Charles van Onselen

Charles van Onselen (birth 14 August 1944, Boksburg) is a researcher and historian based at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Charles van Onselen
Born	(1944-08-14) 14 August 1944 Boksburg, Transvaal Union of South Africa
Academic background
Alma mater	Rhodes University University of the Witwatersrand Oxford University
Thesis	African mine labour in Southern Rhodesia, 1900-1933 (1974)
Academic work
Institutions	University of Pretoria
Notable works	The Seed is Mine

Education

Van Onselen holds a B.Sc. and U.E.D. from Rhodes University, a B.A. Hons. from the University of the Witwatersrand, a D.Phil. from Oxford University and a D.Lit.(Honoris Causa) from Rhodes.

Academic career

He is based at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Recognition and awards

He received the Alan Paton Award for The Seed is Mine in 1997.

Personal life

Charles was married to Belinda Bozzoli, and their three children including Gareth van Onselen.

Selected works

• The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper 1894–1985 (1996), described as a "detailed and compelling history of the effect of South Africa's Land Laws on one man and his family"
• New Babylon New Nineveh: Everyday life on the Witwatersand 1886–1914, a social and economic history of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century Witwatersrand
• The Fox and the Flies (2007), a social, political, and economic history of the Trans-Atlantic underworld from about 1890 until 1918, the year Joseph Silver was executed by the Austro-Hungarian military, in which Van Onselen speculates that Silver could have been Jack the Ripper

Bibliography

• Chibaro: African mine labour in Southern Rhodesia, 1900-1933. London: Pluto Press. 1976. ISBN 978-0902818880.
• Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand, 1886–1914: Volume I: New Babylon, Volume II: New Nineveh. Johannesburg: Ravan Press. 1982.
• The Small Matter of a Horse: The Life of 'Nongoloza' Mathebula, 1867-1948. Johannesburg: Ravan Press. 1984. ISBN 0869752391.
• The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, A South African Sharecropper, 1894-1985. Oxford: James Currey. 1996.
• The Fox and the Flies: The Secret Life of a Grotesque Master Criminal. New York: Walker Publishing. 2007. ISBN 978-0-8027-1641-5.
• Masked Raiders: Irish Banditry in Southern Africa, 1880-1899. Cape Town: Zebra Press. 2010. ISBN 9781770220805.
• Showdown at the Red Lion: The Life and Times of Jack McLoughlin, 1859-1910. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball. 2015. ISBN 9781868426225.
• The Cowboy Capitalist: John Hays Hammond, The American West, and the Jameson Raid. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers. 2017. ISBN 9781868427383.
• The Night Trains. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers. 2019. ISBN 9781868429806.