Universities' Mission to Central Africa
Encyclopedia
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
society established by members of the Anglican Church within the universities of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, Durham, and Dublin. It was firmly in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church, and the first to devolve authority to a bishop in the field rather than to a home committee. Founded in response to a plea by David Livingstone
David Livingstone
David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr...
, the society established the mission stations that grew to be the bishoprics of Zanzibar
Zanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
and Nyasaland
Nyasaland
Nyasaland or the Nyasaland Protectorate, was a British protectorate located in Africa, which was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Since 1964, it has been known as Malawi....
(later Malawi), and pioneered the training of black African priests.
Origins
The society's foundation was inspired by lectures that Livingstone gave on his return from Africa in 1857. Though named to reflect its university origins, from the outset it welcomed contributions from wellwishers unaffiliated to those institutions. The society had two major goals: to establish a mission presence in Central Africa, and to actively oppose the slave trade.First mission
To advance these goals, it sought to send a mission led by a bishop into Central Africa; Charles Mackenzie was duly consecrated in 1860 and led an expedition in 1861 up the ZambeziZambezi
The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is , slightly less than half that of the Nile...
into the Shire Highlands
Shire Highlands
The Shire Highlands are a plateau in southern Malawi, located east of the Shire River. Ranging in elevation from 2,000 to 4,000 feet, it is a major agricultural area and the most densely-populated part of the country....
. This first expedition was more or less disastrous. The area chosen as a base, near Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi), proved highly malarial
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
; Bishop Mackenzie died there of the disease on 31 January 1862, along with many local people and three others among the tiny missionary party. Early conversion efforts from this base yielded little result, and supplies ran out or were destroyed during a period of famine. The mission then withdrew from the area, abandoning the graves of the missionaries who had died there, and though it established a new presence in Zanzibar many years passed before it returned to Malawi. Bishop Tozer
William George Tozer
The Rt Rev William George Tozer, DD was a colonial Bishop in the second half of the nineteenth century.He was born in Teignmouth and educated at St John's College, Oxford and ordained in 1854. His first post was a curacy at St Mary Magdalene Munster Square. Later he was Vicar of Burgh-le-Marsh....
, Mackenzie's successor, deemed the mission's early years "a miserable failure".
Zanzibar mission
Mackenzie's successor, Bishop Tozer, relocated the society's base to ZanzibarZanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
in 1864. Here they enjoyed much greater success, receiving a cordial welcome from the island's Arab and African residents, and establishing a number of operations, including a mission school, St Andrew's at Kiungani. The mission's early work in Zanzibar substantially involved caring for and schooling children rescued from slavery, and establishing a settlement - Mbweni, founded 1871 - for these released slaves to live in. On Christmas Day, 1873, the foundation stone of Christ Church was laid in the grounds of the former slave market, closed only six months earlier. It was completed in time for Christmas 1880 and a mass celebrated there.
Expansion
Edward Steere
The Rt Rev Edward Steere was a Colonial Bishop in the second half of the 19th century. He was born in 1828, educated at London University and ordained in 1850. After curacies in Devon and Lincolnshire he joined Bishop Tozer 7 years later. He was created Bishop of Nyasaland in 1874 and died on 26...
, who pursued the mission's aim of returning to establish a presence at Lake Nyasa. Rather than attempting the arduous river navigation that had doomed the first mission, they set out for Lake Malawi this time overland, developing a network of mission stations toward the lake. Prominent among these were the stations at Magila and Masasi
Masasi
Masasi is one of the 5 districts of the Mtwara Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the North by the Lindi Region, to the East by the Newala District, to the South by Mozambique and to the West by the Ruvuma Region....
: Magila had been chosen after an initial site the mission had sought at Vuga, the capital of the Kilindi
Kilindi
Kilindi is one of the eight districts of Tanga Region in Tanzania. It is bordered to the east by the Handeni District, to the north and west by the Kilimanjaro Region and to the south by the Morogoro Region...
kingdom, was ruled out by the suspicious Kilindi chief. The site for the mission village at Masasi was reportedly chosen by African converts whom the missionaries were attempting to lead back to the homes from which they had been captured by slavers: though sure that the site was not their original home, they said it resembled it enough to settle.
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
society established by members of the Anglican Church within the universities of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, Durham, and Dublin. It was firmly in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church, and the first to devolve authority to a bishop in the field rather than to a home committee. Founded in response to a plea by David Livingstone
David Livingstone
David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr...
