Leading further research on San language and folklore
After Bleek's death in August 1875, and true to the desire expressed in a codicil to his will written in 1871, Lucy continued working on their joint Bushman studies, taking the leading role in interviewing informants, specifically Dia!kwain and |Han≠kass'o, recording and transcribing their stories, sourcing materials, as well as publishing articles in magazines such as the Cape Monthly Magazine. While Lucy would undoubtedly have done this anyway, his request must surely have bestowed on her work the credibility that, in those days, was usually reserved for male scholars and researchers. For some interviews, especially those of young !Kung boys, she received the support of her sister, Bleek's widow, Jemima.
Fanny and Julia Lloyd joined the Bleek and Lloyd household (now at Charlton House, also in Mowbray). Lucy was appointed curator of the Grey Collection as successor to Bleek after his death in 1875, at half his salary, a position she accepted reluctantly. During this time she worked with the Grey Collection and at editing various manuscripts collected by Bleek, as well as continuing with her |Xam research in her own time. She began corresponding with George W. Stow in 1875 about his copies of Bushman art, and in 1876 he proposed a book that would eventually be published (with Lucy's support) in an incomplete form as The Native Races of Southern Africa. Lucy also played an important role in the founding of the SA Folklore Society, for which she acted as secretary for a while, and in the founding of the Folklore Journal in 1879.
Lucy's services at the South African Library were terminated in 1880 when Dr Johannes Theophilus Hahn was appointed, after a long and painful saga, in her place. Her relationship with the library had been fraught, and particularly with the Cape Colony's Secretary-General for Education Langham Dale who made the new appointment. She thought Hahn to be a fool and his appointment a disaster. Lloyd and the trustees of the Grey Collection, who supported her, took the case to the Supreme Court for judgment. The appointment, however, went ahead. Hahn resigned two years later, after which no custodian of the collection was appointed.
After Stow's death in 1882, Lloyd purchased his tracings and copies of Bushman paintings as well as the manuscript of Native Races from his wife, Fanny Stow. Lucy then engaged the services of the historian George McCall Theal to work with her on the manuscript and edit it. It was published in London in 1905 along with some photographic images taken from Lucy's own collection.
