I am using the 3d modelling tool known as Silo, I don't believe this has animation in it, is there anyway to get around this in esenthel and animate say my npc character - 3d model within esenthel?

Yes you can use the built-in animation editor, however it has only simple editing.
I'd recommend buying FBX animations from some online store, and using them for all of your characters.

So I purchased some cheap fbx, specifically: https://3drt.com/store/characters/real-z...-pack.html but when I import the files the animation does not import automatically, not sure whether its something I am doing in Esenthel or if I have to contact the author of those files??

If you could send me the fbx via private message I could investigate

I figured it out, I needed to drag and drop rather than import by LOD. Still it is somewhat tricky to split up the animations as its imported them all in one go.

Please right click on Animation element and select split, then drag and drop the text file with list of animations

thanks that done it, wondered what that text file was for lol.

I've updated the documentation:
http://www.esenthel.com/?id=doc#Animation

Nice, thanks! This is why I stick with this engine, you actually get responses and documentation even updated no matter how stupid your question.