CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ARCHIVE

Section III: Central Records

Part 1: CMS Register of Missionaries, 1804-1918, (annotated and manuscript versions), History of the

            Church Missionary Society and the Catalogues to the Overseas Archive and Loochoo, CEZMS and

            FES Archives

Part 2: Church Missionary Society Gleaner, 1841-1921, CMS Gleaner Pictorial Album, 1888 and CMS

            Missionary Atlas, 1896

Part 3: Church Missionary Society Outlook, 1922-1972

Part 4: Annual Letters of the Missionaries, 1886-1912

Part 5: CMS Medical Journals: Mercy and Truth, 1897-1921; The Mission Hospital, 1922-1939; The Way

            of Healing, 1940; The Medical Mission Quarterly, 1892-1896; Preaching and Healing, 1900-1906

Editorial Introduction by Rosemary Keen, Ex-Archivist of the Church Missionary Society

The Church Missionary Society (CMS) came into being on 12 April 1799 at a public meeting at the Castle and Falcon Inn, Aldersgate, London. Why was it begun then, and into what kind of world was it born?

Its roots go back to the middle of the eighteenth century when there was a great revival in the Church of England inspired by the preaching of John Wesley and others. Although Wesley’s followers left the Church (and founded Methodism), other Anglican clergy aimed to revive and reform it by bringing personal conviction into religion at a time when clergy were often negligent and worldly. Their emphasis on individual conversion and justification by faith led them to be called Evangelicals.

As this movement grew there was an increasing desire to spread the Gospel where it had not been heard. At the same time there was a gradual realisation of the essential value of the individual and therefore the infamy of slavery. By the 1780s two groups in London were particularly concerned with these ideas, the Eclectic Society, and the Clapham Sect (members of John Venn’s church at Clapham).

The Eclectic Society had at various times discussed missionary needs and methods, partly inspired by the general interest in such matters which had led to the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792 and the London Missionary Society in 1795. At a meeting in March 1799 John Venn raised the specific question of how they themselves should spread the Gospel overseas and his call for action led to the April meeting at the Castle and Falcon. There a resolution was passed, “It is the duty highly incumbent upon every Christian to endeavour to propagate the knowledge of the Gospel among the Heathen;” and the Society for Missions to Africa and the East was formed (in 1812 renamed The Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East).

At the March Eclectic Meeting Venn had propounded certain fundamental missionary principles and these served and still serve as the Society’s guide. They were these:

• to follow God in the same way as the missionaries of the early Church
• to begin humbly and on a small scale
• to put money after prayer and study
• to depend on the Holy Spirit

The Society was ready to start work: but at first there were difficulties and delays. As the Society was seeking clergy as missionaries it could not begin work officially until the Archbishop of Canterbury had expressed his opinion of its proposals. He took sixteen months to consider their aims and then returned a neutral answer that “he would look on the proceedings with candour and that it would give him pleasure to find them such as he could approve”. He and other leaders in the Church of England did not see the need for another missionary society. Indeed no bishop gave formal approval to the Society until 1815.

There was a further difficulty in choice of mission field. West Africa was the natural first choice, for at Freetown there had been a colony for freed slaves established in 1786, under the charge of the Sierra Leone Company (of which some CMS founders were directors). Elsewhere, however, few places were open. The East India Company did not approve of missionaries to the Indians, although it accepted chaplains for the British communities; in China no foreigners other than traders were admitted; Japan was closed to outsiders.

The final delay was caused by inability to find missionaries. No suitable Englishmen could be found, although many candidates were interviewed and financial support was received from the first. It was not until 1804 that two German Lutheran clergy, Melchior Renner and Peter Hartwig, trained in the seminary at Berlin, sailed for Freetown. They were sent to work amongst the Susu tribe, but after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, opportunities were also opened up at the invitation of the Colonial Government among people rescued from slave ships and settled in Sierra Leone.

CMS REGISTER OF MISSIONARIES, 1804-1918

The CMS Register of Missionaries provides biographical information on all missionaries and agents employed by CMS and is a private and confidential record compiled at headquarters for official reference by staff. Originally produced in 1854 it was brought up to date and printed in 1895 as a volume covering the years 1804-1894 for headquarters circulation. A further separate volume was later published covering 1895-1904. There are also further lists for the years 1905 onwards and the microfilm edition comprises all of these.

The Registers contain three separate lists: European clerical and lay male missionaries, women missionaries, and indigenous clergy. Each list has entries in the chronological order in which the people were accepted in full connection to the Society. Each entry is allocated a number. At the back of the volume is a name index for each list, giving the appropriate number of the Register entry.

The CMS headquarters in London holds the editorial interleaved copy of the Register into which the clerks (now the archivist) add relevant information to augment the printed material. This version is also included in this microfilm edition. A manuscript copy of these additions is also held in Birmingham.

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY BY EUGENE STOCK

Eugene Stock, CMS Editorial Secretary, wrote a three-volume history of the Society to celebrate its centenary in 1899. In 1916 he added a fourth volume bringing events up to date.

These volumes provide an invaluable resource for the researcher. Stock aimed to provide not only factual accounts of the Society’s work but to demonstrate how the Society related to its ecclesiastical and political environment both at home and overseas. For CMS mission areas he placed the Society’s work in the context of that of other societies Protestant and Roman Catholic. There is also much on the history of the Evangelical movement in the British Isles. In his Preface he explains that the history of the Society “is quite a different thing from the history of the Society’s missions. Accepting this fact as a guiding principle I have devoted probably one-third of the whole work to the affairs of the Church and the Society at home”. He records matters of missionary policy, still relevant today, such as the relationship between voluntary societies and the official church authorities at home and overseas.

The value of these volumes is further enhanced by an exhaustive index of names, places and subjects.

