Henriette McDougall

Born Henriette Bunyon in London, she later became known as Harriette McDougall after marrying Francis Thomas McDougall. She traveled with him to Sarawak in 1848 as part of an Anglican mission, and her years there shaped the books and sketches for which she is now known.

McDougall wrote with a close eye for daily life, local communities, and the challenges of mission work in what is now Malaysia. She was also an artist, and her writing is often praised for its descriptive, firsthand quality rather than a distant, official tone.

Her best-known book, Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak (1882), draws on her experiences in Borneo and remains a valuable personal record of the period. Some sources list her birth year as 1818 rather than 1817, but they agree that she died in 1886.