Strauss & co - 13 October 2014, Cape Town

140 Born in Cape Town in 1867, Major William Jardine was a well-known bibliophile and antiquarian. He had been a founder member of the Cape Town Highlanders, and served as an officer in the Cape Corps in World War I. He had also served on the Historical Monuments Commission for many years. His first Africana library, a collection not only of books but also thousands of manuscripts, pamphlets and maps, was sold to the Parliamentary Library in 1927, and was described in the Cape Times at the time as “the finest private collection in existence and very few public library collections rivalled its importance”. He went on to collect another equally large library, which was housed at his retirement home, “Applegarth”, on the slopes of Sir Lowry’s Pass. Added to that was his very fine collection of early Cape furniture and pictures and this, too, became recognised as the most important private collection of Africana in the country. His knowledge of things of cultural value was that of a man born before his time, collecting and preserving as he did largely in the years before The Union of South Africa. His son, Halliday, inherited the collection in 1949, and nine years later it was auctioned by JJ Hofmeyr & Son at Ashbey’s Galleries, the library having been sold privately. A few choice pieces were, however, kept by the family and inherited by the current owner, the collector’s grandson, Dr Ivor Jardine, who compiled these notes. THE JARDINE COLLECTION OF AFRICANA THE JARDINE COLLECTION OF AFRICANA | LOTS 459-465