# George McCall Theal
**George McCall Theal** (11 April 1837 – 17 April 1919) was a Canadian-born historian and civil servant who spent his career in the [Cape Colony](https://www.edgepedia.org/cape-colony) and became the most prolific historian of southern Africa of his generation.[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) • [2](https://emandulo.apc.uct.ac.za/users/entity6937.html) Born in Canada, where his family had long been settled, he made his career in South Africa as a teacher, colonial archivist, and author of the multi-volume *History of South Africa* and the source collection *Records of South-Eastern Africa*.[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) • [3](https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/DFHD/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1023)
| Fact | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| Born | 11 April 1837, Canada (a native of Saint John)[2](https://emandulo.apc.uct.ac.za/users/entity6937.html) • [3](https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/DFHD/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1023) |
| Died | 17 April 1919, at Wynberg, Cape Province, while correcting proofs of the last volumes of his history[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) • [2](https://emandulo.apc.uct.ac.za/users/entity6937.html) |
| Principal offices | Keeper of the Archives of the Cape Colony; Colonial Historiographer, 1891 to 1905[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) • [3](https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/DFHD/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1023) |
| Major works | *History of South Africa since September 1795* (five volumes, 1908); *Records of the Cape Colony, 1793–1827* (36 volumes); *Records of South-Eastern Africa* (nine volumes)[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) • [4](https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511783210) |
| Assessment | Pioneer historian whose work carried a settler-centered "colonial nationalism" and shaped accounts of the mfecane and Great Trek[5](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18244-2_4) • [6](https://revistahh.emnuvens.com.br/revista/article/view/1477) |
## Origins and family
Theal was born in Canada, where his family had long been settled, and was a native of [Saint John](https://www.edgepedia.org/saint-john).[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) • [3](https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/DFHD/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1023) At the age of 19 he went to [Sierra Leone](https://www.edgepedia.org/sierra-leone), and two years later he moved to the Cape Colony, where he became a schoolmaster.[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) He taught at a small elementary school at Knysna in the late 1850s, and from 1867 at the public undenominational school at King William's Town, later known as Dale College.[7](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/abs/george-mccall-theal-and-lovedale/A1FE155E6AE90B62E77702195A3EBC6A)
## Career
The sequence of Theal's posts in the 1870s is reported differently by serious sources. Parks Canada records that he entered the public service at [Cape Town](https://www.edgepedia.org/cape-town) in 1877, describing him as a teacher and later a reporter.[3](https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/DFHD/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1023) [Cambridge University Press](https://www.edgepedia.org/cambridge-university-press)'s book pages, by contrast, state that he worked as a missionary between 1875 and 1880 and was then appointed magistrate of Tamacha before becoming a government clerk.[4](https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511783210) A separate strand of evidence shows that from mid-1872 he spent over five years at the Lovedale Seminary outside Alice in the eastern Cape, teaching and supervising the printing works for Dr. [James Stewart](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-stewart), the principal; Lovedale, founded by Scottish Presbyterian missionaries in 1841, was then the most influential institution of its kind in South Africa.[7](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/abs/george-mccall-theal-and-lovedale/A1FE155E6AE90B62E77702195A3EBC6A)
Archives and historiographer. Theal was appointed Keeper of the Archives of the Cape Colony, and in 1891 he was made Colonial Historiographer, a position he held until 1905.[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) • [3](https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/DFHD/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1023)
Publications. He published *Kaffir Folk Lore* in 1882, and earlier produced *The Compendium of South African History and Geography* and *Basutoland Records*.[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) • [2](https://emandulo.apc.uct.ac.za/users/entity6937.html) He published the official *Records of the Cape Colony, 1793–1827* in 36 volumes and *Records of South-Eastern Africa* in nine volumes, the latter compiled from libraries and archive departments in Europe and first published in 1898, containing texts in English, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Spanish, and Portuguese.[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) • [8](https://archive.org/details/recordssoutheas01theagoog) His *History of South Africa since September 1795*, first published in 1908 in five volumes, covers South Africa between 1795 and 1894.[4](https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511783210) Constantly enlarged and revised, his *History* reached a final form of eleven volumes, the first dealing with ethnography and conditions up to 1505 and the others carrying the story of South Africa up to 1884.[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) In his own preface he wrote that the preparation of a history of South Africa had occupied his almost undivided attention during the last forty years, and that he had striven "to write without fear, favor, or prejudice".[9](https://emandulo.apc.uct.ac.za/collection/FHYA%20Depot/Theal_G_M_History_of_South_Africa_since_September_1795_vol_1.pdf)