THE CATALOGUES TO THE CMS OVERSEAS ARCHIVE, LOOCHOO, CEZMS AND FES ARCHIVES

These were compiled by Rosemary Keen who was the Archivist for CMS for over 30 years. They are included in this microfilm publication in their entirety in the Central Records section and the individual Catalogues are also included in the appropriate section of microfilm. They provide a detailed listing of the contents of each section of the Archive, together with essential introductory information such as the arrangement and classification of the series, the citing of reference numbers and the names and dates of office of relevant headquarters staff.

Note also that entries in the pre-1880 mission series catalogues draw attention to particular papers, not by assessment of their possible importance for mission work, but on the basis of whether the document or its content may be viewed as unusual in the context of routine mission business.

CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY GLEANER, 1841-1921 renamed CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY OUTLOOK, 1922-1972

In 1838 a small paper called the Missionary Gleaner was started by Charles Hodgson, who was a CMS Association Secretary in Yorkshire. In 1841 CMS adopted it as a twopenny magazine, twelve pages octavo, with a woodcut on the first page. At that time there were only three other CMS publications, the Annual Report which provided a succinct account of the Society's proceedings at home and abroad, the Church Missionary Record, which aimed to be an "authentic and permanent record" of the Society's proceedings particularly of the work in its missions, and lastly the Quarterly Paper which aimed at the "poorer classes and contributors of small sums".

The Gleaner filled a gap between the Record and the Quarterly Paper, providing "a selection of the most interesting facts from the Record and information from other sources, to illustrate the proceedings of the Society". Ten years later it was enlarged in size while the price was reduced to a penny.

In the 1860s there was a gradual drop in sales partly because of the general decline in missionary interest, but also because of the old-fashioned appearance of the periodical. In 1870 it ceased publication.

Three years later, however, when Henry Wright was appointed Hon Secretary, he was eager that CMS should have a new magazine of a more popular and attractive kind than anything the Society had previously produced. He asked Eugene Stock to join the staff in June 1873 as Editorial Secretary and with the production of the new magazine as his first priority. It duly appeared on 1 January 1874 with the revived title Church Missionary Gleaner. Stock had sole responsibility for the Gleaner for the next seventeen years until in 1890 the editorship was passed to Miss Georgina Gollock, one of the first women to work at headquarters.

The 1874 Gleaner consisted of a sixteen page quarto sheet with the outer four pages serving as a wrapper. The first frontispiece was designed by Henry Wright himself, but after a few years was changed to the figure of a woman gleaning in the fields, while the outer pages of the original wrapper were incorporated into the magazine itself and were replaced by a plain wrapper. This provided space to incorporate information appropriate for the many localised editions which were later produced, such as the Madras Gleaner or the Berkshire Gleaner. The numerous illustrations which made the magazine particularly attractive were originally all woodcuts, many of them copied from original sketches and from photographs. But the Gleaner was one of the earliest English magazines to use the new American method of process blocks, the first occasion being the reproduction of a photograph in 1887.

The contents of the Gleaner remained basically unchanged over the years with the emphasis on missionary news. Sometimes books were serialised, such as the original autobiography of Dr Krapf, the linguist, missionary and explorer in 1881. Journals of tours by individuals, such as Bishop Bickersteth in India 1882, or by headquarters staff such as the 1921-1922 Delegation to India were often printed in full. In the earlier years there was a serial story and regularly there were short expositions on the Bible and devotional articles. There was also much about work within the British Isles mainly about CMS matters but also about important relevant events for the Church of England both at home and abroad.

The circulation of the Gleaner reached its peak in the 1890s when 82,000 were in monthly circulation, with half of the editions being localised. In 1922 it changed its name to the Church Missionary Outlook.

The volumes of the magazine contain a mass of information much of which is not recorded elsewhere in the Society's archives. Each volume contains its own individual index of contents divided into sections eg index of articles, editorial notes, mission news, headquarters notes etc. Within each individual index relating to mission news the material is arranged by country. The index to illustrations is likewise arranged by country, but with the home material listed under miscellaneous. Note that the archive card indexes include indexes of the illustrations by names, places and subjects.

CMS GLEANER PICTORIAL ALBUM, 1888

The CMS Pictorial Gleaner contains a selection from the illustrations (engravings) which had appeared in CMS publications, together with brief explanatory notes and a short introduction to each mission area illustrated.

It was published in three volumes between December 1887 and November 1888 and comprised Africa and the Middle East; India, Ceylon and Mauritius; and China, Japan, New Zealand and Canada.

CMS MISSIONARY ATLAS, 1896

The CMS Missionary Atlas published in 1896 contains a brief history of the CMS missions with maps on which the CMS mission stations are marked. The maps also include the stations of other Protestant and some Roman Catholic missions. The volume has language maps for Africa and India, concise chronological tables for India, West and East Africa and table of Protestant missions in Africa. It has an index of principal places as well as a general index. For research purposes it is particularly valuable for giving the current spelling of place names as well as the exact location of some of the smaller mission stations.

ANNUAL LETTERS OF THE MISSIONARIES, 1866-1912

The custom of missionaries writing Annual Letters to the Secretaries in London began in the 1850s and only ended in 1974. It gave individual missionaries their only opportunity to write directly to headquarters without the local CMS mission secretary seeing what they wrote. Communications on all matters of business had to be carried on through the local Corresponding Committee and the mission secretary. Now once a year the London committee wished to hear directly from their missionaries and in turn to write to them "to assure you of their sympathy, and as far as may be to assist in bearing your burdens and cheering and encouraging you on your way" [C I2/I 2p191 Chapman].

At the same time these letters were used in the compilation of the Society's annual report. In 1855 Chapman wrote asking missionaries "at the close of each year, to put us in possession of your experience of the Lord's dealing with you during the year" [C I 1/I 1p85]. A printed circular to the missionaries from John Mee in 1868 asked for "a well considered concise account of the principal facts and features of the years work...to lay the foundation of the Report". By then the Annual Letter had developed a format of its own with "a very short tabular statement appended at the foot of the last page" [these were the statistics included in the annual report for the year and published in the Proceedings].

