Jan Tzatzoe, Andries Stoffles, The Revd Dr Philip & Revd Messrs Read Senr & Junr Giving Evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons

In this interior scene, the Reverend Doctor John Philip is depicted giving evidence before a House of Commons select committee on indigenous people.

Philip was a Scottish missionary and minister in the Cape Colony of South Africa. He believed that Africans should be converted to Christianity and persuaded to live according to European norms. Nonetheless, he defended the human rights of Africans living under British rule, making him unpopular with the colonial powers.

In 1835 Philip travelled to Britain with colleagues and two African converts, Andries Stoeffels, of the Khoi-Khoi people, and Jan (Dyani) Tshatshoe, a Xhosa chief. The evidence this group presented to the House of Commons committee, possibly represented here in the form of the scattered books and papers on the table and floor, led the government to return to the Xhosa territory taken from them by Britain.