Compiling a gazetteer of the Second Anglo-Boer War

Abstract

The idea of compiling a gazetteer for the second Anglo-Boer War presented itself quite simply because of the numerous mistakes and misspellings of place names that we have come across in the literature of the war. In his Author's Note to his splendid illustrated bibliography, R.G. Hackett comments that ‘The variance in spelling of place names follows a decision to adopt the form used in source material’. And in his recent book, M.M. Evans notes the ‘passionately-held and wildly differing views on the spelling of place names’.Southern Africa is a land of many languages, some of which were in a state of rapid transition at the end of the 19th century as the war started. It was then overwhelmingly rural and the names of topographical features as well as farms and villages largely reflected the landscape in which they were located.