## Political influence
Theal's influence ran through the colonial state's records and its self-image. As Keeper of the Archives he organized the Cape Colony's documentary record, and the 36-volume *Records of the Cape Colony* and nine-volume *Records of South-Eastern Africa* made the colony's and the region's documentary past available in print.[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) His European archive mission was commissioned at the highest political level, by [Cecil Rhodes](https://www.edgepedia.org/cecil-rhodes) as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, tying his historiography to the colonial government's purposes.[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) His school texts in both [Afrikaans](https://www.edgepedia.org/afrikaans) and English carried his version of the southern African past into classrooms.[3](https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/DFHD/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1023) A scholarly study assesses that his works, published amid intense inter-ethnic animosities, aimed to provide a cohesive version of the South African past, blaming the Zulus for the population depletion of the 1820s and 1830s and legitimizing colonial aspirations to the use and possession of land.[6](https://revistahh.emnuvens.com.br/revista/article/view/1477)
## Death and successors
Theal died at Wynberg, Cape Province, on 17 April 1919, while correcting the proofs of the last two volumes of his history.[1](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall) • [2](https://emandulo.apc.uct.ac.za/users/entity6937.html) His multi-volume history and source collections remained in print long after his death; *Records of South-Eastern Africa* was reprinted in Cape Town by C. Struik in 1964.[8](https://archive.org/details/recordssoutheas01theagoog)
## Historians' assessment
A 1981 study in *History in Africa* described Theal as South Africa's most prolific and influential historian, and noted that he still awaited a biographer, with existing sketches saying little about his career before he began work in the Cape archives in the late 1870s.[7](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/abs/george-mccall-theal-and-lovedale/A1FE155E6AE90B62E77702195A3EBC6A) A book chapter on his historiography calls him the critical pioneer historian of colonial [Southern Africa](https://www.edgepedia.org/southern-africa), who drafted from the 1880s a multi-volume *History* of nearly 5,000 pages; it holds that, while claiming to offer an impartial and scientific account, he in fact developed a highly personal view of imperial contact and conquest, and that his "doctrine of imperialism" was in substance a personalized doctrine of "colonial nationalism", a vision of local identity based on the white settler community that saw colonial "home rule" as contingent political strategy.[5](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18244-2_4) The same study's reading of his *The History of the Emigrant Boers in South Africa* (1888) and *Progress of South Africa in the Century* (1901) finds his interpretations of the [Great Trek](https://www.edgepedia.org/great-trek) (1835–1846) and the mfecane (c. 1815–1835) serving that cohesive settler narrative.[6](https://revistahh.emnuvens.com.br/revista/article/view/1477)
## Legacy
Theal's *History of South Africa since September 1795* was reissued by Cambridge University Press, and his authority record at the Library of Congress lists a *History of South Africa* of 1893 among his works.[4](https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511783210) • [10](https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50007604.html) Parks Canada has designated him a National Historic Person, citing his career as a civil servant and historian and his scholarly works on the history of sub-equatorial Africa.[3](https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/DFHD/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1023) Modern scholarship treats his narrative interpretations of the mfecane and the Great Trek as arguments for colonial land claims rather than neutral history.[6](https://revistahh.emnuvens.com.br/revista/article/view/1477)
## References
1. [1922 Encyclopædia Britannica: Theal, George McCall](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Theal,_George_McCall)
2. [EMANDULO (University of Cape Town): George McCall Theal](https://emandulo.apc.uct.ac.za/users/entity6937.html)
3. [Parks Canada: Theal, George McCall National Historic Person](https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/DFHD/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1023)
4. [Cambridge University Press: History of South Africa since September 1795](https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511783210)
5. [The Imperial Historian as 'Colonial Nationalist': George McCall Theal and the Making of South African History](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18244-2_4)
6. [Entre azagaias, carroças e espingardas: a escrita do passado sul-africano em George McCall Theal (1837–1919)](https://revistahh.emnuvens.com.br/revista/article/view/1477)
7. [George McCall Theal and Lovedale, History in Africa, vol. 8 (1981)](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/abs/george-mccall-theal-and-lovedale/A1FE155E6AE90B62E77702195A3EBC6A)
8. [Records of South-Eastern Africa, Volume 1 (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/recordssoutheas01theagoog)
9. [Theal, History of South Africa since September 1795, Vol. 1 (author's preface)](https://emandulo.apc.uct.ac.za/collection/FHYA%20Depot/Theal_G_M_History_of_South_Africa_since_September_1795_vol_1.pdf)
10. [Library of Congress authority record: Theal, George McCall, 1837–1919](https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50007604.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › History and archaeology › Other history › Sub-Saharan Africa and the Horn › Southern Africa (1100 to 1902) › Titles A to M*
*Initially written Sep 24, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026 · Last review: Sep 30, 2026*
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