Cape Blue Books and Statistical Registers

Literature › Primary sources

Kind	official statistical series
Producer	Cape Colony government
Coverage	1835-1905
Works using it	4

Debates

Debate	Works
Pre-Union colonial economy, the mineral revolution and the South African War	4
Historiographical approaches	1
Urban segregation, Group Areas and the apartheid city	1

Works using this source

Work	As cited	Period	How used
Houghton and Dagut (1972)	Cape of Good Hope Blue Books 1860-1875 (annual), including Civil Commissioners' Reports (Appendix JJ) and statistical tables (manufactures, wages, prices, banks, revenue, trade, shipping)	1860-1870, 1875, 1885	Supplies district-by-district descriptions of agriculture, labour, roads, trade and diamond effects, plus tabulated returns on wages, prices, banks, revenue and trade.
Houghton and Dagut (1972)	Statistical Register of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope 1890 and 1899	1888-1899	1891 census results, wages in 1888, railways, diamond exports, imports and exports, Customs Union trade, bank capital.
Mabin (1984)	Cape Blue Books (1855-1885), later Statistical Registers (1886-1905)	1850-1905	Basic statistical series on trade, exports, wages, prices, road expenditure, towns, manufacturing and wool, used to identify phases of boom and slump and map indicators.
Mabin (1986a)	Cape Blue Book (Cape BB), various years 1859-1887, including Reports of Civil Commissioners	1850s-1887	Supplies colonial import/export, wool and commodity export figures (Fig. 1, Tables 1-3) and district civil commissioners' comments on trade destinations and roads.
Mabin (1986a)	Cape Statistical Register (Cape SR)	1835-1899	Used with the Blue Book and PECC reports to build port shares of imports and exports (Fig. 3).
Mabin (1986b)	Cape of Good Hope Blue Book and Statistical Register 1880-1887 (colonial exports, Table 1)	1880-1887	Documents the 1883-85 depression through colonial export values of wool, ostrich feathers and diamonds.