François Coillard

Who was François Coillard?

François Coillard was a missionary who worked for the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society in southern Africa.

Coillard was the youngest of the seven children of François Coillard and his wife Madeleine. Both parents were of Huguenot descent. In 1836, Coillard’s father died, leaving behind a nearly destitute widow.

Coillard enrolled in the Protestant School at Asnières at the age of 15 and later attended Strasbourg University. He offered himself in 1854 to the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society. He trained under Eugène Casalis, a veteran southern African missionary, and in 1857 was ordained at the Oratoire in Paris. His first posting was to the independent kingdom of Basutoland, where the PEMS had been established since 1833. When Coillard reached Cape Town on 6 November 1857, it was the eve of a war between Basutoland and the Boer republic of the Orange Free State; during the war, the French mission stations in Basutoland were destroyed. Coillard’s first task was to open a new station at Leribe.