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[Source - John Wright for FHYA using KCAL materials, 2016: James Stuart was a colonial official and a prolific recorder of oral historical materials in Natal in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was born in 1868 in Pietermaritzburg, the capital of the British colony of Natal, and grew up with a good knowledge of isiZulu. He was educated in Natal and at a public school in Sussex, England. In 1888 he was appointed clerk to the resident magistrate in Eshowe in the recently annexed British colony of Zululand, became a magistrate in the colony in 1895, and subsequently served as acting magistrate in a number of centres in Natal. In 1901 he was appointed as assistant magistrate in Durban.

In the Natal rebellion of 1906, Stuart served in the Natal Field Artillery and in the intelligence service of the colonial forces. In 1909 he was appointed Assistant Secretary for Native Affairs in the colony’s Native Affairs Department. After the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, he was transferred to Pretoria. He took early retirement in 1912, and returned to Natal. The following year he published A History of the Zulu Rebellion, 1906, which remained the standard work on the subject until the 1960s. He was in London in 1914-15, and on military service in France with the South African Native Labour Contingent in 1916-17. In 1922 he left Natal with his wife Ellen and two young sons, and settled in London.

In the late 1890s Stuart began devoting much of his spare time to interviewing people – particularly elderly African men – with a knowledge of the history of African societies in Natal (into which Zululand was incorporated in 1897), and, to a lesser extent, in Swaziland. He recorded his conversations with them in detail in a gradually growing collection of written notes. At the same time, he read widely into the history of Natal. His aim was to make himself the leading authority on what he called ‘Zulu’ history and custom, with the larger purpose of being able to inform the making of native policy in the colony, which he saw as based on ignorance and misunderstanding of the historical Zulu system of governance. He pursued his researches until his departure from Natal, ultimately amassing notes of conversations with a total of some 200 interlocutors.

After he moved to London, Stuart used his notes to compile and publish five isiZulu readers for use in schools in Natal. In the late 1920s he was actively engaged in research into Natal and Zulu history in the British Museum. The later years of his life are obscure. He died in London in 1942. In 1949 his widow sold his corpus of papers to Killie Campbell, a noted collector of Africana in Durban. Since 1971, six volumes of Stuart’s notes of his conversations, edited and translated by Colin Webb and John Wright, have been published in the in-progress series, the James Stuart Archive. Wright and fellow editor Mbongiseni Buthelezi are currently working on a seventh volume.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2020, using Stellenbosch University Library's digital collections page digital.lib.sun.ac.za: James Walton was born in 1911. He worked on materials surrounding uMgungundlovu. He died in 1999.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using KCAL materials: Jantshi kaNongila was born in Nyezane in Zululand. He was interviewed by James Stuart in 1903. He was interviewed multiple times, and at least one of these interviews took place at Norfolk Villas in Durban.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using WITS materials: John Dlamini worked as an interviewer with Philip Bonner on the interviews conducted for Bonner's research in Swaziland in the 1970s. He also worked as an interviewer, transcriber, and translator with Carolyn Hamilton on the interviews conducted for Bonner and Hamilton's research in Swaziland in the 1980s.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using WITS materials: At this time the FHYA has not been able to locate biographical information about John Nxumalo. He was interviewed by Dumisa Dlamini on behalf of the Swaziland Broadcasting Service at Zwide Generation in Swaziland in 1983.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using the UCT Department of Archaeology website: John Parkington is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Archaeology at UCT. He studied at the University of Cambridge for both his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Palaeolithic Archaeology. In 1966 he came to the University of Cape Town as a Junior Lecturer and returned during his first university sabbatical year in 1974 to complete the three terms residence requirement for his PhD. His PhD was awarded in 1977, since which time he has been ad hominem promoted to Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor and full Professor at the University of Cape Town. He co-wrote the paper “The Size and Layout of Mgungundlovu 1829-1838” with Mike Cronin.]

