John William Colenso (24 January 1814 – 20 June 1883) was a Cornish cleric and mathematician, defender of the Zulu and biblical scholar, who served as the first Bishop of Natal.

However, within a relatively short period he paid off this debt by diligent tutoring and the sale to Longmans of his copyright interest in the highly successful and widely read manuals he had written on algebra (in 1841) and arithmetic (in 1843).

[4] Using the printing press he brought to his missionary station at Ekukhanyeni in Natal, and with William Ngidi he published the first Zulu Grammar and English/Zulu dictionary.

Through the influence of his talented and well-educated wife, Sarah Frances Bunyon, Colenso became one of only a handful of theologians to embrace Frederick Denison Maurice, who was raised a Unitarian but joined the Church of England to help it "purify and elevate the mind of the nation".

[10] Before his missionary career Colenso's volume of sermons dedicated to Maurice signalled the critical approach he would later apply to biblical interpretation and the baleful impact on native Africans of colonial expansion in southern Africa.

In his commentary on St Paul's Epistle to the Romans (1861),[13] he countered the doctrine of eternal punishment and the contention that Holy Communion was a condition to salvation.

[15][16] The publication of these volumes created a scandal in England and were the cause of a number of counter-blasts from those (clergy and laity alike) who refused to countenance the possibility of biblical fallibility.

[17] Colenso's work attracted the notice of biblical scholars on the continent such as Abraham Kuenen and played an important role in the development of Old Testament criticism in Britain;[18] not only in relation to the theological/doctrinal issues of the Bible's inerrancy, infallibility, and literalism (rather than allegorism), and not only in relation to its increasingly-demonstrated scientific, historical, geographical, and chronological inaccuracies, and the consequent controversies about the age of the Earth,[19] but, also, in relation to the precise accuracy of the translations-of-the-original presented in particular versions,[20] as well as the separate question of how the Bible itself had developed — and which parts (when written, and by whom) of which particular texts (and in what order) should be included in the Bible itself.

Colenso's biblical criticism and his high-minded views about the treatment of African natives created a frenzy of alarm and opposition from the High Church party in South Africa and in England.

[21] Colenso, who had refused to appear before this tribunal otherwise than by sending a proxy protest (delivered by his friend Wilhelm Bleek), appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.

The contributions of the missionary societies were withdrawn, but an attempt to deprive him of his episcopal income and the control of St Peter's Cathedral in Pietermaritzburg was frustrated by another court ruling.

Colenso's concern about the misleading information that was being provided to the Colonial Secretary in London by Shepstone and the Governor of Natal prompted him to devote much of the final part of his life to championing the cause of the Zulus against Boer oppression and official encroachments.

Following the conclusion of the Anglo-Zulu War he interceded on behalf of Cetshwayo with the British government and succeeded in getting him released from Robben Island and returned to Zululand.

He was known as 'Sobantu' (father of the people) to the native Africans in Natal and had a close relationship with members of the Zulu royal family; one of whom, Mkhungo (a son of Mpande), was taught at his school in Bishopstowe.

After his death his wife and daughters continued his work supporting the Zulu cause and the organisation[23][24] that eventually became the African National Congress.

[25] Colenso died at Durban, South Africa, on 20 June 1883, and was buried in front of the altar in his church, St Peter's, Pietermaritzburg.