From the late 1870s the Annual Letters were being printed. "The Annual Letters as soon as they come in are put in print (unless they are very long) not for publication but for circulation among the members of the Committee. Even the Secretaries, therefore, do not see them for several days. No matters of business should be entrusted to the Annual Letter". [C C 1/I 2p 265]. By 1900 they were being regularly bound. G. Furness Smith writes "Annual Letters [are]...printed and sent round to members of the Committee and portions will appear bound up in a volume called “Extracts from Annual Letters”...the best preparation for an annual letter is a daily journal relating events as they occur and putting down impressions and hopes or fears. This read over at the year's end would furnish materials for an accurate review, while further observation and experience would help to revise and correct the reflections and anticipations suggested at the time". [G1 CH 2/L 1p 84].

It is difficult to judge how heavily the printed letters were edited but by the appearance of the very few surviving originals very little was cut out and usually they were only topped and tailed.

A master set of the bound volumes of the printed letters was kept in the Editorial Department, which also kept the original documents. From 1871 to 1879 copies of the letters are entered in the appropriate mission books of the missions archive series. For the period 1886 to 1912 only the bound printed set survives. From 1916 the manuscript series begins again, though very few survive for the war years 1917-1919 and it is possible that the originals for the missing years 1913-15 were likewise very sparse in number.

From the 1920s missionaries were sometimes encouraged to write on particular aspects or topics of mission interest in order to aid the compilation of the report. The actual writing of the Annual Letter was not optional, but a strict Secretarial request. Nevertheless the researcher should be aware that some missionaries simply refused to write them and that the absence of a letter does not necessarily mean that it has been lost.

CMS MEDICAL JOURNALS: MERCY AND TRUTH, 1897-1921; THE MISSION HOSPITAL, 1922-1939;
THE WAY OF HEALING, 1940; THE MEDICAL MISSION QUARTERLY, 1892-1896; PREACHING AND HEALING, 1900-1906

Mercy and Truth was first published in 1897 as the journal of the Medical Missions Auxiliary whose task was to arouse support within the British Isles “to increase the number and equip thoroughly the medical missions of the Society”. It covers the Society’s extensive medical work in East and West Africa, the Middle East, India and China, and its shorter-lived work in Japan and Canada.

The issues contain articles about the institutions and the medical work overseas (though emphasis is on evangelistic opportunities rather than purely medical details). Many of them are illustrated with photographs of the buildings, staff and patients. There also reports on activities within the British Isles particularly that of the Wants department and the Sale of Work Department at CMS headquarters. These encouraged the MMA supporters to help not merely financially by using the MMA collecting boxes (shaped like medicine bottles or hospital beds) but in such practical ways as making hospital uniforms for hospital staff, or winding bandages to add to the supplies which were regularly sent to the hospitals overseas.

Each issue has detailed indices of contents and illustrations. In 1922 the journal changed its name to The Mission Hospital and in 1940 to The Way of Healing.

Preaching and Healing 1900-1906 is the printed Annual Report of the Medical Missions Auxiliary. Each volume opens with a list of the MMA officers, together with lists of the mission stations and all the hospital staff including the lay evangelists. Each medical mission has a summarised report of the events of the year prefaced by a brief history of the medical work in the area.

There is a short account of “Home Operations” in the British Isles giving details of publicity (including exhibitions) and fund raising. Reports of the Wants Department and Sale of Work Department at headquarters are included, together with a report from the Medical Training Home at Bermondsey (used by CMS medical candidates).

The volumes also contain lists of financial contributions from the British Isles and overseas and a list of the books and leaflets issued by the MMA.

THE ORGANISATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF THE ARCHIVE

Organisation

The arrangement of the archive reflects the administrative growth of the Society. The Society is basically run by committees and the Secretaries to the main committees are heads of departments at headquarters and in many ways act as a board of directors. The work of the Society is in two parts; home (i.e. within the British Isles) and overseas.

Committees

The overseas part of the work was originally the responsibility of the Committee of Correspondence. It was to seek out prospective missionaries, to prepare them for service overseas and to be responsible for them from then on. In effect its role combined the tasks of what were later to be the Candidates, Medical, Africa and Asia departments. For the archives of the Candidates and Medical departments the classification system for work within the British Isles has been used. The Africa and Asia departments have their own classification system for the papers commonly known as the “mission
archives” for the period 1799 to 1949. Their post-1934 papers on general subjects however, use the classification system for work within the British Isles.

The two other committees set up when the Society began were the General Committee, which directed overall policy, and the Committee of Accounts (later the Finance Committee) which was responsible for administering the funds. These became the General Secretary’s department and the Finance department or division. Both these departments’ archives have also been treated as part of the work within the British Isles.

In 1811 a Committee of Funds was appointed whose task was to augment the Society’s funds. This developed into the Funds and Home Organisation Committeee in 1881 and the work moved out of the sphere of the Finance department, though it remained closely linked with it. The Home Secretary was head of the Home division whose archives use the classification system for work within the British Isles.

Departments

The General Secretary’s department is the most important because the General Committee was ultimately responsible for CMS policy. There are three areas of responsibility for the General Secretary. The first is as chief Candidates’ Secretary. Apart from a short time during Henry Venn’s secretaryship the work of seeking out and training missionary candidates belonged to the General Secretary. The heavy pressure of work led to the formation of a Candidates department in 1897 and this was considered part of the General Secretary’s responsibility until 1914 when it became a branch of the Foreign department. However the General Secretary continued to consider himself the chief Candidates Secretary until the major reorganisation of the Society’s headquarters administration in 1982. The department’s records therefore include the records of Islington College and other training institutions.

