and records, but he also gives a short bibliography of works that he consulted.

This booklet was republished in 2015 as a guide for tourists to the historical pioneer town.

Included in this lot is a larger copy of the same book consisting of 24 pages of cyclostyled rectos which I presume may have served as a proof copy of some sort for either this original 1949 publication, or, due to the rarity of the original, as a copy issued by the State Library for research.