BOTHA LOUIS: (1862-1919) South African Politician, the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa 1910-19. T.L.S., Louis Botha, one page, folio, Pretoria, 8th September 1911, to Colonel Arthur Lynch M.P., on the printed stationery of the Prime Minister's office and with the coat of arms of the Union of South Africa at the head. Botha thanks his correspondent for their letter and an enclosure which he read with great interest, further remarking 'I am too busy to write more now'. Together with Annie Botha (1864-1937) South African wife of Louis Botha. A.L.S., A Botha, one page, oblomg 8vo, n.p. (London?), n.d. (c.1901/02?), to Mr. Elliot, evidently a photographer. Botha states that she was sorry that she could not see her correspondent the other day, explaining that she had wanted to ask him 'to come one day when the General is back to take a photograph of our whole family - as we are all here together now & may never be so…..again'. Some light creasing and age wear, generally VG, 2 Arthur Lynch (1861-1934) Irish Australian Civil Engineer, Physician, Journalist, Author, Soldier, Anti-Imperialist & Polymath. Lynch was sympathetic with the Boers upon the outbreak of the Second Boer War and travelled to South Africa as a war correspondent. He met Louis Botha in Pretoria and raised the Second Irish Brigade to fight against the British, an act for which he was tried for treason and sentenced to death, but later pardoned. Annie Botha had been moved to Europe during the Boer War and her correspondent may have been Joseph John Elliott (1835-1903) of the London photography studio Elliott & Fry.

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Colonial Africa from the Collection of a South African Gentleman