Jules Ellenberger was an Imperial

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

 civil servant.

Jules ELlenberger was born to an old South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n pioneer family in a cave in what is now Lesotho

Lesotho

Lesotho , officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave, surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. It is just over in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name...

. He was the son of D. F. Ellenberger of the Paris Mission Society mission in Lesotho, an Alsatian

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

 missionary and historian, and was educated at the Lovedale

Lovedale (South Africa)

Lovedale was a mission station and educational institute in the VictoriaEast division of the Cape Province, South Africa...

 missionary school and in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

Ellenberger held a variety of posts in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, as the equivalent of a district commissioner at Gaberone

Gaborone

' is the capital and largest city of Botswana with a population of 191,776 based on a 2006 survey, about 10% of the total population of Botswana....

, Ngamiland, and Mafeking. He served as assistant commissioner of the Southern Protectorate from 1902 to 1916, government secretary from 1916 to 1923, and Resident Commissioner of the Bechuanaland Protectorate from 1923 to 1927, replacing his brother-in-law James MacGregor. He collected oral history

Oral history

Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews...

 of the BaTswana. Anxious to protect what he perceived to be the Protectorate's economic interests, he denied the existence of agricultural slavery

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

 in the colony. Only in the 1930s did Ellenberger's successor Charles Rey expose this Imperial scandal.

Ellenberger's son, Vivien Frederick Ellenberger (died 1977), also served in the Protectorate's civil service, and wrote on BaLete and BaTlokwa history.