Isabella Lilias Trotter

1853-1928. Missionary to North Africa. Daughter of a London businessman, she was privately educated, and converted under the ministry of Mr. and Mrs. Pearsall Smith. In 1876 she made the acquaintance of John Ruskin,* who admired her expert miniatures and exhorted her to devote her life to painting, but she determined to sail as a missionary to North Africa. She began her work in Algeria in 1888, making heroic and dangerous missionary journeys, securing converts among Arabs, French, Jews, and Negroes, and establishing preaching stations. Her Algiers Mission Band grew steadily from three to thirty full-time workers. Her translations of the NT into Algerian colloquial and her illustrated tracts for Muslim readers were greatly admired. She died while still on active service; her society is now incorporated in the North Africa Mission.