Page "Wilhelm Bleek" Paragraph 6

When Grey was appointed Governor of New Zealand, he presented his collection to the South African Public Library on condition that Bleek be its curator, a position he occupied from 1862 until his death in 1875.

In addition to this work, Bleek supported himself and his family by writing regularly for Het Volksblad throughout the 1860s and publishing the first part of his A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages in London in 1862.

The second part was also published in London in 1869 with the first chapter appearing in manuscript form in Cape Town in 1865.

Unfortunately, much of Bleek's working life in the Cape, like that of Lucy Lloyd after him, was characterised by extreme financial hardship which made his research even more difficult to continue with.