Biography of Isabella Lilias Trotter, founder of the Algiers Mission Band

This is one of the standard biographies of Isabella Lilias Trotter (1853-1928), who was recently featured as part of the SOAS Archives and Special Collections Women’s History Month. The SOAS now holds the archive of the Algiers Mission Team and Lilias Trotter’s works. My thanks to Redcliffe College for providing a copy of the book for digitisation. This title is in the public domain.

Blanche Anne Frances Pigott [1849-1930], I. Lilias Trotter, Founder of the Algiers Mission Band. London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, [1930]. Hbk. pp.245. [Click to visit the download page]

Contents

• Foreword

1. Early Years
2. Coniston, 1879
3. Algiers, 1888-1890
4. Second Journey to Africa, 1890
5. Rue du Croissant, 1893 and 1894
6. Itinerating, 1895
7. 1896-1899
8. Tolga, 1900-1901
9. Tract-Writing and Translating, 1902-1904
10. Da Naama, El-Biar, 1905 and 1906
11. Blida and Bousaada, 1907
12. Translating – Sweden, 1908, 1909, and 1910.
13. Opening Slum Post, Shushan Palace, and Egypt, 1911, 1912, and 1913
14. South Lands and the Great War, 1914-1916
15. South Lands, 1917
16. The Home Call of Blanche Haworth, 1918 and 1919
17. Itinerating in Tunisia, 1920-1922
18. Among the Mystics of the South, 1923
19. The Conference on the Mount of Olives,1924
20. The Close of Rue du Croisaant – Opening of Bousada – The Nile Mission Press at Dar Naama, 1925
21. Narrowing of the Pathway, 1926
22. Home, 1927 and 1928

More material on this missionary is available on the Isabella Lilias Trotter page.

Chapter 1: Early Years

Lilias was the seventh in the family of nine, her father having four sons and two daughters by his first wife Jaqueline, daughter of Bishop Otter.

Coutts, the eldest, took Orders and became Senior Fellow, and, later, Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. William, like his father, became a partner of Capel & Co. Henry, afterwards Lt.-Colonel Sir Henry Trotter, K.C.M.G., C.B., R.E., went out to India in I 860 in the Royal Engineers, and, after a varied and distinguished career, became Consul-General at Beyrout for Palestine and Syria. Later he was on the Danube Commission with a house at Galatz, in Roumania, where he lived with his wife and daughters until he retired. Edward started early in life as Vicar of Alnwick and Chaplain to the Duke of Northumberland. Later he devoted himself to work in the Colonies. He belonged to the pioneer type of Churchman, preferring the outposts of civilization to a settled parish….