Henry Francis Fynn : Short Biography

Henry Francis Fynn

1803 – 1861

An Irishman who was a chief of the Zulu nation.

This piece was written by Michael Kelly, with the encouragement of Nigel Cunningham a South African friend who told me about Henry Fynn whom I had never heard of previously. Henry lived a very full life so I have tried to give just a flavour of the man in this piece as to do otherwise would have made it too long. Henry because of his exploits is a man I believe all Irish people should be aware of yet he is virtually unknown.

Henry Francis Fynn was the son of an Irishman who had immigrated to London from his native Donegal to make his fortune which he did. Henry was born in Grosvenor Square, London on the 29th. March 1803. His father who was called William Henry Fynn was born in Donegal around 1775. After William moved to London he met and married Elizabeth Copestick who had been born in Wales around 1783. 

Henry’s father William decided in 1807 to leave England and move to South Africa with his wife and family. They arrived first at the Cape of Good Hope where William decided to settle and try to make his living. For some reason that that is not known to us, Henry decided to remain behind in London with an aunt, who encouraged him to become a surgeon’s apprentice. In 1809 Henry was accepted as a surgeon's apprentice at Christ's Hospital despite his young age. Henry remained at Christ's Hospital as a surgeon’s apprentice until 1816 when he decided to leave the hospital and work as a surgeon on his own. At this time his father sent him a letter from South Africa asking him to come and be with the rest of the family. In spite of his father’s letter, he decided to remain in England where he worked as a Surgeon for another two years. Finally in 1819 he decided to leave England and join his father in Cape Town. Henry was not long in Cape Town when he was offered an opportunity in a place called “Somerset Farm”. So it was that in December 1819 Henry left Cape Town to go to a place “Somerset Farm”. By 1822 he left “Somerset Farm” believing that he had learned all he could there and returned to Cape Town. When he was back in Cape Town he lodged with his brother William while he looked for work. Henry was only there a few weeks when he was offered the post of super cargo aboard a ship called “Jane “that was about to leave for Delagoa Bay on a trading mission.

They did not succeed in doing much trading in Delagoa Bay it was decided that they should go about 40 miles up the Maphutha River which took them three days. Once they arrived there they were trading for ivory with the local people and this had been going very well until some Portuguese traders arrived to trade in the same place where Henry and his people were trading. The competition with the Portuguese traders for the ivory trade with the native people put up the price of the ivory, so in order to get any ivory from the natives they had to pay much more than they had expected to pay. After some time the Portuguese left and in their absence, the trade prices fell back to where they had been before there had been any competition for the trade. It was just after the Portuguese had left that Henry decided to explore the hinterland of the area where they had been trading with the help of some natives with whom he had become friendly. While he was exploring he became ill, but luckily for him some local people took care of him until he recovered. By 1823 he had returned to Delagoa Bay where he spent the next six months and during this time he took the opportunity to spend more time exploring the hinterland and meeting the native people around Delagoa Bay.

After exploring for six months he returned to Cape Town. He had only been back in Cape Town a month when he was asked to join another trading expedition. This expedition was being launched with the hope of establishing contact with the Zulu people with the hope of being able to trade with them for ivory. Henry was sent ahead of the main party with a few companions and an interpreter to try to establish communication with the Zulu king whose name was Shaka. First of all, they went to the area where the city of Durban now stands and from there Henry and his party travelled north where he met a Zulu chief called Siyingila. He was invited to stay with Siyingila at his Kraal for a while. Three days after they arrived at Siyingila’s Kraal an uncle of Shaka called Mbikwana arrived and as was the custom among the Zulu with guests he gave Henry and his party four cattle so that they would not go hungry while they were in the land of the Zulu. Along with this gift, he invited Henry and his party to come and stay at his Kraal, while Shaka was being informed of their presence in the land of the Zulu. While Henry was there a woman became ill and was expected to die. However Henry offered to nurse her and to the surprise of most he nursed her back to good health (if she had died it is not certain but his story could have ended here). A few days later a party arrived from Shaka bringing many gifts to welcome him as was the custom among the Zulu. However at the same time a note arrived from the port where the sloop (small ship) was. The note asked him to return to the ship which he did but he told Shaka’s messengers that he would wait there for a message from Shaka.

