[5] Webb and Wright's editions of these testimonies about indigenous societies in the Natal-Zululand region were published from 1976 onwards by the University of Natal Press.
[1] In January 1987 Webb was a signatory to the University of Natal's formal objection to arbitrary detention without charge, legal counsel or trial.
[7] This was occasioned by the detention of Jo Beall, lecturer in African Studies and secretary of the Joint Academic Staff Association, who had been arbitrarily detained since December 1986.
[7] In 1988, Webb, together with Peter de V. Booysen and R. Hugh Philpott, visited Zimbabwe and Zambia to forge contacts with universities there.
[2] Webb was instrumental in founding, at Pietermaritzburg, the Alan Paton Centre for the Study of the Literature and Politics of Inter-group Conciliation, which he opened on 24 April 1989.
[7] Also in 1991, Principal James Leatt controversially overruled Webb and reinstated a pupil who had been excluded from the campus's William O’Brien Hall of residence.
[7] The stress of the job affected Webb's health, and he lost his sight in one eye - as had two of his colleagues, Deneys Schreiner and Peter de V.
[5] From the journal's inauguration until 1975, he chaired its editorial board, which initially included Pam Reid, John Clark and Sue Judd,[1][11] plus June Farrer and Mr. R.A.
[1][10] For a University of Natal at Durban rag week, student Michael Lambert wrote a variety script in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan that referenced Webb as a "giggling tall historian".
He simply believed that tasks were important and needed to be carried out intelligently and honestly; other people decided that he was the person to perform crucial functions.
[5][1] There, despite a warning from Elizabeth Sneddon against "lefties", she befriended Violaine Junod, Anthony de Crespigny, and Graham Neame - and later, in 1957, Webb.
[5][24] Those sheltered included the Webbs' friends Alan and Dorrie Paton,[5] and in 1960 during a wave of mass arrests of anti-apartheid figures, Violaine Junod sought refuge there.
[24] In 1962, Fleur Webb joined the anti-apartheid group Black Sash, becoming a protest-stand organiser for the Natal Midlands branch through the 1960s and 1970s.
[1] Colin Webb was an early member of the Progressive Party,[10] which rejected racial discrimination and advocated equal opportunities for all with a qualified franchise with a common voter's roll.