[Source - John Wright, 2016: I was born and brought up the in the shadow of the Natal Drakensberg. I worked for 44 years as a student, archivist, journalist and academic historian in Pietermaritzburg, and, in my youth, for two years as a journalist exiled in Johannesburg. At the end of 2005, I retired from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and in 2007 moved to a new life in the Big Smoke and the bright lights. The Rock Art Research Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand provides me with a research base. I continue with long-standing research projects in the precolonial history of the KwaZulu-Natal region, and feel my way into new historical landscapes on the Highveld. I discovered the excitements of doing archival research when working on my master’s thesis in the Natal Archives in the late 1960s. This was published by the University of Natal Press in 1971 with the title ‘Bushman Raiders of the Drakensberg 1840-1870’. More than forty years later, I am chuffed to find that the book has become an active archive in its own right among a new generation of students at the Rock Art Research Institute. I discovered the excitements of consciously giving shape to a documentary archive in the work that I did with Colin Webb from 1971 until his death in 1992, and then alone, on the volumes of what became The James Stuart Archive (the title was thought up by Colin Webb). I have lived with this work for my entire life.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using WITS materials: Johnson Sithole was a translator and transcriber who worked on the interviews conducted by Philip Bonner and Carolyn Hamilton in Swaziland in the 1970s and 1980s.]

[Source - Nessa Leibhammer for FHYA, 2016, using JAG materials: Jonathan Lowen is a judge, originally from South Africa, now living in London. He sourced items from a wide range of places including antique dealers, markets such as Portobello Road, auction sales, etc. Because the Johannesburg Art Gallery was unable to raise the money to buy Lowen’s collection, it was purchased by wealthy businessman and philanthropist Harry Oppenheimer and placed on long-term loan at JAG. Subsequent to the Brenthurst Collection being sold to the Oppenheimer family Lowen has continued to assemble collections of southern African material. A large part of the Maritz collection was bought by Maritz from Lowen.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using WITS materials: At this time the FHYA has not been able to locate biographical information about Joseph Dlamini. He was interviewed by Philip Bonner in the Ludzakeni At Lucolweni area of Swaziland in 1970.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using KCAL materials: Kambi kaMatshobana was a member of the Qwabe peopleand was working as a 'togt (togt is a Dutch-Afrikaans word for casual labour)' laborer in Durban. He was interviewed by James Stuart in 1903 and was aged 38 or 39 at the time of being interviewed.]

[Source - Nessa Leibhammer for FHYA, 2017, using the ezakwantu.com website: Ken Karner is an art dealer, originally from America, who has lived in Africa and has collected African art for over 30 years. He started the online gallery Ezakwantu, which operated out of Franschoek, South Africa. He has sold work to many national and international galleries, and also sold work from the Ezakwantu site.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2020, using Kevin Carnie-Thompson's LinkedIn profile: Kevin Carnie-Thompson received his Bachelor's of Commerce in Human Resources and Administration in 1999. He started working as the Herbarium Technician at Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife 2018.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using KCAL materials: Johannes Kumalo was a herd boy in his childhood. The name given to him by his father was Nhlabati. He was interviewed by James Stuart in 1900. He was interviewed multiple times, and at least one of these interviews took place at the Royal Hotel in Ladysmith. He was probably over 85 years old when he was interviewed by Stuart.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using KCAL materials: John Kumalo was a headman at Roosboom in the Klip River Division. He was interviewed by James Stuart in 1900 and 1901. He was interviewed multiple times, and at least three of these interviews took place in Ladysmith. He was roughly 62-64 years old when interviewed by Stuart.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using KCAL materials: At this time the FHYA has not been able to locate biographical information about Cleopas Kunene. He was interviewed by James Stuart in 1898.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using KCAL materials: At this time the FHYA has not been able to locate biographical information about Kwili kaSitshidi. He called himself a member 'of the Mkize people'. Mkhize is the address-name of the Mbo people. He was interviewed by James Stuart in 1915]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using WITS materials: At this time the FHYA has not been able to locate biographical information about Lashongwe. He was interviewed by Philip Bonner in the Esitheni area of Swaziland in 1970.]

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using KCAL materials: William Leathern owned a butcher's shop in Durban. He was interviewed by James Stuart in 1910. He was 82 when interviewed by Stuart. He was interviewed multiple times and at least one of these interviews took place at Sandringham house.]