The new apartheid government under D. F. Malan proved adept at using science for its own purposes. The 1949 ‘African Charter’ promoted science and technology as a means to secure regional domination and South Africa’s position as a bulwark of anti-communism. South Africa’s Antarctic research programme regained momentum in the context of the Cold War. The IDC sponsored SASOL, based on an oil-from-coal chemical process, and phosphate-based fertilisers by means of a new parastatal, FOSKOR. Platinum, discovered by Hans Merensky, came of age in the 1970s. Uranium was enriched at a secret plant at Valindaba. The apartheid state also invested heavily in dam construction, hydro-electric power, and irrigation. Agricultural ‘Betterment’ schemes were imposed in the black homelands or Bantustans. From the mid-1970s, state resources were devoted to support weapon production and develop a nuclear capability, and optical astronomy was consolidated under the South African Astronomical Organisation at Sutherland. A major scientific achievement was the world’s first human heart transplant in 1967. Botany, agronomy and biodiversity were major areas of research, as was wildlife conservation. It is therefore possible to distinguish between science under apartheid and apartheid science designed to underpin white supremacy.

We have aimed to write a book that speaks to multiple audiences, starting from the proposition that a synoptic view of the scientific imagination in South Africa over 300 years has much to offer specialist as well as general readerships. Firstly, for those interested primarily in South Africa, our argument is that scientific ideas and practices have irreversibly shaped society, and that they should be understood as an intrinsic element of political power, economic growth, and social change. In spheres from human and veterinary medicine to mining and agriculture, from the technologies of transport to those of water and energy, science has distinctively moulded South Africa’s modernity. It has done so directly through the exercise of techno- and bio-power – and also indirectly through theories and rhetorics of exclusion and inclusion, progress and entitlement, regeneration and degeneration.

The South African War of 1899–1902 constituted a major political rupture. In the postwar period, science and technology consolidated the embryonic state and legitimated white authority – and racial segregation – by valorising rationality, order and progress. Members of scientific associations helped to build the university system which expanded rapidly after the First World War. The confluence of scientific and industrial expertise in Johannesburg was signalled by the establishment of a South African Institute for Medical Research in 1912. The national Department of Agriculture was a key employer of applied scientists, and veterinary researchers at Onderstepoort tackled a range of animal diseases. Innovative individuals such as Junod, Merensky and Marais advanced entomology, geology and zoology. Jan Smuts and J.H. Hofmeyr were committed to active participation in the emergent Commonwealth, viewing science as a means to transcend differences between English- and Afrikaans-speakers. In the 1920s and 30s both became strong advocates of the ‘South Africanisation’ of science and of research in the southern hemispheres. These included new theories of continental drift developed by Alexander du Toit, as well as remarkable paleontological discoveries indicating South Africa’s importance in the evolution of humankind.

The post-apartheid ANC government took pride in repurposing the country as a modern, democratic state and promoted a vision of science and technology for the common good. Astronomy was a particular beneficiary of the new dispensation. The Southern African Large Telescope at Sutherland was part of the dividend resulting from the country’s transition to democracy and the decommissioning of nuclear weaponry. Mandela’s successor, Thabo Mbeki, advocated national renewal through an ‘African Renaissance’ that promoted both indigenous knowledge and scientific ambition. Mbeki’s suspicion of the authority of Western science and his Africanist affinities impelled him to intervene in the controversy surrounding HIV/AIDS and to support AIDs denialism. It has often been alleged that Mbeki was caught between ‘indigenous’ and ‘Western’ knowledge, yet his scientific legacy was more complex. In fields such as ethno-botany, for instance, there is evidence of complementary research in post-apartheid South Africa between scientists and carriers of African knowledge of plant medicines. The process of developing a new spirit of ‘South Africanism’ in the post-apartheid rainbow nation meant greater openness to South Africa’s position as an African nation, while also inviting bids leadership of Africa through ‘big science’ initiatives like astronomy and Antarctic research.

