Background
Scully was born in Dublin, Ireland, raised in Cashel, County Tipperary, and then emigrated to southern Africa with his parents in 1867.
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William Scully
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In addition to his work as an author, his paid work was principally as a magistrate in Springfontein, South Africa, as well as in Namaqualand and the Transkei. His last position before retirement was as Chief Magistrate of Portuguese Elizabeth, one of South Africa"s larger cities. He organised the building of "New Brighton", a township for aboriginal African people in Portuguese Elizabeth.
At the time it was regarded as very progressive—a pleasant place to live.
During 1871 he prospected for diamonds with Cecil Rhodes in Africa. His novel Daniel Vananda describes the violence engendered by the ethnic legislation of the time.
Similarly, Kafir Stories contains stories that are generally sympathetic with the aboriginal African peoples of South Africa. After the Boer War, Scully was appointed Chair of a commission to investigate war crimes by the British forces in the Cape Province.
(The main war crimes were, of course, committed in the Transvaal and the Free State) After this he wrote The Harrow, fictional but based on cases the commission had investigated.
He supplied the publishers with a key to every incident in the book—but with the proviso that this should never be published. Years later he regretted writing the book