Until 1880 the Secretary to the General Committee was also Secretary to the Committee of Correspondence and as such was considered the chief Foreign Secretary (a term not formally used until later). When the three Group Secretaries took over the routine administration of the work in the missions overseas the General Secretary remained responsible for overall policy and continued to be the designated secretary for correspondence with the Archbishop of Canterbury and with overseas bishops. This responsibility has continued to the present day. The department’s records therefore comprise not only a major source for the policy underlying the activities of the Society abroad, but are the main source on the formation of churches and dioceses and the appointment of bishops.
All the Secretaries have equal authority in the administration of the Society, but because the General Committee (now General Council) was the Society’s ultimate authority the General Secretary is considered “first among equals”. He is the representative of the Society in dealing with bishops and archbishops. He is also responsible for all spiritual matters. The department’s records therefore contain papers on staff welfare and much personal and confidential correspondence which reflect his role of final arbiter and highest court of appeal.

The Medical department was set up in 1891 and served both the Medical Committee, which was responsible for the administration of medical missions overseas, and the Medical Missions Auxiliary Fund Committee, whose task was to arouse support within the British Isles to enable the MMA “to increase the number and equip thoroughly the medical missions of the Society”. The department’s archives contain correspondence with all the hospitals and other medical institutions founded and staffed by CMS. The medical periodical called Mercy and Truth contains articles about the institutions and the medical work (though emphasis is on evangelistic opportunities rather than purely medical details).

The Candidates department dates from 1897 but the work of seeking out and training missionary candidates was the responsibility of the Secretary to the General Committee from the founding of the Society. In 1891 pressure of work led to the appointment of an Assistant Clerical Secretary whose sole job was to work with prospective candidates. In 1897 this Assistant was made a full Secretary of the Society and the Candidates department was formed.

Its task was to correspond with and be responsible for prospective missionaries from the time of their first application until their departure to their work. The Secretary was also responsible for corresponding with the five Colonial Church Missionary Associations, whose candidates, from the 1890s until about the 1920s, had to be approved by CMS London before being accepted. The department also corresponded similarly with the West Indies Church Missionary Council, which negotiated the employment of West Indian agents in West Africa.

At first the department was considered part of the General Secretary’s responsibility but in 1914 it was proposed that for administrative purposes it should be a branch of the Foreign department (Africa and Asia). In practice it appears to have retained independence while being very closely linked with both the Foreign department and the General Secretary’s department.

The Candidates department’s papers mainly comprise the application papers of prospective missionaries. Unfortunately it was this department that suffered when an incendiary damaged headquarters in the Blitz. The committee minutes survive, but for the correspondence there is one set of bound volumes of letters for 1846-65 and then a gap until the early 1890s. A small tin trunk full of the “blue packets” of application papers was all that survived for the period up to 1940.

The Finance department existed from the founding of the Society in 1799 when the Committee of Accounts was set up “to receive subscriptions, to regulate the accounts and to undertake the charge of fitting out and conveying the missionaries to the place of their destination”. The receipt of money, including that derived from legacies, and the keeping of the accounts remain the chief work of the Finance department today. In 1842 following a financial crisis a Finance Committee was appointed “without whose sanction no expense of any kind was to be incurred”. Besides dealing with purely accounting functions, the Finance department has always been responsible for the Society’s property at home and overseas and for special funds set up for specific purposes (mainly connected with foreign work). The Finance Secretary has also been responsible for the physical administration and organisation of headquarters and for the payment of salaries and pensions to the missionaries and staff. The department has the usual financial volumes, papers about property etc. There is also interesting correspondence with the Foreign Office and other government departments 1876-1914.

The Home department or division began in 1871 with the appointment of a Central or Home Secretary. The department’s earliest responsibility was for the deputation work, through which interest in and support for mission might be stimulated. For this it was largely dependent on the local Associations for which it supplied magazines and other publications as well as missionary collecting boxes. The Home Secretary was also in charge of the field staff (agents from headquarters who were stationed at convenient centres throughout the British Isles and who provided support services for the local CMS supporters).

The work of the department expanded quickly and it became responsible for all the publications of the Society, with an Editorial Secretary (formerly the editor) at the head of a large section. By 1915 when Eugene Stock was Editorial Secretary there were sections dealing with such matters as women’s work, missionary study, education (public schools, Young People’s Union), exhibitions, and the Gleaners’ Union. It was also responsible for organising meetings such as the Summer Schools, congresses, the Day of Intercession and the anniversary meetings (Annual Sermon etc.). The division’s responsibilities were at their greatest in the 1940s and 1950s, when there were four departments in charge of 36 sections. The four comprised the Deputy Home Secretary (responsible for deputation work and the field staff), the Editorial Secretary (in charge of all the Society’s publications) the Publicity Director and the Education Secretary (who was also responsible for work amongst children and youth).

There are the usual files of correspondence and often minute books for each section of the Home division, though the ephemeral nature of the work means that some sections’ records are sparse or incomplete. The Editorial section includes the file set of all the Society’s publications.

Classification

A. Work within the British Isles

Each Secretary to a CMS main committee has a department at headquarters. These departments have been allocated a reference letter, e.g. C Candidates, F Finance, G General Secretary. The files of each department have then been divided into groups according to the use which the department gave them e.g. A Administration, C Committee work. Where this grouping is very large (notably with the administrative files) there are further sub-divisions, e.g. AC Correspondence, AT Training.

The files or volumes in each group or subdivision are then numbered so that each can be individually called up for reference. Volumes are always individually numbered and occasionally for certain series of correspondence etc. each individual item has its own number. For the most part, however, the reference is for a group of papers comprising a file.

