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The Colenso papers: documenting “an extensive chain of influence” from Zululand to Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

Gwilym Colenso
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Extract

For several decades, members of the Colenso family conducted a vigorous humanitarian campaign across two continents, keeping in touch and exchanging information with one another between England and Natal. Prolific writers, continuously immersed in the often frenetic day to day activity of their campaigning work, they had little time to consider preserving for the future the vast amount of correspondence and documentation they produced. The result is that much of their prodigious output survives today only by chance, dispersed between different collections in the United Kingdom and South Africa.

The Colenso papers are authored not by an individual but severally by the members of a family, the family of John William Colenso, the first Bishop of Natal, his brother in law, his wife, their five children and two daughters in law.

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Articles
Information
African Research and Documentation , Volume 115 , 2011 , pp. 3 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2011

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Footnotes

1.

The expression “an extensive chain of influence” was coined by Professor Shula Marks, Reluctant Rebellion: The 1906-08 Disturbances in Natal (Oxford, 1970), p.xxiii. I hope the reason I have borrowed it for the title of this article will become clear. I would like to thank John Pinfold for his encouragement and helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. I am also indebted to Dr. Charles Swaisland who, over many years, has generously given me the benefit of his knowledge of the papers and histories of both the Colenso family and the Aborigines’ Protection Society.

References

Notes

2. Bishop Colenso (Bp C) to Frederick Chesson (FWC), 23 Feb 1875, Rhodes House (RH), Mss. Brit. Emp. S.18,.C131, f.85.

3. Bp C to FWC, 23 Sep 1875, RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s.18, C131, f.190.

4. The one exception to this is the 2½ years in 1890-93 during which Harriette, Agnes and their mother visited England.

5. Bp C to FWC, 23 Feb 1875, RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s.18. C131, f.85.

6. Marks, Shula, ‘Hariette Colenso and the Zulus, 1874-1913’, Journal of African History, 4, (1963), p.411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. I would like to thank the following archivists for their assistance in identifying and accessing documents in the archives referred to above. At Rhodes House Library: Lucy McCann and Marion Lowman; at the Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository, Pieter Nel, Mabongi Ndwandwe and Thabani Mdladla; at the Killie Campbell Africana Library: Mwelela Cele and Nellie Somers.

8. After Frank Colenso borrowed them for a biography of his father that was not completed, these papers were taken to Durban by a friend of the Colenso family and of Killie Campbell. (KC). Frank Colenso (FEC) to FWC, 4 Oct 1885, RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s.18, C130, f.167; Sophie Colenso to KC, 8 March 1936, Campbell Collection, at the Killie Campbell Africana Library (KCAL), KCM, 8781b; Mary Werner to KC, 8 March 1936, KCAL, KCM, 8780; KC to Mr Kennedy, 22 June 1942, KCAL, KCM, 4297.

9. Bp C to FWC, 23 Feb 1875, RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s.18, C131, f.85.

10. Harriette Colenso (HEC) to Aunt Ellen, 24 Feb 1874, KCAL, J8/KCM, 49067.

11. Mrs Colenso also made copies of letters for Harriette: “Mother is making a copy for you of this mail's letter to Mr Chesson”. HEC to FEC, 14 Jun 1884, RH, Mss. Afr. s.1286/1, f. 52.

12. HEC to FEC, 23 Oct 1883, RH, Mss. Afr. s.1286/1, f. 34.

13. For example, HEC to FWC [ May/June 1880], with a postscript by Bp Colenso, KCAL, Z90/KCM, 50052. With the assistance of Frank Colenso in England, in 1880 and 1884/5, the Bishop's second daughter, Frances, published two books critically assessing the Anglo Zulu war of 1879 and its after effects.

14. For a period after the death of Sir George Colley in February 1881 in the first Anglo Boer War, Natal was without a Governor, the role being filled by an Administrator.

15. The Colonial Office subsequently forwarded to Chesson a second report by the District Surgeon to which was appended a comment: “The above report is not entirely accurate… the District Surgeon has omitted mention of the death … [of a second prisoner]”. RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s.22, G12/6, Vol 1, item 5, enc. E.

16. Bp C to FWC, 10 April, 16 July, 9 Oct 1881, KCAL, Z175/KCM, 50137, Z191/KCM, 50153, Z206/KCM,50168; enclosure sent to Chesson by Col Office, 3 Sept 1881, RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s.22, G12 /6, Vol 1, item 30 enc H.

