CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ARCHIVE

Section III: Central Records

Part 6: CMS Circular Books and Letters, 1799-1921

Part 7: CMS Minutes, 1799-1837

Part 8: CMS Minutes, 1837-1853

Part 9: CMS Minutes, 1854-1876 and Indexes to Minutes, 1799-1876

Part 10: The Missionary Papers, 1816-1884, CMS Monthly Paper, 1828-1829, A Quarterly Token for Juvenile Subscribers, 1856-1878 and 1888-1917, The Home Gazette, 1905-1906 and

The CMS Gazette, 1907-1934

Part 11: General Review of Missions, 1919, Annual Reports, 1922-1944 and

CMS Historical Record, 1944-1986

Part 12: The CMS Juvenile Instructor, 1842-1890, Children's World, 1891-1900, and

The Round World, 1901-1958

Introduction to Part 7

Part 7 contains the CMS Minutes, 15 April 1799-11 March 1837. The Minutes covering the years 13 March 1837-14 July 1876 and Indexes to the Minutes 1799-1878 are covered in Parts 8 and 9.

The Minutes of the various committees are entered in chronological order in the volumes. For the years included in Part 7, the Committee Minutes covered are: General Minutes for the whole period 1799-1837, Accounts for 1818-1837 and Correspondence for 1818-1837. The Correspondence Minutes provide a summary of the reports, letters and other items coming before the committee and record the decisions taken. There are very interesting brief summaries of missionary letters and journals from every mission area covered by CMS. Discussions in committee are not recorded. For the years 1799-1813 there are indexes for names and subjects, for 1813-1837 for names only and for 1824-1837 for dates of committee meetings. The Minutes are all handwritten but are for the most part very legible.

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