When quoting the file reference it is essential to have the department letter as well as the rest, for the sub-references occur in the papers of nearly all the various departments at headquarters. AC1, for example, merely indicates the first entry in the correspondence series (ref.AC) and must be further differentiated as to whether it is, for example, in the Finance department’s records (F/AC1), the Medical department (M/AC 1) or the Candidates’ department’s files (C/AC 1).

B. Overseas (Missions) Series

Each mission area, as soon as it was allocated a mission secretary, had its own administrative machinery of committees, conferences etc. At the same time it had its own series of correspondence and papers at headquarters. For the period before 1880 the work was under the Committee of Correspondence (C); then in 1880 the work was divided into three groups, each with its own sub-committee East Asia (G1), West Asia (G2) and Africa (G3).

1799-1880 Under the Committee of Correspondence (C)

At some point between 1805 and 1810 the early incoming and outgoing correspondence was collated, bound and indexed and this series continues until 1820 (E). From 1820 until 1880 the copies of outgoing letters were pasted into letter-books (L) and there is a separate series of incoming papers (O). Copies of the incoming papers were made by clerks at headquarters on quires of papers which were bound into mission books (M).

1880-1934 Under Group Committees (Groups 1-3: East Asia; West Asia; Africa: reference G1, G2, G3)

The main series of letter-books continue for this period (L) and consist almost entirely of official letters to the mission secretary. Private and confidential letters to individual missionaries are entered in a series of individual letter-books (I), the incoming papers (O) were kept year by year in a sequence numbered for each year, while a summary was kept in the précis books (P) (which also acted as agenda for the committee meetings).

1935-1949 Under Africa and Asia Committees

The incoming and outgoing correspondence is kept together in a series of files comprising correspondence with the mission secretary and papers of other local CMS committees in a numbered sequence prefixed by the mission area’s own reference; then follows the correspondence with the bishop and diocesan authorities (d); series of files for each educational (e) or medical (m) institution or place (g) in which CMS missionaries worked.

Each mission area has it own classification reference. The African missions (A) are numbered in the order in which work began in the country or area e.g. A 1 Sierra Leone, A 3 Niger, A 8 Tanganyika. The Indian missions likewise: I 1 North India, I 5 Travancore and Cochin. Other missions have letters e.g. CE Ceylon, SN Northern Sudan etc.

N.B. Because all mission archives series have the same sets of letter-books etc., it is essential, when giving references at all times to distinguish the series, e.g. I 4 (Punjab and Sind), CE (Ceylon) and whether it is pre-1880 or post-1880 (i.e. C I 4 or G2 I 4). An incomplete reference such as L 1 (for first letterbook) or P 2 (second précis book) could refer to any of eleven African missions, ten Indian missions, five China missions or many others.

HOW TO USE THE ARCHIVE

A. Start with the printed material

Both Stock’s History of the Church Missionary Society (for the years 1799-1915) and Hewitt’s The Problems of Success (dealing with the period 1910-42) will give you the background for the mission area you will need to study. Both have name and place indices; Stock’s are particularly comprehensive. If your interest is in the overseas part of the Society’s work you will then need the “Proceedings” or Annual Reports which list all the missionaries each year arranged under the mission in which they work. Each mission has its own series of archives and it is essential to know the names of the missions rather than the names of the countries as they do not always correspond. For example Nigeria had three missions but the earliest Yoruba mission papers are to be found in the Sierra Leone mission series, as until 1844 all West Africa affairs were administered locally by the Sierra Leone mission secretary. In a similar way the work in Uganda was administered as part of the East Africa mission from 1889 to 1897 and in the “Proceedings” for those years the Uganda missionaries are listed with those working in Kenya and their letters are to be found in the Kenya mission archive series.

The “Proceedings” also include a summary of affairs for each mission which until the 1930s is in considerable detail and includes quotations from letters and reports. The Society’s periodicals, such as the C M Gleaner and C M Intelligencer contain not only articles on CMS and mission affairs but also lengthy extracts from journals, reports and letters sent by missionaries and others.

Reading printed material has the additional advantage that it enables you to become familiar with, for example, the nineteenth century spellings of place names, before you are faced with difficult to read manuscript material.

B. Read the catalogues

There are catalogues for all the departments/divisions at headquarters. The records of the foreign departments cannot be understood properly without consulting the papers of the other departments. Please note also that entries in the mission series catalogues draw attention to particular papers, not by assessment of their possible importance for mission work, but on the basis of whether the document or its content may be viewed as unusual in the context of routine mission business.

The catalogues for the mission series include summary notes on the development of the work, giving the main stations; the arrangement and classification of the mission archive series; notes about the citing of reference numbers; lists of the names and dates of office of the Secretaries with primary responsibility for the mission area; lists of the General Secretaries and the Lay (Financial) Secretaries for the period covered by the catalogue. The names are given in full which is necessary as many of the papers are initialled after being read and it is often vital to know which Secretary or other member of staff has dealt with the item.

The catalogues for the other departments at headquarters include lists of Secretaries and officers; a history of the department; a note about the citing of reference numbers and occasionally notes of any relevant material in other departments’ papers.

C. Search the card indexes

The main indexes (name, place and subject) contain entries from all the mission catalogues, plus the usual mass of useful information found when listing or browsing through the archives. They will eventually cover all the catalogues. Occasionally an individual document or correspondence series has been indexed in minute detail e.g. the correspondence within the British Isles in the 1872-1901 series in the General Secretary’s papers (ref:G/AC4). As the pre-1880 mission catalogues list the missionaries and agents in alphabetical order and also give their mission stations it has been possible to incorporate in the place index an alphabetical list of agents (with dates) for each station. In a similar way there are lists of the CEZMS stations with their agents. The name index also includes lists of CEZMS and FES missionaries, authors of articles in the C M Intelligencer and Mercy and Truth and obituaries in the C M Intelligencer and the C M Gleaner. For both names and places there are indexes of the illustrations in the periodicals C M Gleaner and Mercy and Truth. These indexes in particular are invaluable as nearly always the presence of an illustration means that there is something else about the subject in the contents of the periodical.