It was a while after his return to the ship that Shaka’s uncle arrived with a message saying that Shaka was now ready to see them. It turned out that the journey was to be much longer than they had expected as they had to travel about 200 miles to see Shaka and this journey took them 13 days. At the first meeting with Shaka Henry was questioned about curing the woman this happened because of his curing the woman so Shaka had come to believe that Henry must be a doctor. However Henry denied being a doctor (even though he had been a surgeon’s apprentice he had never qualified as a doctor although he had gained a lot of medical knowledge). Henry tried to explain that in his culture people were obliged to help others if they were able to help them. The reason behind all these questions was that a story had gone around the Zulu people saying that Henry had raised the woman from the dead and they were afraid that Henry could be a witch if he had power over life and death. (Witches in Zululand were executed). They had been trading with the Zulu people for a while and trade goods were running low when Henry said that it was time to return to the ship with what they had managed acquire as a result of their trading. However while Shaka was happy to see Henry’s companions return to the ship he asked Henry to stay with a few companions while the rest of the company returned to the ship.

While Henry was there with Shaka there was an attempt to kill Shaka in which Shaka was badly injured. As a result of his curing the woman Henry who had some medical supplies with him was asked to help treat Shaka along with the Zulu doctors from whom Henry learned new treatments he had not been aware of. After a time Shaka with Henry’s help recovered from his injuries which the locals had expected would be fatal. Because Henry had done so much to help Shaka recover Henry was given a large tract of land in part of what is now called Natal to give to his employer (the owner of the ship). His employer had permission to do whatever he wished with this land and the people living on it. Shortly after helping Shaka to recover, Henry decided that along with some others he would like to go exploring in order to try to make contact with other tribes He did not tell Shaka the full truth of his plans as he knew that Shaka would not like him making contact with other tribes who could be enemies of the Zulu. On this exploration they travelled long distances much of it with little food as the servants who were to carry the supplies ran off with them.

While he was on a visit to the amaMpondo people (enemies of the Zulu) whom he had previously visited, he was put on trial as they saw him as a friend of Shaka. Fortunately Henry with the judicious use of bribes managed to have himself declared innocent. After his trial he continued on exploring it was at this time that he met a number of people who clearly had some European blood in them. When he had been exploring for about nine months and all his trade goods being gone it was decided that they should return to Natal which they reached on the 15th October 1825. 

Henry was not long back in Natal when Shaka obliged Henry and his friends to go to war with him even though they did not wish to get involved. Shaka wanted the use of their muskets (they were afraid that if they did not agree that Shaka would have them killed) as the Zulu did not have muskets of their own. When this war was over and after they had returned to port Natal about 4,000 people from the tribes whom they had defeated in the war they fought with Shaka came to the settlement to ask if they could live there under the protection of the Europeans. To the surprise of the colony Shaka agreed to allow them to take the protection of the Europeans (this was against usual Zulu practice as they would kill all their enemies). Shaka had one condition for the defeated people to remain safe and this was that the Europeans would inform him every time they gave protection to any of his enemies and tell him who they were. At this time as a result of spending so much time among the Zulu Henry became fluent in their language.

It was at this time Shaka gave nine girls to Henry to be his wives, however he decided to keep only six for himself and he gave the remaining three to his brother William. This he was entitled to do under Zulu law as once Shaka had given the girls to him it was his choice what was to be done with them. With these Zulu wives Henry had about 20 children but it must be remembered that at that time most of the white people did not look kindly on one of their own taking a black wife or wives. These wives and children did Henry’s prospects of advancement in the colony no good at all especially as he acknowledged publically that they were his children

One of his black wives was called Mavundlase and it was as a result of his marriage to her that he became a hereditary chief of the Zulu nation (this has come down through his family to today). Since she was a relative of Shaka. Mavundlase was considered to be his great wife (principal wife) and so when Henry died Mavundlase succeeded to the chieftaincy that had been his. 

