Frances Ellen Colenso (1849–1887)

Frances Ellen "Fanny" Colenso was born in the village of Forncett, Norfolk, one of five daughters of John Colenso, a British mathematician and theologian who became the Church of England missionary Bishop of Natal, South Africa, and his wife Sarah Frances Bunyan. She was educated at Winnington Hall before attending the Slade School of Art in London.

She wrote what is believed to have been the first South African novel, My Chief and I (1880), and then two nonfiction books, History of the Zulu War and Its Origin (1880) and The Ruin of Zululand (1885). Her histories explained events in the British colony of Zululand from a pro-Zulu perspective, and were not popular with the British public. She died at age 37 in 1887, after after nursing a soldier with tuberculosis, possibly of a heart attack. Her older sister Harriette Emily Colenso helped their father in the publication of his Digest of Zulu Affairs and advocated for the Africans of Natal and Zululand against the policies of British settlers and colonial administrators.