We are excited to have Dr Elizabeth van Heyningen from Cape Town speak to us on Thursday 6 April at 20h00 on the concentration camps of the South African War. The event will take place at the auditorium, Roedean School, 35 Princess of Wales Terrace, Parktown.

Although the concentration camps of the South African War have been so important for Afrikaners, few academics have looked at them seriously. This lecture looks at the reasons for this and explores some of the major features of the camps. The camps gained their notoriety because of the high mortality, especially of the children. Modern research in the social history of medicine enables us to understand more fully why so many children died. The revelations of Emily Hobhouse led to major changes and the lecture will also look at the way in which the lives of the people were altered during the last months of the South African War.
Dr Elizabeth van Heyningen is an honorary research associate in the Department of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town. In association with colleagues she has published a two-volume history of Cape Town and a book on the 19th-century Cape medical profession. Recently she also published a book on the concentration camps of the South African War. Currently she is editing the post-war letters of President M.T. Steyn and is also working on the papers of a 19th-century amateur geologist and scientist, Dr W.G. Atherstone.

Photo:  The Brunt of the War - Emily Hobhouse, Metheun & Co, 1902.