17. Lord Kimberley to Administrator of Natal, 1 June 1881, British Parliamentary Papers, [C.3182], No 23.

18. Postscript by JWC to HEC to FWC [late May/June 1881]; KCAL, Z90/KCM, 5052; ”…and Lord K will hardly trouble himself to see that this is merely the Langa. case over again, where the Court merely echoes the wish of the Gov.” (emphasis in original) Bp C to FWC, 9 Oct 1881, KCAL, Z206/KCM, 50168.

19. “I have annexed Lord Carnarvon's despatch of 3 Dec 74 on the Langa case as a somewhat parallel one.” Colonial Office official's note on despatch enclosing petition for the release of Beje, 4 Aug 1880, The National Archives (TNA), CO 179/134/11787.

20. Notes on F Chesson to Lord Kimberley, 12 Mar 1881, TNA, CO 179/139/6016.

21. “I should almost think that these men who must be insignificant persons might now be dealt with …” Note on file entitled “the Cases of Beje and other convicted Zulus” created on 5 Apr 1881 for a letter of 12 Mar 1881 from Chesson, TNA, CO 179/139/6061.

22. HEC to FWC [late May/Junel881], KCAL, Z90/KCM, 5052.

23. HEC to FEC, 26 March 1881, RH, Mss. Afr. s.1286/1, ff.10,11.

24. Bp C to FWC, 5th Nov 1881, KCAL, Z212/KCM, 50174.

25. HEC to FEC, [Nov 1881], quoted in G. W. Cox, The Life of John William Colenso, D.D. Bishop of Natal (London 1888), ii, p.578, n.2. The Colensos’ joy at Beje's release was, however, marred by the fact that two of his followers had died in gaol, a third had been so ill that, after his release from gaol, he did not survive the journey out to Bishopstowe, and those who had survived were all ill as a result of their incarceration.

26. Charles Swaisland The Aborigines Protection Society and British Southern and West Africa, D. Phil. University of Oxford, 1968, pp.1,2, 47; Susan Willmington, The Activities of the APS as a pressure Group on the formulation of colonial policy, 1868-1880, D Phil, St David's University College, Lampeter, 1974. Pp 25-34.

27. In 1882, Frank Colenso wrote to Chesson, ”… it is rather trying for me to be out of the way of the sympathy of you and others in London just now.” FEC to FWC, 13 Feb 1882, RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s.18, C130, f.lll.

28. Edgecombe, Ruth, The influence of the Aborigines Protection Society on British policy towards black Africans and Cape Coloureds in South Africa, PhD, University of Cambridge, 1976, p.182.Google Scholar

29. Guy, Jeff, The View Across the River: Harriette Colenso and the Zulu Struggle against Imperialism (Oxford, James Currey, 2002), pp.327-329.Google Scholar

30. ”…we out here were (and are) utterly unable to know that little insignificant point the enemy in England wd take for a peg to hang their slanders upon, so that we were obliged to hunt up and demolish every earthworm of a statement as if it were a viper, and if we overlooked a single one as insignificant, that one wd come back from England a regular boa constrictor.” HEC to FEC, 30 Oct 1883, RH, Mss. Afr. s.1286/1, f.36. 31.

31. “We must bear in mind in writing of anything we may be “going to do” that …our letters may have been steamed and read on route, while martial law is in force…” HEC to FEC, 6 Apr 1906, RH, Mss. Afr. s.1286/1, f.401.

32. The letters of Bishop Colenso's wife, Sarah Frances Colenso, to her friends in England provide a personal record of life for the Colensos at Bishopstowe from the 1860s until her death in 1893. These letters are published with a commentary in: Wyn Rees, Colenso Letters from Natal (PMB, 1958). During certain years after 1900, Harriette and Agnes kept diaries. These were normally “a week to view” with little space for each day. Entries were sporadic and usually limited to recording the barest indication of the events that took place. It is clear that the sisters simply did not have time to keep a full account of their activities. Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository, Colenso Papers, A204, boxes 12,13,19,20,21.

33. Swaisland, op. cit.

34. While held in captivity after the Anglo Zulu war, Cetswayo expressed his realisation of the importance of the written word saying, He is reported as saying, ”… that letters are now his only assegais”. Quoted in Jeff Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom, p.149.