Attempts to record details of those British men and women who settled in Natal between 1824, when the first party of hunter-traders arrived, and the end of 1857, when a wave of immigration was about to begin.

Since 1963, Shelagh O'Byrne Spencer has been engaged in a massive research project to identify the emigrants who came to Natal from Britain before 1858, and to collect biographical material on them and their children. Although Spencer's work focuses on emigrants who came to settle in Natal, the information's usefulness is not confined to this province. Each of the included entries contains biographical information, a list of the settler's children, and a list of sources. The biographies range in length from a few lines to several pages. The list of children includes the dates of their births...