Whites Writing Whiteness

The Forbes diary in a nutshell

Please reference as: Liz Stanley (2019) ‘The Forbes diary in a nutshell’ www.whiteswritingwhiteness.ed.ac.uk/Collections/Collections-Portal/Forbes-Diary-Collection/Forbes-Diary-Nutshell and provide the paragraph number as appropriate when quoting.

Guides to the Forbes diary are:

• The Forbes diary in a nutshell [this]
• Introducing the Forbes diary
• Forbes diary dramatis personae
• Forbes diary overviews
• Forbes diary: working conventions

1. The Forbes were 1850 migrants from Scotland to Natal, then moved to the south-eastern Transvaal. They were involved in a wide range of economic activities, centring on a large farming estate, Athole, in the Ermelo/Amsterdam district, and also including prospecting, mining, a minerals concession and more.
2. The Forbes diary was written from 1850 to 1917 and early 1918. Its importance lies in:

• • the extensive record it provides of the diversity of farming, business and other interests of the Forbes, their wider family, friends and acquaintances, in particular in the area then known as New Scotland
  • the unique record it contains concerning the working lives of the peasant farmers and sharecroppers who formed the key group of workers on the Athole Estate
  • the range and focus of its contents regarding social and political events over the lengthy time-period covered
  • the distinctiveness of its format and concerns as a semi-public document recorded by a succession of diary-writers with an eye on a possible external audience, while at the same time also being written for practical everyday purposes

3. The diary details the lives and activities of the Forbes family: David Forbes snr; his wife Kate nee Purcocks; his elder brother Alexander and younger brother James; and the Forbes adult children Nellie, Dave, Jim, Kitty, Maggie/Madge.
4. Its contents include the long-term Estate workers who were peasant farmers/sharecroppers carrying out skilled tasks and also the workers who carried out a range of collective activities, and provides detail about their activities, relationships, tribulations and celebrations as well as demonstrating their importance in local economic life.
5. Also featured are connections with Westoe, farmed by Kate’s sister Sarah Straker nee Purcocks and her parents; the activities of white managers on the Athole Estate; the wider settler community in the New Amsterdam and Ermelo area; and the role in expediting much family business by the Forbes’s sister Lizzie, who remained in Scotland.

 

Last updated: 28 August 2019

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