, the society established the mission stations that grew to be the bishoprics of Zanzibar
Zanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
and Nyasaland
Nyasaland
Nyasaland or the Nyasaland Protectorate, was a British protectorate located in Africa, which was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Since 1964, it has been known as Malawi....
(later Malawi), and pioneered the training of black African priests.
Origins
The society's foundation was inspired by lectures that Livingstone gave on his return from Africa in 1857. Though named to reflect its university origins, from the outset it welcomed contributions from wellwishers unaffiliated to those institutions. The society had two major goals: to establish a mission presence in Central Africa, and to actively oppose the slave trade.First mission
To advance these goals, it sought to send a mission led by a bishop into Central Africa; Charles Mackenzie was duly consecrated in 1860 and led an expedition in 1861 up the ZambeziZambezi
The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is , slightly less than half that of the Nile...
into the Shire Highlands
Shire Highlands
The Shire Highlands are a plateau in southern Malawi, located east of the Shire River. Ranging in elevation from 2,000 to 4,000 feet, it is a major agricultural area and the most densely-populated part of the country....
. This first expedition was more or less disastrous. The area chosen as a base, near Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi), proved highly malarial
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
; Bishop Mackenzie died there of the disease on 31 January 1862, along with many local people and three others among the tiny missionary party. Early conversion efforts from this base yielded little result, and supplies ran out or were destroyed during a period of famine. The mission then withdrew from the area, abandoning the graves of the missionaries who had died there,Keable (1912) p.94 and though it established a new presence in Zanzibar many years passed before it returned to Malawi. Bishop Tozer
William George Tozer
The Rt Rev William George Tozer, DD was a colonial Bishop in the second half of the nineteenth century.He was born in Teignmouth and educated at St John's College, Oxford and ordained in 1854. His first post was a curacy at St Mary Magdalene Munster Square. Later he was Vicar of Burgh-le-Marsh....
, Mackenzie's successor, deemed the mission's early years "a miserable failure".Keable (1912) p.97
Zanzibar mission
Mackenzie's successor, Bishop Tozer, relocated the society's base to ZanzibarZanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
in 1864. Here they enjoyed much greater success, receiving a cordial welcome from the island's Arab and African residents, and establishing a number of operations, including a mission school, St Andrew's at Kiungani. The mission's early work in Zanzibar substantially involved caring for and schooling children rescued from slavery,Keable (1912) p.104 and establishing a settlement - Mbweni, founded 1871 - for these released slaves to live in. On Christmas Day, 1873, the foundation stone of Christ Church was laid in the grounds of the former slave market, closed only six months earlier.Keable (1912) p.117-18 It was completed in time for Christmas 1880 and a mass celebrated there.Wilson (1971)Keable (1912) p.119
Expansion
Edward Steere
The Rt Rev Edward Steere was a Colonial Bishop in the second half of the 19th century. He was born in 1828, educated at London University and ordained in 1850. After curacies in Devon and Lincolnshire he joined Bishop Tozer 7 years later. He was created Bishop of Nyasaland in 1874 and died on 26...
, who pursued the mission's aim of returning to establish a presence at Lake Nyasa.Wilson (1971) pp. 35–41 Rather than attempting the arduous river navigation that had doomed the first mission, they set out for Lake Malawi this time overland, developing a network of mission stations toward the lake. Prominent among these were the stations at Magila and Masasi
Masasi
Masasi is one of the 5 districts of the Mtwara Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the North by the Lindi Region, to the East by the Newala District, to the South by Mozambique and to the West by the Ruvuma Region....
: Magila had been chosen after an initial site the mission had sought at Vuga, the capital of the Kilindi
Kilindi
Kilindi is one of the eight districts of Tanga Region in Tanzania. It is bordered to the east by the Handeni District, to the north and west by the Kilimanjaro Region and to the south by the Morogoro Region...
kingdom, was ruled out by the suspicious Kilindi chief. The site for the mission village at Masasi was reportedly chosen by African converts whom the missionaries were attempting to lead back to the homes from which they had been captured by slavers: though sure that the site was not their original home, they said it resembled it enough to settle.
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
society established by members of the Anglican Church within the universities of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, Durham, and Dublin. It was firmly in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church, and the first to devolve authority to a bishop in the field rather than to a home committee. Founded in response to a plea by David Livingstone
David Livingstone
David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr...
