Duncan Du Bois Is a fifth-generation Byrne settler of Natal. His ancestor, James Du Bois along with his wife Fanny and their eight children, disembarked from the Ballengeich in Durban on July 31, 1850.
Duncan spent 34 years as a high school teacher of History and English. He completed a MA dissertation in 1989 at the University of Natal. After taking early retirement from teaching in 2010, he returned to his alma mater and completed a Ph.D dissertation in 2013.
Both his dissertations have been adapted for publication under the titles Labourer or Settler? Colonial Natal’s Indian Dilemma and Sugar and Settlers: A history of the Natal South Coast 1850-1910. Since 2012 he has had 15 articles published in academic journals. Other publications include a monograph on Joseph Baynes for the Baynesfield Trust, the contribution of six chapters to the privately published Illovo Chronicles, a history of Illovo Sugar. In 2017 a collection of articles titled Portraits of Colonial Natal was published followed in 2019/20 by a random history of his home suburb titled Bluff Peninsula.
In 2020 he published Actually! Right-sizing some past and present issues. Divided into ten chapter themes, the book contains published and unpublished letters and articles and a short history of the ANC. In 2021 he researched and published A History of the Fynnlands Baptist Church 1946-2016.
Between 1992 and November 2007, he produced a fortnightly column for the Natal Witness. He has been a regular contributor to the letters columns of newspapers since 1976. Active in local politics, he represented one of the Bluff wards in the Durban City Council between 1991 and 1996. Between 2001 and 2016 he was the Bluff ward councillor in eThekwini Metro.
In 2021 he completed a critical appraisal of the History syllabus as taught in Grades 10, 11 and 12 in SA schools. Afriforum has indicated its intention to promote the work.
Stay Tuned for Updates
I send thoughtful and caring emails