Publisher's blue cloth binding with gilt titles to front panel and spine.
viii + 264pp.
The letters were edited by her husband, Rev.Thomas Edward Wilkinson, Bishop of Zululand.
Lacks the frontispiece but contains a very interesting association inscription on the front paste-down:
"Archdeacon Roberts, presented to him by the Editor Bishop Wilkinson, who was the real founder of the Diocese of Pretoria, and should have been its first Bishop. After a visit to S. Africa in extreme old age, he died in Khartoum on his journey through East Africa."
Alfred Roberts was an archdeacon in the Diocese of Pretoria. In 1879 he married Marianne Fannin (1845-1938), an Irish botanical artist, known for her work painting the flora of South Africa. She was regarded as one of the principle South African botanical artists of her time. Their son was the famous ornithologist Dr. Austen Roberts (1883-1948).
'The letters composing this memoir are published with a view to giving an idea of the kind of life which a lady is called upon to live when she leaves her English home for the purpose of aiding " . . . missionary work "in such a wild and savage country as Zululand." Mrs. Wilkinson accompanied her husband, together with his missionary party, to Zululand, sailing from Falmouth on July 6, 1870. They made some stay at Bishopscourt near Cape Town, afterwards proceeding to Maritzburg, Natal, and it is stated that on their arrival at this town they found that "everybody that can go is gone to the diamond fields." The road to their destination - the mission station of Kwamagwaza - was by the lower Tugela Drift to Ekowe (Etoywe), and en route the missionaries visited many well-known people in Natal, connected with mission and religious work in the colony. The volume affords considerable information respecting social and political life among the colonists and natives of Natal and Zululand at this period, and includes a few details regarding the author's travelling experiences in the Transvaal. Mrs. Wilkinson appears to have been much liked by the natives, but she does not speak well of Cetywayo, and observes, "From the day of his coronation . . . to the day our troops entered his country, his attitude towards us was one of broken faith, marked disrespect, and increasing insolence." Bishop Wilkinson and his wife visited England in 1875 in order to make arrangements for the extension of the diocese and raise the necessary funds, but towards the end of the year 1877 Mrs. Wilkinson was attacked by consumption and succumbed. The station at Kwamagwaza had become a most important centre in the very middle of Zululand and its progress had been remarkable under Bishop Wilkinson, but during the war with Cetywayo it was destroyed and all the buildings demolished . . ." - Mendelssohn Vol.II, page 610-11
- Binding Condition: Very Good
- Overall Condition: Very Good
- Size: 8vo
