People, Power, Planet: The Patrick Duncan Archive

In September 2026 the Borthwick Institute was awarded a grant of nearly £50,000 from Archives Revealed to undertake the cataloguing and engagement project ‘People, Power, Planet: The Patrick Duncan Archive’. This two-year project will launch in January 2027 and aims to engage new audiences with this rich personal archive, enabling people to navigate, consider, and develop new responses to an important figure whose story and ideas deeply resonate with contemporary debates around people, power, and planet.

The Patrick Duncan Archive is a compelling collection of personal papers, letters, diaries, photographs, and political documents that together tell the story of a unique and significant figure in the struggle against apartheid. Covering the years 1926 to 1967, the archive traces Duncan’s journey from his privileged early life as the son of South Africa’s Governor‑General, through his work as a colonial official in Basutoland (now Lesotho), to a champion of racial, democratic, social, and environmental equity. He sacrificed power and wealth, becoming a noted activist, journalist, and author, who was imprisoned multiple times. Influenced by Gandhi's philosophy of passive resistance, he participated in the 1952 Defiance Campaign alongside Manilal Gandhi. He was a national organiser of the non-racial Liberal Party of South Africa, founded and edited the liberal newspaper Contact. After Sharpeville in 1960, he became closely involved with the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) leadership, later becoming its first white member and North African representative based in Algiers.

Archives Revealed is the only grant programme in the United Kingdom dedicated to cataloguing and unlocking archival collections. The programme is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Pilgrim Trust, the Wolfson Foundation and The National Archives. Its goal is to ensure that significant archive collections, representing the lives and perspectives of people across the UK, are made accessible for public research and enjoyment.

This project will make the archive fully accessible for the first time by creating a detailed catalogue, improving descriptions, digitising selected items, and developing collaborative learning resources to open the collection to new audiences and research. The work will support schools, universities, community and diasporic groups, and anyone interested in human rights, Southern African history, journalism, or environmental issues.

Laura Yeoman, Acting Keeper of Archives at the Borthwick Institute for Archives, says: “We are absolutely delighted to be the recipient of this grant from Archives Revealed. The grant will allow us to make this collection available to the public in full for the first time, as well as unlock the collection’s potential for future research and outreach work.”

Charles Fonge, University Archivist and project lead says "The project will allow us to open up this remarkable collection, sharing its powerful stories of anti-apartheid activism, early environmentalism, and radical resistance with researchers, communities, and the public worldwide. The Patrick Duncan archive holds extraordinary potential to support research, teaching and creative engagements, revealing the networks of people, ideas, and political movements that shaped anti-apartheid resistance, wider civil rights movements, environmental awareness, and southern African history."

The project will run until January 2029. If you have any questions please contact Dr Charles Fonge, University Archivist and project lead (charles.fonge@york.ac.uk).

To find out more about the other archives services who were awarded grants in this round, please see the announcement from The National Archives.