Walter Stanford as an apprentice in politics, 1908-1910 : a study in the representation of the interests of the black peoples of the Cape Colony

Master Thesis

1984

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University of Cape Town

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This dissertation is a study of Walter Stanford's work in the representation of the interests of the black peoples of the Cape Colony while he was a member of the Cape Legislative Assembly from 1908 to 1910. It is not shaped by any conscious ideology of the writer. The principal sources of primary information are the Sir W.E.M. Stanford Papers, volumes of correspondence and letterbooks relating to the establishment of the Inter-State Native College at Fort Hare, the volumes of the Cape Legislative Assembly debates for 1908 and 1909, the report of the Cape Legislative Assembly select committee appointed to investigate the state of African and Coloured education (1908), and the interim and final reports of the 1910 Cape Native Affairs Commission. I also use Stanford's printed magisterial reports contained in the Cape Native Affairs Blue-Books from 1877 to 1903. In addition, I cull material on Stanford from newspapers and periodicals. The most informative of these are The Tembuland News, The Territorial News and The Transkeian Gazette. I supplement material from these primary sources with information from a wide range of modern works on Cape and South African history and native affairs, and from a number of unpublished theses and seminar papers on these subjects. The dissertation begins with a chapter which describes Stanford's background and the context and content of his native affairs philosophy before his entry into politics in 1908. The second chapter outlines the circumstances of Stanford's decision to enter politics and his election to the Cape Legislative Assembly. The third chapter describes the major economic and political features of the context within which Stanford operated as a politician and the circumstances of the black peoples of the Cape Colony. The fourth, fifth and sixth chapters deal with Stanford's work in the spheres of black material development, black education, and on the Cape Native Affairs Commission of 1910 respectively. The seventh and eighth chapters discuss Stanford's work in the creation of a union of the southern African colonies. The final chapter summarises the events of Stanford's career after 1910 and evaluates Stanford's work in relation to the debate regarding the motives of Cape liberals. The first eight chapters of the dissertation are empirical in their approach; seeking only to describe Stanford's behaviour within the context of the circumstances in which he operated. Assessment of Stanford's behaviour in relation to models of Cape liberal thinking, constructed by scholars such as Phyllis Lewsen, Stanley Trapido, Colin Bundy and Martin Legassick is confined to the concluding chapter. I adopt this approach in order to allow Stanford's utterances and actions to speak for themselves before I assess whether or not he was a Cape liberal in the sense that the term has been used by scholars in this field of South African history. I conclude that revisionist paradigms of Cape liberal behaviour do not admit of the place that principle and humanity occupied in Stanford's philosophy and actions during the 1908 to 1910 period.
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Bibliography: pages 227-242.

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