Bishop Mackenzie and unidentified boy

A carte-de-visite portrait of Charles Frederick Mackenzie (1825-1862) and an unidentified African boy.

Born at Portmore in Peeblesshire in Scotland, Mackenzie was educated at Edinburgh Academy and at Cambridge, first at St John’s College and then at Caius, where he became a Fellow. In 1855 he went to Natal with Bishop John Colenso and served as Archdeacon to the Anglican congregation in the area that now partly falls under All Souls Umhlali. In 1859 he briefly returned to England to raise support for missionary work amongst the indigenous population.

Mackenzie returned to Africa in 1860 as the head of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa; he was consecrated bishop in St George's Cathedral in Cape Town on 1 January 1861, taking on the position of first missionary bishop in Nyasaland (now Malawi). Moving from Cape Town, Bishop Mackenzie sailed up the Zambezi and Shire rivers with a small group to start work. He arrived at Chibisa’s village in June 1861, intending to establish a mission station at Magomero, near Zomba. He worked among the people of the Manganja country until January 1862 when he went on a supplies trip together with a few members of his party. The boat they were travelling on sank and their medical supplies were lost. Bishop Mackenzie died of Blackwater fever on 31 January 1862. Dr David Livingstone erected a cross over his grave.

Photographed by the London School of Photography.