Marnham collection

John Ewart Marnham was British Consul-General in Johannesburg from 1967 to 1970. A British Economic Mission was sent to the the Territories by the Ministry of Overseas Development at this time ('Commonwealth Survey', XI, 1965, p 988), but it has not been possible to discover whether Marnham was a member of it. After visiting all three Territories he spent some time at Kokstad in Cape Province.

Slides of South Africa arranged in 10 groups. The earlier photographs in this collection (Q-S) however, date from a visit to what were then the High Commission Territories of Swaziland, Bechuanaland and Basutoland towards the close of 1965. The first photographs of his term of office in South Africa date from April 1967 and show scenes in the garden of his Johannesburg house, which is the setting for a substantial number of photographs listed separately (Marnham T). A large group of slides processed in August 1967 record extensive travels in South Africa including a return to Swaziland and what had now become Lesotho, and some 70 animal and bird photographs. The location of these is not always given, but some were taken in Willem Pretorius Game Reserve in the Orange Free State and others in the Kruger National Park in the Transvaal (Marnham Y). In October he made an extensive journey in the north of the Transvaal including the area of Tzaneen and into Vendaland (Marnham U). From this period also date a few scenes from the Orange Free State (Marnham W) and an interesting sequence showing African dancers at a Johannsburg mine (Marnham V). Early in 1968 his father Arthur Ewart Marnham visited South Africa and photographs from this period include scenes around Cape Town and along the south coast of Cape Province. There are wildlife slides from the Park at Swellendam and the ostrich farm at Oudtschoorn. There was also a journey north into the Transvaal including a visit to Magoebaskloof; probably a group of lion photographs were taken in the Kruger National park at this time. In the middle of the year JEM travelled in the northern part of Cape Province as described in Marnham X. August 1968 yielded a further substantial collection of wildlife photographs from the Bontebok Reserve at Swellendam and the Willem Pretorius Reserve. In September JEM attended the Swaziland Independence celebrations (Marnham Q). From February 1969 come a number of wildlife photographs taken at Mala though the precise location of this has not been identified. JEM was on holiday in Scotland in June 1969 but returned to South Africa later in the year and his final photographs, including a farewell sequence of the Johannesburg garden, are dated March 1970. In the following JEM's own arrangement of the photographs has been substantially followed with animal (Marnham Y) and birds (Marnham Z) photographs listed separately.

Indexed