CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ARCHIVE
Section IV: Africa Missions

Part 26: Africa General, 1935-1949

This part has good core elements of material devoted to Uganda, Ruanda, Nyanza, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

Africa General, 1935-1949

Taken together with the papers in Part 25, the discussion regarding the future direction of mission education in Africa can be followed and the gradual progress towards self-government of the mission schools is well illustrated.

Items on education include:

• report of the Educational Realignment Committee, 1947
• report on the Commission on the Devolution of Work to Africans, 1947
• correspondence regarding the inadequacy of grants and the need for further expansion of educational facilities in Nigeria
• need for Africans teachers
• lists of training institutions
• recruitment of staff for mission schools in Nigeria
• minutes of the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies
• notes on a scheme for the development of African education
• proposals for an inter-diocesan theological college

The finances of the Society are covered in detail and include:

• notes on possible mission economies
• statistical tables showing estimated and actual expenditure of missions
• distribution of the East Africa Famine Relief Fund
• shortage of money in the Africa Contingencies Fund

A large part of this section is devoted to correspondence with and papers of organisations with which CMS was associated. These include:

• Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society – pamphlets and periodicals
• The Boys’ Brigade – progress reports
• British Council – correspondence regarding teaching in Africa
• Anglo-African Committee – minutes of meetings of the West African Students’ Union (WASU), London, notes on the welfare of colonial people in the UK
• Conference of British Missionary Societies – the workings of Christian Councils and reports on their progress
• Margaret Wrong Memorial Fund Committee
• Colonial Office – the social welfare work carried out by the Society in the colonies
• Hausa Band Council (an organisation which raised money for work in Northern Nigeria)
• Institute of Rural Life at Home and Overseas – reports by the Colonial Office on the problems of rural welfare in the colonies
• International Committee on Christian Literature for Africa – much on the publication of Christian literature in Africa with suggestions for the advance of literacy; reports on visits to schools and colleges in Africa by the Secretary, Miss Margaret Wrong
• International Missionary Council
• International Institute of African Languages and Cultures
• League of Coloured Peoples – newsletters and reports
• League of Nations Union
• Sudan United Mission
• Temperance Council of the Christian Churches - articles on the problem of alcohol

Other topics covered in the general papers are:

• former German missions and German colonial claims
• race relations in East Africa and Rhodesia
• female circumcision - in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and an account by a medical missionary of a circumcision of a group of female Kikuyu girls
• marriage and polygamy

Africa East, 1935-1949

This section contains material specific to the area and includes information on:

• tours to the area including one by H D Hooper to East Africa, Sudan, Egypt and Palestine, 1937-1938 and another by the new Regional Secretary in Africa, Colonel G G Grimshaw
• the Educational Adviser in East Africa with much detail on the educational policy of missions in relation to the government
• higher education in East Africa - girls’ secondary education and teacher training
• conferences on educational development
• the reorganisation of boys’ schools
• medical representatives in East Africa

Africa West, 1935-1949

Material specific to the area includes detail on:

• tours of the area including one by Dr Violet Grubb to Nigeria and Sierra Leone
• the Educational Adviser
• higher education in West Africa including discussions on the future of Fourah Bay College
• proposed changes in the Nigerian educational system, the training and supervision of teachers in Sierra Leone and schools in Yoruba
• the theological faculty at New West African University
• West Africa Native Bishoprics Fund
• West African Students’ Union – newsletters and minutes of meetings