Gerald Edgcumbe Hadow OBE was an English Christian missionary to East Africa

East Africa

East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...

 in the mid-twentieth century. He was born on 13 June 1911 and died on 27 February 1978 in Cambridge

Cambridge

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Early life

He was the son of Canon Herbert Edgcumbe Hadow and Edith Rose Abell. He grew up at Quedgely Vicarage, Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

. He attended Haileybury College, leaving in about 1930. From there he went to Oriel College, Oxford University. His uncle was musician Sir William Henry Hadow

William Henry Hadow

Sir William Henry Hadow CBE was a leading educational reformer in Great Britain and a musicologist.Hadow was born at Ebrington, Gloucester, England. He studied at Malvern College, followed by Worcester College, Oxford where he taught and became Dean...

 and his aunt author Grace Eleanor Hadow

Grace Eleanor Hadow

Grace Eleanor Hadow was an author, Principal of St Anne's College, Oxford University and vice-chairman of the Women's Institute ....

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He was a keen singer and was a Tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 Solo at Haileybury College.

Later life

He was ordained a priest at Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

 cathedral in 1936. He was a missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in East Africa from 1939 to 1977. He served in Manda, Likoma and Milo, Tanzania

Milo, Tanzania

Milo is a village in South Western Tanzania, East Africa. It has a mission run by the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and a hospital, St...

. During this time in South Western Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

 he was a regular visitor to Uwemba Mission in the Livingstone Mountains

Livingstone Mountains

The Kipengere Range, also known as the Livingstone Mountains, lies in southwest Tanzania at the northern end of Lake Malawi. From the town of Mbeya the range runs south-east and forms part of the eastern escarpment of the Great Rift Valley, extending about 100 km down the north-eastern shore...

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In 1961 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

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In 1972 he was made Canon of the Diocese of South West Tanganyika

He was taken ill at Milo in 1977 and travelled back to Cambridge, where he died ten weeks later.

He was fluent in Swahili

Swahili language

Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...

 and also spoke Kipanga, the local tongue in Milo. He was interested in the different Swahili dialects.