Francis Owen

Francis Owen was the first English missionary to the Zulu kingdom, then ruled by King Dingane. He and his household were the only white witnesses to the massacre of Piet Retief and his approximate 80 followers in February 1838 in the Zulu capital of Umgungundlovu. He is also the only European to leave a detailed account of life in the Zulu court and travelling through Natal at that time. Background Owen was born in Chelsea, London, in 1802. In 1836 was a vicar in Normanton, West Yorkshire when he attended a lecture given by a retired naval captain, Allen Francis Gardiner, who was seeking a missionary to convert the Zulu people to Christianity. Owen agreed to help and travelled to South Africa in 1837 with his wife (Sarah Pennington Owen), daughter (name not known), sister Mary, (who later became a botanist in South Africa) and a maidservant called Jane Williams, later Jane Bird. Owen's mission was not a success. Dingane was deeply suspicious of the Christian teaching and the journal includes accounts of his many interrogations of Christian beliefs. Owen found many local practices strange and brutal compared to life in Yorkshire and viewed the Zulu King as a barbarian and a tyrant. Owen's belief, expressed in his journal and common amongst missionaries at the time, was that anyone not baptised in the church was bound for eternal damnation. This attitude only changed in South Africa in the 1860's with the preachings of John Colenso.