Newsletter

The next GWAA conference will be in London, at the Africa Centre in Southwark, on Saturday 18 November 2023, 10am-3.30pm. This is the day before the next Britannia Medal fair for anyone interested, the week after the Armistice weekend and the week before the end of the war in Zambia.
The fee for attending is £32.00 to cover costs, which includes refreshments and a light lunch.
To book your place, you can make a payment to paypal.me/GWAA (or email me for other means of registering/paying). If you would like to present a paper on any aspect of the First World War in Africa, please email me with details by 20 October 2023. Hope to see you there. For people unable to travel but still interested in attending, please let me know so we can make arrangements.

Funding has been obtained to digitise records in Kenya concerning the war. You can see more at https://www.cwgc.org/our-work/news/endangered-archive-digitisation-project-records-kenyan-files-for-future-generations/

The National Archives, UK, has an education resource on Bulaya Chanda. He left Zambia with Stuart Gore-Brown in July 1914, arriving in Britain after war broke out. Bulaya served on the Western Front as Samson Jackson, becoming a showman in Britain after the war under the name Chief Luale.

Not much new on World War 1 in Africa has come to light recently.
An article from 2018 on German war graves in SA might be of interest to some.

The next GWAA conference is planned to be in London, at the Africa Centre in Southwark, on Saturday 18 November 2023. This is the day before the next Britannia Medal fair for anyone interested, the week after the Armistice weekend and the week before the end of the war in Zambia. There will be a small charge to cover costs. Further details will be confirmed in due course but please book the date and let me know if you’re interested in attending.

Although the official call for contributions on Literature as Memory of the war in Africa has closed, if you do feel like contributing a piece, please get in touch. We are particularly looking for contributions on German and Belgian literature.

There is now an online draft translation of Boell’s History of the German East Africa campaign for anyone interested.

GWAA has also launched a magazine covering conflicts in Africa between 1914-1945, and in which Africans were involved outside of Africa. This has been in response to researchers in Africa looking for somewhere to publish material that is more easily accessible than most academic and other publications. It has also provided an opportunity to consolidate articles already on the GWAA website which might be difficult to locate. If you are looking for somewhere to publish an article, family history or such like linked with the World Wars in Africa, please get in touch. Africa at War 1914-1945 is available here.

GWAA has a call for contributions on Literature and the First World War in Africa. The deadline is quite tight (31 May 2023) b, apologies, but if you are interested just drop me an email – details in the attached

Administering the Empire, 1801-1968: A Guide to the Records of the Colonial Office in the National Archives of the UK by Mandy Banton has reference to both World Wars.

Belgian newspapers online covering the First World War period.

Going through some old information, I found the following links with photos/info on the war in Africa. I thought them worth sharing again:
Penn State Special Collection Photos
WW1 Stamps – scroll down for Africa
More stamps (specific EA links)

A few more books have been published. Have a look here