How to search by person

If the person you are interested in is a missionary, the first item to consult is the Register of Missionaries, which gives the biographical details together with details of where the missionary worked. Check in the “Proceedings” to find which mission the place is listed under. The overseas mission section of the archive is divided into three periods 1799-1880, 1880-1934 and 1935-1949. Each period has its own type of archive.

For the period 1799-1880 you will find letters to the missionary from the Secretaries in London in the outgoing letter-book series; letters from the missionary will be in the series called “original papers incoming”.

For the period 1880-1934 you will find the letters to the missionary from the secretaries in London in the letter-books, but for the letters from the missionary you will need to work your way through the précis books. These are a set of volumes containing the précis of all the papers sent to London from the mission numbered year by year in the order in which they arrived in London. They are printed or typed and each entry gives the number of the item, the date it was written and received, the name of the writer and the précis of the contents. The originals of these papers are kept in packets arranged numerically year by year. All you need is the number of the item and the year. Be careful because you need the year in which the committee dealt with the item, not necessarily the year in which the item was written. For example, the January committee meeting each year obviously dealt with December letters and in that case the December letter will be found in the January year. The number itself will give a clue in many cases. A high number is not likely to be dealt with in January. The précis is useful if there are not many letters because it is quick to use, but it is also useful because some of the items are missing from the series because they were transferred to other departments after the précis clerks had dealt with them, e.g. the Finance department dealt with requests for grants from trust funds and the Editorial department published the Annual Letters and kept the originals in their own papers.

For the period post-1934 the incoming and outgoing correspondence was kept together in each file. The files for each mission series consist of correspondence with the mission secretary, minutes of local governing bodies, correspondence with the bishop (arranged by dioceses), educational institutions, places and medical institutions. For these it is essential to know where the missionary was working.

Remember that with the entire overseas correspondence for any period there will be much about the missionary in the mission secretary’s papers and possibly also among the diocesan and bishop’s papers if he was a clergyman.

The first contact a prospective missionary had with the Society was when he applied to CMS. The earliest letters from prospective candidates are to be found in the papers of the General Secretary’s department. As they are part of a massive series of incoming correspondence within the whole of the British Isles (ref:G/AC 3) which at present is largely unindexed it is easiest to work through the indexes to the main series of Committee minutes which until 1853 have an exhaustive name index in each volume. The entries note the receipt of letters with their date. Many of the originals do not survive but there is often a very adequate summary of their contents in the minutes.

There are also registers of candidates, each volume having an index. They include people who did not actually become missionaries. The volumes do not give much detail but include the names and often the addresses of their referees. They also usually include the address of the candidate.

Letters from prospective missionaries for the period before 1867 are included in the series of correspondence within the British Isles (G/AC 3) until they finally sailed from England i.e. while they were sailing round the English coast their letters were included in the G/AC 3 series. When they came home on furlough their letters were again entered in the General Secretary’s volumes, but they may also occur in the appropriate mission series. After they retired or left CMS their letters revert to the General Secretary’s series again.

There are some papers relating solely to missionaries in the Finance department’s papers and the series of the Goodwin Fund for Widows is particularly useful for information on missionaries’ children 1852-1888.

For anyone who is not known to be a missionary the simplest way is to start with the main name card index. For committee members there is some information in the General Secretary’s papers, but for the most part there is no personal information about anyone other than the missionaries. Even the Secretaries themselves are often not described. But the obituaries in the C M Gleaner and C M Intelligencer are all included in the name index and these often provide a few clues.

How to search by place

The place index includes lists of the CMS missionaries at each station for the period pre-1880. It also includes similar cards for the CEZMS and FES staff. The most important thing to remember with places is that for the mission series the place will be in the archive series to which CMS administratively allotted it. In other words the place may be in Uganda, but if it was being administered by the Kenya mission secretary then the archives about it will be in the Kenya series.

How to search by subject

Obviously subjects are the most difficult to deal with and if you can possibly discover a person or place vitally connected with your subject your task will be much simpler. If the subject involves looking at the mission archive series for a limited period, say a decade, then for the pre-1880 period it would probably be simpler to work your way through the mission books rather than the incoming papers; for example the development of the Church in Sierra Leone in the 1840s or the history of the causes of the war known as the Indian Mutiny.

For correspondence with the Foreign Office and government you need the General Secretary’s papers, though there is also a series of correspondence with the Foreign Office for 1876-1900 in the Finance department.

EXAMPLES OF SEARCHES FOR MISSIONARIES

1. Suppose you are doing research on Charles Frederick Warren who worked in Japan.

First look in the Register of Missionaries. As he was a clergyman he will be in List 1. The information in the Register gives you his age in the year he was accepted; where he was domiciled at the time he applied to the Society; where he was educated; dates of his ordination; date when he sailed and to which place (1864, Hong Kong, China); where he was stationed, with dates (notice that he came home from China in 1868 and held a curacy in England before being transferred in 1873 to Japan, as first CMS missionary in Osaka); dates of his furloughs i.e. return on leave to England or elsewhere; date of his leaving the Society’s service and whether he retired or resigned etc.; the entry may include clerical posts held after his leaving CMS, but in this instance he died in Japan while still working; note of his relationship to any other CMS missionaries; date of marriage(s) and name(s) of wife; details of any of his publications and his translation work; date of death.

This information will show you which mission series you will be working on: in this case China 1864-1868 and Japan 1873-1899.

