Today in 1843, Natal was proclaimed a British Colony. I had never heard of Natal, but after skimming the Wikipedia article on Natal, it appears to me that colonizing is simply a slow method of conquest. 

Today in 1859, Frances Rolleston was writing to a missionary in China. She was very interested in Christian missions to India, China, and Japan, and had thought of how that might be accomplished. Not by conquest or colonization, she looked to Florence Nightingale and the ladies who went with her to the Crimea as a model.

Travelers had told Frances that women in those countries were requesting that Christian women come visit them. At the time, of London's 650,000 women between the ages of fifteen and forty, 450,000 of them were unmarried. Couldn't the mission societies help them go?

It is true that conquest has been carried out in the name of religion, notably an hierarchical form of Christianity. How different was it to send missionaries than to set up colonies? Missionaries, as Frances thought of them, lived a life of kindness and self-sacrifice. They carried a gospel of hope—reconciliation with God and love for mankind—to be received by faith, not forced. Christian missions also brought health and education.

If only this clear difference had always been maintained, Christianity would have had a better name in the years that followed.

May 6th, 1862 Frances wrote to her friend Miss Rigby, who had helped Frances think through some points in her writing. Miss Rigby was perhaps planning to have some printing done since Frances closed the letter with this: "I will enclose specimens of the women printers, they execute beautifully—Miss E. Faithfull and her female 'staff'—pray show them."

Emily Faithfull (1835-1895) worked for women's interests toward their improved status, employment and education. Most interested in the employment aspect, she was a member of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women.

One occupation she felt was suitable for women was that of compositor (typesetter). This idea upset the London Printers Union which held that women did not have the intelligence or physical skill for that work.

Emily, nevertheless, set up the Victoria Press in London which soon gained a reputation for excellent work, so much so that Emily was appointed printer and publisher in ordinary to Queen Victoria.
Even Frances far north in Keswick was aware of that reputation.

In her collected letters, Frances Rolleston defended women's abilities as scientists. I'm sorry that Janet Taylor's name doesn't appear in Frances' letters, but perhaps Frances did not know the great contribution Janet made to navigation. 

They might have been good friends. They shared a love of the starry heavens (Janet drew and published a Planisphere of the Stars), they were both Christians who honored the Creator, and they also lived in the same areas of London, though at different times.

One of Janet's great contributions to the safety of sailing vessels was to adjust ships' compasses to overcome deviations due to the increasing use of iron in ship building. She developed instruments to improve navigation and diligently corrected charts to reflect newfound hazards  throughout the world. 

This is one biography I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
​Click on the image to go to the Amazon page.