Under Prime Minister J. B. M. Hertzog (1924–1939), the state became increasingly central to scientific research and industrialisation. Hendrik van der Bijl and H. J. Van Eck developed national power supply through the state electricity commission (Escom) and used the Industrial Development Council to fund state-led enterprises. State officials and scientists devoted themselves to environmental issues from soil erosion to irrigation, invasive plants and vermin eradication. With Jan Smuts back in power in the war years, competing ‘worlds of possibilities’ emerged in political and scientific imaginations: Anglophone and liberal constituencies looked forward to reforms and postwar reconstruction; the African National Congress focussed on social progress, welfare and human rights for all; Afrikaner nationalists began to envisage an alternative utopia of republican independence and apartheid. The promise of science in helping to deliver these outcomes was expressed by all three political traditions. Improved economic prospects, fuelled by the expansion of gold mining, encouraged urbanisation, state planning, industrial development and social welfare. Science became an arm of an increasingly interventionist state, planning for national postwar reconstruction that envisaged less rigid racial divisions and promised conservation and development in African areas.

“BUT I HOPE, that after to haue ben in youre graces handes: there shall be nothinge in it worthy of reprehension and that in the meane whyle no other (but your highnes onely) shal rede it.” Elizabeth wrote these words as part of her dedication to Katherine Parr in her New Year's gift of 1545 accompanying her translation of Marguerite de Navarre's Le Miroir de l’âme pécheresse. However, three years later, in 1548, John Bale corrected her translation, added Scriptural citations, and printed the book as A Godly Medytacyon of the christen sowle. He also added his own dedication to Elizabeth. Elizabeth's translation went on to be published four more times by the end of the sixteenth century.

Like the lacuna in a close examination of all of Elizabeth's dedications to her family members, it also seems as though the five sixteenth-century printed editions have not gotten nearly enough attention. The scholarly consensus of Bale's edition is that Bale printed Elizabeth's translation in 1548, safely after Henry VIII was dead, to mobilize Elizabeth's name and translation to promote Protestantism within England. John N. King notes that “despite the pre-Reformist origins of the text, Bale uses it as a vehicle for exaggerated praise of Elizabeth's Protestant zeal.” Aysha Pollnitz and Jaime Goodrich agree that Bale published Elizabeth's translation as part of his effort to advance the English Reformation. Patrick Collinson suggests that Bale turned Elizabeth's translation into “a godly Protestant manifesto” and “in effect hi-jacked Elizabeth's juvenile exercise for the Protestant cause.”

Some scholars go so far as to suggest that Bale's afterword, in which he lists previous women who served as queens regent or regnant, is a subtle promotion of Katherine Parr to the regency of Edward VI. Both Anne Lake Prescott and Patrick Collinson suggest that Bale lists so many women who had served as regents it is hard to imagine he was not supporting Katherine Parr to be one for Edward. Yet, few scholars grapple with the importance of Bale's publication beyond these ideas, and what gets even less treatment is the later editions of Elizabeth's translations.

FELICITY HEAL, AMONG others, has shown the power and importance of New Year's gifts at the Tudor court. New Year's was not only an appropriate time to give gifts, but also to receive them, as there was an established protocol of gift-giving that required the receiver of the gift to acknowledge and give something in return. Additionally, gifts were used “to enhance bonds between individuals and families,” which I suggest Elizabeth attempted with the content of her manuscript dedications. This chapter examines the New Year's gift exchange among Henry VIII and his children to show how Mary and Elizabeth gave and received gifts differently, according to their status and abilities.

While books were not the most frequently given gift, they were a typical gift that was given to every Tudor monarch at each New Year. As such, I suggest that Elizabeth's gifts of manuscript translations were strategically planned to be New Year's gifts to her father, stepmother, and brother because this would have ensured that her gifts were at least looked at in the event that she did not present them at court in person and were attempts to strengthen the connection between Elizabeth and her family members.

Sources for New Year's Gifts

For the years in which Elizabeth gave her dedicated manuscripts, it is difficult to determine if she gave them in person, what she received in return, and what her siblings gave to gauge the significance of Elizabeth's gifts because extant New Year's gift rolls only exist for 1528, 1532, 1534, and 1539. Surviving state papers also offer few clues as to any expenses that Henry or Katherine may have incurred giving gifts to their children or giving rewards for the rest of the New Year's gifts that they would have received. However, New Year's gift rolls do not even tell the whole story of the New Year's gift exchange. According to Felicity Heal, beginning in the 1530s, gift-giving became more challenging with the upswing of Anne Boleyn and downfall of Catherine of Aragon. In 1532, Eustace Chapuys reported that the king would not accept Catherine of Aragon's gift of a gold cup, and then refused to send a gift to Catherine, her ladies, or Princess Mary.