, the society established the mission stations that grew to be the bishoprics of Zanzibar
Zanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
and Nyasaland
Nyasaland
Nyasaland or the Nyasaland Protectorate, was a British protectorate located in Africa, which was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Since 1964, it has been known as Malawi....
(later Malawi), and pioneered the training of black African priests.
Origins
The society's foundation was inspired by lectures that Livingstone gave on his return from Africa in 1857. Though named to reflect its university origins, from the outset it welcomed contributions from wellwishers unaffiliated to those institutions. The society had two major goals: to establish a mission presence in Central Africa, and to actively oppose the slave trade.First mission
To advance these goals, it sought to send a mission led by a bishop into Central Africa; Charles Mackenzie was duly consecrated in 1860 and led an expedition in 1861 up the ZambeziZambezi
The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is , slightly less than half that of the Nile...
into the Shire Highlands
Shire Highlands
The Shire Highlands are a plateau in southern Malawi, located east of the Shire River. Ranging in elevation from 2,000 to 4,000 feet, it is a major agricultural area and the most densely-populated part of the country....
. This first expedition was more or less disastrous. The area chosen as a base, near Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi), proved highly malarial
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
; Bishop Mackenzie died there of the disease on 31 January 1862, along with many local people and three others among the tiny missionary party. Early conversion efforts from this base yielded little result, and supplies ran out or were destroyed during a period of famine. The mission then withdrew from the area, abandoning the graves of the missionaries who had died there,Keable (1912) p.94 and though it established a new presence in Zanzibar many years passed before it returned to Malawi. Bishop Tozer
William George Tozer
The Rt Rev William George Tozer, DD was a colonial Bishop in the second half of the nineteenth century.He was born in Teignmouth and educated at St John's College, Oxford and ordained in 1854. His first post was a curacy at St Mary Magdalene Munster Square. Later he was Vicar of Burgh-le-Marsh....
, Mackenzie's successor, deemed the mission's early years "a miserable failure".Keable (1912) p.97
Zanzibar mission
Mackenzie's successor, Bishop Tozer, relocated the society's base to ZanzibarZanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
in 1864. Here they enjoyed much greater success, receiving a cordial welcome from the island's Arab and African residents, and establishing a number of operations, including a mission school, St Andrew's at Kiungani. The mission's early work in Zanzibar substantially involved caring for and schooling children rescued from slavery,Keable (1912) p.104 and establishing a settlement - Mbweni, founded 1871 - for these released slaves to live in. On Christmas Day, 1873, the foundation stone of Christ Church was laid in the grounds of the former slave market, closed only six months earlier.Keable (1912) p.117-18 It was completed in time for Christmas 1880 and a mass celebrated there.Wilson (1971)Keable (1912) p.119
Expansion
Edward Steere
The Rt Rev Edward Steere was a Colonial Bishop in the second half of the 19th century. He was born in 1828, educated at London University and ordained in 1850. After curacies in Devon and Lincolnshire he joined Bishop Tozer 7 years later. He was created Bishop of Nyasaland in 1874 and died on 26...
, who pursued the mission's aim of returning to establish a presence at Lake Nyasa.Wilson (1971) pp. 35–41 Rather than attempting the arduous river navigation that had doomed the first mission, they set out for Lake Malawi this time overland, developing a network of mission stations toward the lake. Prominent among these were the stations at Magila and Masasi
Masasi
Masasi is one of the 5 districts of the Mtwara Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the North by the Lindi Region, to the East by the Newala District, to the South by Mozambique and to the West by the Ruvuma Region....
: Magila had been chosen after an initial site the mission had sought at Vuga, the capital of the Kilindi
Kilindi
Kilindi is one of the eight districts of Tanga Region in Tanzania. It is bordered to the east by the Handeni District, to the north and west by the Kilimanjaro Region and to the south by the Morogoro Region...
kingdom, was ruled out by the suspicious Kilindi chief. The site for the mission village at Masasi was reportedly chosen by African converts whom the missionaries were attempting to lead back to the homes from which they had been captured by slavers: though sure that the site was not their original home, they said it resembled it enough to settle.Wilson (1971) p. 42 Via these routes, two missionaries, Charles Janson and William Johnson, first reached the lake in 1884; Janson died there, but he lent his name to a ship the UMCA commissioned for use in ministering around the lake.Keable (1912) which Steere's successor, Charles Alan Smythies
Charles Alan Smythies
The Rt Rev Charles Alan Smythies, DD was a Colonial Bishop in the second half of the Nineteenth Century.Charles Alan Smythies was born in Colchester, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and ordained in 1869. His first post was a curacy in Great Marlow after which he was Vicar of Roath...
