New archives catalogue available in PDF format - Colin Legum

As part of our rolling project to add PDF attachments of existing finding aids to the online archives catalogue we're pleased to announce that we have drawn together a number of lists for the Colin Legum collection.

Colin Legum was born in 1919. In 1934 Colin Legum began working at the Sunday Express in Johannesburg. Later he became the newspaper's political correspondent. He joined the South African Labour Party and, in 1942, was elected to the Johannesburg City Council. From the mid-1950s to the mid 1980s he reported on foreign affairs for the UK's Observer. In 1960 he married Margaret Jean Roberts. In 1964 Colin and Margaret Legum published South Africa: Crisis for the West, in which they argued for economic sanctions against the South African government to bring an end to apartheid. In 1968 Colin Legum became editor of the annual Africa Contemporary Record. Legum was the author of over 20 books including Pan-Africanism: A Brief History (1962), and Africa: A Handbook of the Continent (1962).


In 1991, the Legums returned to South Africa from Great Britain. In 1999 Colin Legum authored and published Africa Since Independence.


Colin Legum died on 8 July 2003, aged 84. He was survived by his wife (who died in 2007), three daughters and grandchildren.

The collection of papers held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library comprises of papers acquired by Colin Legum on Cyprus, Aden, Malta, and Commonwealth matters, 1950-1977, and include research material, newspaper clippings, articles, notes and correspondence covering the three countries listed as well as Commonwealth discussions on Rhodesia. The material covers an important period in the history of decolonisation. A complete list of material held in this collection, can now be found attached within the ULRLS archives catalogue entry for this collection.

The bulk of Colin Legum's papers were later donated to and are available at Edinburgh University Library.