As far as we know Henry’s children with his black wives were looked after by his great wife after his death. This was because his black wives had found other men after he went back to the colony and married the white women.

Along with having married six black wives Henry was also married to two white women in his lifetime. The first of these was Ann Brown whom he married in Grahamstown on the 6th. March 1837 but sadly Ann died on the 30th. June 1839. Not long after Ann death in January 1841 he married Christina Browne (I think she was Ann’s sister) in Grahamstown. With Christina he had a son who was called Henry Francis Fynn who became known to the Africans as Gwalgwala. 

There were some who thought that he had deserted his black wives and children when he returned to Cape Colony. Something that is little known is that Henry’s second wife Christina helped to educate his coloured children and often had them in her house.

Henry had come to believe that in order to advance himself he would have to conform to the prejudices of the time that most white people held against black people. They did not believe in the mixing of the races so white people did not regard it as proper for a white to marry a black and certainly they should not have any children with them. Here it should be noted that his efforts to be seen as conforming to what were seen as the norms did not help him in his efforts to get advancement. While he was given civil services positions in the administration they were always inferior to what he could reasonably have expected considering his local knowledge and experience.

Now it was at this time that his friend Shaka was assassinated and a new king was chosen. So now having just becoming used to how to deal with Shaka he would have to learn how to deal with a new King who would have different ideas on how to deal with the Europeans than those Shaka had.

The new King Dingane was given false information by a translator and on the basis of this information Dingane decided to get rid of the foreigners out of Zululand. Because of this ruling from the new king, Henry withdrew from Port Natal with his family, but after they had been gone for a while he decided that it was now safe to return to Port Natal. Not long after his return he got a message from the new king asking him to come to him it would appear that by now Dingane seemed to have realized that he had been given bad advice by the translator. Henry had lost everything he had when he had left Port Natal in a hurry earlier to escape the possible wrath of the new king so he knew it was now necessary for him to do something to rebuild his fortune. Not long after Henry got the message from the king he left for the king’s kraal. Soon after he arrived he was called before Dingane. The king asked him to kill some enemy chiefs who were under English protection at Port Natal this was something which Henry refused to do. Once again it looked as if Henry could be in danger of being killed himself but just in time to save him Dingane found out that Jacob the informant had been lying to him to stir trouble against a white man with whom he had had an argument. For a good while after this incident Henry had to be very careful in his dealings with the king which were now very frequent. His considerable diplomatic abilities served him very well at this time.

In 1833 when Henry was on another exploration mission he and his party were met by a ragged group of Zulu warriors (they had been sent out without any supplies as was the Zulu custom. Zulu when they went to war were expected to live off the land. They had been travelling through land which was arid with little in the way of food to be acquired. The result was that they were starving and had to retreat before carrying out the task that had been given to them). By the time they met Henry’s group he realized how dangerous they could be so he gave them meat to eat and they all slept then. The following morning once again they asked for something to eat which was given to them and they sat down with Henry and his friends to eat. Suddenly and with no warning the Zulu attacked Henry’s group killing all his friends. But for some reason he never understood, they took him prisoner and later when they were near Port Natal, the Zulu warriors set him free and as far as Henry could tell his release seemed to be on the orders of King.

In September 1834 Henry left Port Natal for Cape Colony having been there for ten and a half years. In 1835 Henry who as the only white who was competent enough in the Zulu language begun to translate the New Testament into Zulu a task which over time he completed. It should be remembered that not only was Henry fluent in Zulu he was also fluent in the Pondo and Xhosa languages.