, was able to use to travel widely through Africa on mission work.Keable (1912) 112 He oversaw the establishment on Likoma Island
Likoma Island
Likoma Island is the larger of two inhabited islands in Lake Malawi , in East Africa, the smaller being the nearby Chizumulu. Likoma and Chizumulu both belong to Malawi, and together they make up the Likoma District...
, in the lake, of a mission station, and then of an entire new diocese with its own bishop and its own cathedral,Keable (1912) 134-6 St Peter's, is still standing in the 21st century.
Another of Smythies's commitments was to the principle that Africa be converted and ministered by African priests, and he made many improvements to the arrangements for their teaching at Kiungani, ordaining the first local African priests.Keable (1912) p. 140
The organisation continued to work out of its bases on Zanzibar, Likoma, and on the Tanzanian mainland until 1910, when it commenced work also in Northern Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia was a territory in south central Africa, formed in 1911. It became independent in 1964 as Zambia.It was initially administered under charter by the British South Africa Company and formed by it in 1911 by amalgamating North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia...
(now Zambia). It then pursued missionary work in these four areas throughout the first half of the twentieth century, offering medical provision and education as well as religious instruction and services. It played a prominent role in twentieth-century church history, with bishops including Frank Weston
Frank Weston
Frank Weston was Anglican Bishop of Zanzibar from 1908 until his death 16 years later.-Biography:...
and John Edward Hine
John Edward Hine
John Edward Hine was an Anglican bishop in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-Life:He was born in 1857 and educated at University College School and University College, London. A medical doctor, after ordination he was sent as a missionary to Likoma and was soon promoted to be Bishop of the area...
. Other notable Europeans among its staff included the novelist Robert Keable
Robert Keable
Robert Keable was a British novelist, formerly a missionary and priest in the Church of England. He resigned his ministry following his experiences in the First World War and caused a scandal with his 1921 novel Simon Called Peter, the tale of a priest's wartime affair with a young nurse...
, and bishop Chauncy Maples
Chauncy Maples
Chauncy Maples was a British clergyman and Anglican missionary who became Bishop of Likoma in East Africa.Born in 1852, Maples had sailed for Zanzibar in 1876 where he set up clinics and schools for released slaves. Ten years later he founded the Anglican Mission on Likoma Island...
, who joined the UMCA as an archdeacon and became the second Bishop of LikomaE. Hermitage-Day, Chauncy Maples, Second Bishop of Likoma, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1901 before drowning on the lake.Gertrude Frere, Where Black meets White: The Little History of the UMCA, Office of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, 9, Dartmouth Street, Westminster, London SW1 (1902) (now at the UCLA Libraryhttp://www.archive.org/stream/whereblackmeets00frergoog/whereblackmeets00frergoog_djvu.txt) The UMCA later commissioned a boat that bore his name, as they had with Charles Janson before. SS Chauncy Maples
SS Chauncy Maples
MV Chauncy Maples is a motor ship and former steamship that was launched in 1901 as SS Chauncy Maples. She has spent her entire career on Lake Malawi and is regarded as the oldest ship in Africa...
, built in 1899, is believed to be the oldest ship in Africa.
Legacy
The society's centenary fell amid a context of decolonisation, and at a time when the UMCA was increasingly collaborating with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The two organizations merged in 1965. The combined organisation celebrated the UMCA's 150th anniversary by emphasising the continuing importance of global fellowship and mission for its members.Postcolonial historians' analyses of the UMCA have both praised its efforts to raise European humanitarian concern about slavery in East Africa and criticised the paternalistic attitudes toward Africans it continued to perpetuate, especially early in its history.
External links
- Historical resources on the Universities' Mission to Central Africa from Project CanterburyProject CanterburyProject Canterbury is an online archive of material related to the history of Anglicanism. It was founded by Richard Mammana, Jr. in 1999, and is hosted by the non-profit Society of Archbishop Justus...