Selection - FHYA curation of items derived from the James Stuart Papers at the Killie Campbell Africana Library

[Source - John Wright for FHYA, 2017: The James Stuart Papers forms an integral part of the Campbell Collections at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. The Collection consists primarily of handwritten notes made in the period from the late 1890s to the late 1920s by James Stuart, who was an official in native administration in the colonies of Zululand and Natal and in the Union of South Africa from 1888 to 1912. Very little information exists as to how he organised and curated his papers.

Following his death in 1942, in 1949 his widow sold his collection to Killie Campbell, a noted collector of Africana in Durban. Virtually nothing is known about how the collection was curated in her library beyond the fact that Campbell had the below-mentioned typescripts made. More information on this subject could possibly be gleaned from the library’s correspondence files. After Campbell’s death in 1965, custodianship of the Campbell Collections which remained in her house, passed to the University of Natal (which became part of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2004).

The collection also contains materials that the Campbell Collections staff added to it throughout the years. This material includes typed-up and bound copies (not always accurate) of some of Stuart’s notes of his conversations made by staff of the KCAL, most probably in the 1950s and early 1960s. During the period 1971 to 1973, the members of the KCAL staff made photocopies of Stuart's handwritten notes for the editorial use of researchers Colin Webb and John Wright, and at intervals after that. After Webb’s death, possession of the set which he worked with passed to his widow. Wright retains possession of the other set, and continues to work with them. The collection also contains the renderings of Stuart’s notes edited by Webb and Wright and published in (as of 2017) six volumes as ‘the James Stuart Archive of Recorded Oral Evidence Relating to the History of the Zulu and Neighbouring Peoples’. A seventh volume is being prepared by Wright and Mbongiseni Buthelezi, which will contain praises recorded by James Stuart in isiZulu from many of his interlocutors, together with translations into English and annotations made by the editors. The collection will also house a Hyperlinked Archival Research Tool which was made by the FHYA team in 2016-18. The research tool links John Wright’s hand-annotated photocopies of the notes of Stuart’s conversations with the related sections of the edited published text.

Overall management of the Collections is exercised by a committee of university administrative staff and academics. Day-to-day curation is in the hands of a small staff of librarians. Again, very little is on record about how the Stuart Collection has been curated.

The FHYA selection from the James Stuart Papers includes the first six published volumes of 'The James Stuart Archive', edited by Colin Webb and John Wright. The digitised copies of the first five volumes of the James Stuart Archive were made by the FHYA team in 2014-15. The FHYA then received the sixth volume in an electronic format from the UKZN Press. The FHYA selection from the James Stuart Papers also includes John Wright’s photocopies of Stuart’s handwritten notes of his conversations used in preparation of the published volumes, as well as the Hyperlinked Archival Research Tool which links the published text to the relevant annotated photocopies. This was made by the FHYA team in 2018. Currently the FHYA only has permission from KCAL to place online the photocopies and Hyperlinked Archival Research Tool relevant to the text of a single interlocutor.]