William Guybon Atherstone: South African Medical Practitioner,Botanist and Geologist

Griffiths R. First City: A Saga of Service. Cape Town: Timmins, 1970

Atherstone WG . “Kimberley and its diamonds”. Paper read to the Geological Society of South Africa on 12 August 1895 and published in Transactions and Proceedings of the Geological Society of South Africa 1896–8, vols I—III. He thought that the sudden release of pressure on liquid carbonic acid during volcanic activity had to be part of the process of diamond formation. He described how he had witnessed Faraday demonstrate the solidification of carbonic acid into carbon dioxide “snow” over 50 years earlier

Hunt KS . Development of Municipal Government in the Eastern Province of the Cape of Good Hope with special reference to Grahamstown 1827–1862. Archives Year Book for South African history 1961: 200–3

Cohen A. Mr Bain and Dr Atherstone, South Africa's pioneer fossil hunters. Earth Sciences History 2000; 19: 175–91

See the list of donations received during previous year in Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 1855; 11

Atherstone WG . Geology of Uitenhage. Eastern Province Monthly Magazine 1857; 1: 518–32, 580–95

The story of the Kragga nugget. Cape Monthly Magazine n.s., 1874; 9 (December): 336–40

From the Triassic rocks at Gats Plaatz, Spreuwfontein, Prince Albert District

Owen R. Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Fossil Reptilia of South Africa in the Collection of the British Museum. London, 1876: 14–15

Nopsca FB . Dinosaurierreste aus Siebenburgen V. Geologica Hungarica series palaeontologica fasciculus 1929; 4: 1–76

Galton PM Coombs WP . Paranthodon africanus (Broom): a stegosaurian dinosaur from the lower Cretaceous of South Africa. Gobios 1981; 14: 299–309

See Albany Museum, Grahamstown website http://www.ru.ac.za/departments/am/paranth.html

Prince Alfred arrived in Cape Town on HMS Euryalus 24 July 1860 and left 19 September. During that time he travelled throughout the Free State, Transvaal, Basutoland and Natal, celebrating his sixteenth birthday in Port Elizabeth on 6 August. He was in Grahamstown 9–11 August

Directors' Letters at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (hereafter DLK), vol. 60/9, to Sir William Hooker, dated 10 October 1860

DLK, vol. 60/4. Dated from Colesberg 11 February 1861

This diamond, now called the “Eureka”, is in the Library of the Houses of Parliament in Cape Town. It was presented to Parliament by Harry Oppenheimer in 1952 to celebrate the tercentenary of the Cape

For a concise account of this period see Lacous-Gayet R. A History of South Africa. London: Cassell, 1970: chapter 12, “The discovery of diamonds”

Atherstone WGA (op. cit. ref. 2)

Cohen A. Mary Elizabeth Barber: South Africa's first lady natural historian. Archives of Natural History 2000; 27 (2): 187–208

Johnson P. Goldfields: A Centennial Portrait. London: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1987: 20; Williams A. Some Dreams Come True. Cape Town: Timmins, 1948

Bliss Ann Atherstone (1823–1907) married George White of Table Farm, near Grahamstown, and spent most of her married life on their farm, Brakkloof, nearby. See Tolken HR. Index Herbariorum Austro-africanorum. Cape Town: South African Association of Botanists, 1971

Caroline Atherstone (1826–?) married Henry Hutton frgs (1825–1896), who had arrived in South Africa in 1844. He was ADC to Sir Andries Stockenstrom during the frontier war of 1846, served with the 12th Foot clearing the Fish River in 1850, was staff officer for the Albany Rangers during conquest of Kreli's country in 1851, then held various posts in the civil service until retirement in 1863. He became a JP in Albany, and later in Kimberley

DLK, vols 59/4–11, 60/7–9, 189/74–82

DLK, vol. 59/4, to Sir William Hooker dated from Grahamstown 4 March 1847

Carl Ludwig Philipp Zeyher (1799–1858), a German botanist, arrived at the Cape in 1822. He published “A list of plants found in the District of Uitenhage between the months of July 1829 and February 1830” in the South African Quarterly Journal 1830; 4: 358–80 – probably the first truly botanical article published in South Africa. He travelled to the interior with Joseph Burke, collecting for the Earl of Derby 1840–2; in 1843 he visited Namaqualand and in 1844 spent nine months at Kew with Sir William Hooker. He returned to the Cape in 1847 but died in the smallpox epidemic of 1859

Augustine Pyrame de Candolle, a Swiss botanist, was the leading systematist of his day. Of his 17 volumes explaining the structure of the botanical world, the last 10 were produced by his son after his father's death in 1841

Doctor (later Sir) Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911), son of Sir William Jackson Hooker, succeeded his father as Director of Royal Botanic Gardens Kew from 1865 to 1885; he was attached to HMS Erybus as assistant surgeon and naturalist during Sir James Clark Ross' expedition to the Antarctic, 1839–43; he stopped over both ways at Cape Town for about a month in 1840 and 1843, collecting plants locally

Sir Theophilus Shepstone (1817–1893) arrived with his father in 1820; at age 18 he was diplomatic agent to the frontier tribes; he was based in Pietermaritzburg from 1845 for the next 30 years, first as Agent and then as Secretary for Native Affairs. He maintained peace between the blacks and whites in Natal. However, in 1877 he annexed the Transvaal for Britain, which resulted in the Boer War of 1881, and in 1878 his attempts to annexe Zululand led to the Zulu War with Cetshwayo

Atherstone WG. Letter on Cape St. Blaize Cave, Mossel Bay. Cape Monthly Magazine (n.s.) 1871; 3: 125

Peter MacOwen (1830–1909), born in Hull, England, became Professor of Chemistry at Huddersfield in 1859. He went to Grahamstown with his wife in 1861 because of ill health, as principal of the new Shaw College. Already interested in botany, in Albany he met Atherstone, Mary Elizabeth Barber, Henry Hutton, and Harry Bolus. In 1869 he moved to Gill College, Somerset East, and after 12 years went to Cape Town as Director of the Cape Town Botanic Garden and curator of the Cape Government Herbarium. He was founding Corresponding Member of the South African Philosophical Society in 1877 and President in 1885, a Fellow of the Linnean Society (1885), on the Cape of Good Hope University Council (1876–91), and returned to Grahamstown on retirement in 1905 to work on the Albany Museum herbarium. One daughter married Selmar Schönland, and another married the son of John Centlivres Chase of Uitenhage 31 Selmar Schönland (1860–1940) was bom in Frankenhausen, Germany. He graduated PhD at Kiel University in 1883; was appointed curator of the Fielding Herbarium, Oxford, in 1886 and curator of the Albany Museum in 1889, then director; was Professor of Botany at Rhodes University College, 1905–26; a Fellow of the Linnean Society; a founder member of the Royal Society of South Africa and of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science; and was an honorary member of the Geological Society of South Africa

In its First Report, of 1859, the Committee of Management of the Albany Hospital reported it would not admit the insane until special provision had been made for them

Atherstone WG . How England lost Delagoa Bay. Cape Illustrated Magazine, February 1898

DLK, vol. 189/78, dated from 32 George Street, Manchester Square, London, 30 June 1875

Miss Marianne North (1830–1890) was a world traveller and floral artist. See her Recollections of a Happy Life. London: Macmillan, 1892: vol. 2, ch. 14, “South Africa”