After Henry’s return to Cape Colony, he was given a number of different positions in the administration. While these posts on the face of them were important, for some reason which was never explained he was only paid about half the salary being paid to others doing the same job. The salary he received was £150 per year but all the others doing a similar job as he was were paid £300 a year plus an allowance of £150 for the services of a translator. None of the others had his knowledge of the local tribes and they did not speak the language so in reality he was being paid the wage of a translator to do two jobs i.e. the administrator and the translator. Henry did these jobs for a good number of years while at all times looking for a way to return top Port Natal which had finally been annexed by the British. They did this because there had been a large influx of Boers into Natal and it looked like they might take over Natal. It was when the Boers were showing signs of Natal for themselves that the British Government, having being asked many times over the years by the residents of Natal to annex the province sent soldiers to Natal to annex it as a new province of the British Empire. After this most of Boers who had come to Natal left for other places where they would be free of the British.

Henry finally given his wish to return to Natal in 1852 when he given an appointment there as a magistrate. Since Henry had last been in Natal there had been a large influx of white settlers to the province. Previously when he had been there were very few white people in Natal but now that there were so many more white people there was little acceptance of white men acting like a native. Henry wanted to be accepted as one of themselves by the new settlers. In an effort to achieve this he got rid of his black wives and lived in a white man’s house (previously he had lived in a Zulu type hut). His job in Natal on his return was in effect to be a tax collector, the tax he was to collect was called “The Hut Tax” this job he continued to do until he retired in 1860. 

Before his retirement Henry had been asking for a land grant in recognition of the service he had given to the Crown over a long number of years. He could see many others who had done far less than he had getting grants some of which were as much as 6.000 acres. He was only asking for 2,000 but he was turned down every time with the excuse that land grants were not given to civil servants although many other civil servants received such grants. 

On the 20th. December 1861 Henry died and his son Henry Francis went on to be a magistrate like his father. Of henry’s coloured children some ended up on the wrong side of the law but most became chiefs in their own right. Up to today the Nsimbini tribe contains the largest number of Henry’s descendants in South Africa. Perhaps his best known descendant was a man called Morris Fynn and he was a man who opposed apartheid. One of his favourite things to do was to go to a white only beach for a walk with a saw and while there he would cut down the whites only signs which often got him into trouble with the authorities.

In the above account only a small number of the things Henry did during his life are recounted as to tell more would require a whole book. I suppose in a way he was a kind of a buccaneer as he usually did whatever he had set his mind on regardless of whether he had permission to do so or not. However his efforts on behalf of the crown went largely unrecognized not only during his life time but long afterwards officially because he was such a maverick. Personally I do think that his friendships with the local tribespeople and his having black wives and coloured children were not the only reason why he found advancement so difficult, I believe his Irish blood also counted against him as most of the British ruling class had little regard for the Irish at that time.

To my mind it does seem likely that Natal would not have been settled when it was if not for his efforts along with the efforts of a couple of other people. While there is some recognition in South Africa of all he did, outside of that country this Irish man who was a giant in the settling of large parts of that country is virtually unknown and that he was a chief of the Zulu people has never been heard of. 

In saying all this despite all he did with the local tribes he was a product of his time with all the prejudices against other races that were common among the English and Boers at that time. Where he was different was that he learned to respect the ways of the native peoples of South Africa and in his own way tried to defend them as long as defending them did not conflict with his own interests. He did believe that it would be best if the Crown took over the country but he also believed that it should then be ruled by England through the native chiefs and King’s This should be with a respect for the local laws even though the laws of England may at times be very different to the laws of the local tribes. In this he was just being practical as he could see that if the local people were still subject to their chiefs and kings along with local laws they were more likely to be content with English rule. 

References used in compiling this piece.

A piece published by ZAINUL DAWOOD on Sep 3, 2015.

Henry Francis Fynn and the Fynn community in Natal 1824 – 1988 by Shirron Bramdeow.

The diary of Henry Francis Fynn edited by James Stuart and D. McK Malcolm.