Now you can look at the catalogue for the China mission series where you will find that there are 63 items in his entry comprising fifty letters 1865-68, ten journals 1864-1868 and three Annual Letters 1865-67 (reference C CH/O 90/1-63). The entry in the catalogue lists him as Hong Kong because that was the place from whence he wrote his letters. Often this place is also his official mission station, but this cannot be assumed to be so. His official mission station is the one under which his name is listed in the Society’s “Proceedings” or Annual Reports. If you do not know the exact location of the station you can find it in the Missionary Atlas, which has maps of all the mission areas showing the places at which CMS had work (as well as the stations of other Protestant missionary societies).The letters that Warren wrote (/1-50) would all have been seen and sent on to London by the mission secretary so it is probable that there may be letters about him in the secretary’s correspondence as well as references to him in the papers of other missionaries stationed in Hong Kong. If the mission secretary was writing about him to the Secretaries in London then it is highly probable that there will be letters about him in the series of outgoing letter-books which contain the letters from London to China (C CH/L). These letter-books have a name index of correspondents but obviously the index does not include people who are mentioned in the letters. There may also be letters to him in the Individual Letter-books series written from London and containing private and confidential letters to the individual missionary, usually of condolence or censure (C CH/I). The journals (/51-60) comprise his diary kept from the time he left England. Copies or extracts were to be sent quarterly to London and describe, often in great detail, everything that the writer did, including everything that he saw. Extracts from these journals were often used in the Society’s printed reports and journals, including the “Proceedings” and as the originals were not always returned for filing it is worthwhile checking in the publications for missing material. The Annual Letters (/61-63) are the annual private reports made by missionaries directly to the Secretaries in London. As the originals do not always survive it would be worth checking in the mission books series (/M) which include a set of copies of the Annual Letters for each year. There might also be extracts published in either the “Proceedings” or the C M Gleaner.

To work on the material for Warren during his time in Japan start with the Japan catalogue. Here you will find 48 items covering his time at Osaka from 1874-1880 (reference CJ/O 16/1-48) comprising 30 letters 1873-1880 (/1-30), journal extracts 1875-1879 (/31-36), Annual Letters for 1874-79 (/37-42) and six other miscellaneous items including an account of a tour beyond the treaty limits in 1875. These papers are similar to those described in the China catalogue. But you know from the entry in the Register of Missionaries that Warren continued to work until 1899.

For the period after 1880 you will be working on the 1880-1934 archive series for Japan, when it was allocated to the Group 1 (East Asia) Committee in London (reference G1J). In this series the letter-books continue in the same way as before and letters to Warren will therefore be indexed in the volumes. The original incoming letters from Japan are filed year by year in the chronological order in which they were received at headquarters, each item being given a number, and therefore the easiest way to find the item numbers for Warren’s own letters is to work your way through the précis book. This contains the summarised entries in numerical order and as they are printed (later typed) they can be quickly scanned. As before there will be references to him in other people’s letters as well as items about him in the local conference and committee minutes. Such matters as change of work or station had to be approved by the local committees. In the précis books themselves you will note that some of the items are marked “M” for “missing”. This has been done by the archivist and indicates that that item is not in the packet of papers for that year in the Japan mission series. Where possible the archive reference for its present whereabouts is entered e.g. papers used for the Centenary Review Committee are now in the General Secretary’s department’s papers.

Where there is no clue as to the present whereabouts it is often because the item was in some way connected with finance and unfortunately the Finance department to which the item was transferred did not preserve routine correspondence on financial matters.

In order to find out more about Warren before he was accepted by CMS as a missionary you need to consult the Register of Candidates which is in the records of the Candidates department (C/ATm 5). This is a series of volumes which contain entries for every person applying as a missionary. The entries are numbered and give the name, address and occupation of each candidate, names of referees, dates when seen by the committee and proceedings. They begin in 1850 and run through to 1940. The address will be the one from which he wrote the application, not necessarily his home address; the names of the referees will give further clues to his background. The dates on which he was interviewed by the committee enable you to find which volume of the committee minutes to search. There is also a series of correspondence from 1846-1865 (C/AC 1) containing letters from candidates and referees, as well as candidates’ “answers to questions” which were their application forms. For the period before 1846 this correspondence will be found incorporated in the massive series of correspondence within the British Isles (G/AC3).

Had Warren lived to retirement any letters that he wrote then to headquarters would have been entered in the General Secretary’s department’s papers. There is a very large series of incoming letters 1872-1901 (G/AC4) which has now been indexed by names, places and some subjects. This includes letters from retired missionaries, members of committees and others concerned with affairs within the British Isles as well as some correspondence within the British Isles about overseas affairs. Note that correspondence between Warren and headquarters while he was in England on furlough would normally be entered in the British Isles series of papers and not in the overseas correspondence (in his case the Japan mission series). The entries in the Register of Missionaries giving the furlough dates will give the clue as to which series to search.

When Warren died there would have been obituaries in the C M Gleaner and the C M Intelligencer. Had he died after retirement in the British Isles the letters reporting his death would have been in the G/AC 4 series and the letters of condolence would have been in the outgoing letter-books (G/AC 2).

There remains one other source of information about Warren which needs to be used in conjunction with the series described above. This is the card index of names.

There are several cards for Warren; two give the references for the main material in the China and Japan mission series, but usefully include references which occur in the catalogue in other than the main collection of his papers e.g. CJ/O 16 are the papers for his work in Osaka but there is also a reference to him in CJ/O 1/1E which is a paper that he read at a conference of CMS missionaries in 1878; another card gives the exact references for the G/AC 4 letters series referred to above; there is a reference to material in the General Secretary’s department for 1895-96 (G/Y/J 1/2); details of the date and page numbers for his obituaries in the C M Intelligencer and C M Gleaner ; some correspondence about a Warren Memorial in the 1930s (Q/J/A 3); some photographs of Osaka taken by him in 1875-77 (Z 15); an article on a pedestrian tour in Japan published in the C M Intelligencer 1876 p 272 and some references in the minutes of the Female Education Society (FES/AM 4,5).

