CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ARCHIVE
Section III: Central Records

Part 4: Annual Letters, 1886-1912

This part covers Annual Letters of Missionaries for 1866-1912.  These are the annual private reports made by missionaries directly to the Secretaries in London.

• They provide an invaluable review of the events and experiences of each CMS mission, year by year.
• These indexed bound volumes were examined by the London Committee so that they could write in encouraging terms to their missionaries in the field.
• The Annual Letters often drew upon observations recorded in a daily journal. Reading over these impressions at the end of the year the missionary would then compile an accurate review, often with a short tabular statement of key statistics at the foot of the last page.
• This material was also sifted by the London Committee for the compilation of the Society’s Annual Reports.