From this it will be seen that the name index is valuable, but it is not a good tool with which to begin your research. You need to know how the archive series works and to have done your background study first in order to make the best use of it.

2. Suppose that you want to find out about Julia Emily Sass, a woman missionary who worked in Sierra Leone.

First look in the Register of Missionaries. The women are in List II. The information in the Register gives the place where she was domiciled at the time she applied to the Society; very occasionally it gives her place of birth and educational qualifications; date when she sailed and to which place (Kissey, Sierra Leone); dates of furloughs i.e. return on leave to England or elsewhere; date of leaving the Society’s service and whether she retired or resigned etc.; note of relationship to any other CMS missionaries; date of death.

This information will show you which mission series you will be working on: in this case Sierra Leone; and the period you need: 1848-1891. Now you can look at the catalogue for the Sierra Leone mission series. The main entry in the catalogue for Miss Sass (C A 1/O 187/1-89) shows that there are 70 letters from her to the Secretaries in London (/1-70), a letter to Mr Jones (/71), a letter to the bishop (/72) and her quarterly and half-yearly reports (/73-89). The catalogue shows her as superintendent of the Female Institution, Freetown and in this instance Freetown was her official mission station. Note that sometimes the place listed in the catalogue is only the place from whence the letters and papers were written i.e. the missionary might be away on sick leave or attending a conference etc. (Her official mission station is the one under which her name is listed in the Society’s Proceedings (or Annual Report) ). The letters that she wrote (/1-70) would all have been seen and sent on to London by the mission secretary so you could expect to find references to her in the secretary’s correspondence (/O 3) as well as references to her in the papers of other missionaries stationed in Freetown. There will also be letters to her and about her in the main series of letter-books in the Sierra Leone series (/L 4-8). These letter-books have a name index of correspondents but obviously the index does not include people who are mentioned in the letters. There may also be letters to her in the Individual Letter-books series written from London and containing private and confidential letters to the individual missionary, usually of condolence or censure (/I 1). There are also bundles of papers on educational and other matters relating to the organisation of local mission affairs which may shed light on her work.

For the period after 1880 you will need to work on the 1880-1934 archive series for Sierra Leone, when it was allocated to the Group 3 (Africa) Committee in London (reference G 3/A 1). In this series the letter-books (/L) continue in the same way as before and letters to Miss Sass will therefore be indexed in the volumes. The original incoming letters from Sierra Leone are filed year by year in the chronological order in which they were received at headquarters, each item being given a number, and therefore the easiest way to find the item numbers for Miss Sass’s own letters is to work your way through the précis book (/P). This contains the summarised entries in numerical order and as they are printed (later typed) they can be quickly scanned. As before there will be references to her in other people’s letters as well as items about her in the local conference and committee minutes. Such matters as change of work or station had to be approved by the local committees.

If you need to find the whereabouts of the mission station you should find it in the Missionary Atlas, which contains maps of all the mission areas showing the places at which CMS had work ( and also the stations for other Protestant missionary societies). In the précis books themselves you will note that some of the items are marked “M” for “missing”. This has been done by the archivist and indicates that that item is not in the packet of papers for that year in the Sierra Leone mission series. Where possible the archive reference for its present whereabouts is entered e.g. papers used for the Centenary Review Committee are now in the General Secretary’s department’s papers. Where there is no clue as to the present whereabouts it is often because the item was in some way connected with finance and unfortunately the Finance department to which the item was transferred did not preserve routine correspondence on financial matters.

In comparison with the documentation for male missionary candidates the information for women is sparse and scattered. In order to find out more about Miss Sass before she was accepted by CMS as a missionary you need to consult the series of correspondence from 1846-1865 (C/AC 1) containing letters from candidates and referees, as well as candidates’ “answers to questions” which were their application forms.

For the period before 1846 this correspondence will be found incorporated in the massive series of correspondence within the British Isles (G/AC 3). It is also well worthwhile searching the outgoing series of letter-books for correspondence within the British Isles (G/AC 1) which often contains letters mentioning possible women missionaries. Bear in mind that before the 1890s CMS sent very few single women as missionaries and that in this respect the surviving archives of the Female Education Society (FES) and the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society (CEZMS) are far more fruitful. The CMS Register of Candidates for women which is in the records of the Candidates Department (C/ATw 5) does not begin until 1905 when the department was set up.

After her retirement any letters that Miss Sass wrote to headquarters would have been entered in the General Secretary’s department’s papers. There is a very large series of incoming letters 1872-1901 (G/AC 4) which has now been indexed by names, places and some subjects. This includes letters from retired missionaries, members of committees and others concerned with affairs within the British Isles as well as some correspondence within the British Isles about overseas affairs. Note that correspondence between Miss Sass and headquarters while she was in England on furlough would normally be entered in the British Isles series of papers and not in the overseas correspondence (in her case the Sierra Leone mission series). The entries in the Register of Missionaries giving the furlough dates will give the clue as to which series to search.

When Miss Sass died there would have been obituaries in the C M Gleaner and the C M Intelligencer. As she died after retirement in the British Isles the letters reporting her death would be in the G/AC 4 series and the letters of condolence would be in the outgoing letter-books (G/AC 2).

There remains one other source of information about Miss Sass which needs to be used in conjunction with the series described above. This is the card index of names.

The cards for Miss Sass, in addition to references already given in this example, reveal that there are several letters from her while in England in the 1840’s to 1861, three of them giving her address (Ravenstone 1854; Orton Longueville 1861) (G/AC 3 series). In the General Secretary’s department’s papers there are also letters concerning the proposed extension of the schoolroom at the Female Institution at Freetown and the proposal that it should change its name to the Annie Walsh Girls’ School, together with a plan 1877 (G/Y/A3/1/4M; there are also references to her in the minute books of the Female Education Society (FES/AM 2, 3, 5) and an obituary notice for her in the C M Gleaner (1891 p 195).

<back