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CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ARCHIVE

Section IV: Africa Missions

Part 20: Uganda Mission, 1898-1934

Part 21: Kenya Mission, 1935-1949

Part 22: Uganda Mission, 1898-1934

Part 23: Uganda, Tanganyika and Rwanda Missions, 1935-1949

Part 24: Mauritius, Madagascar and the Seychelles Missions, 1856-1929

Introduction to Part 23

Part 23 contains the papers of the Uganda, Tanganyika and Rwanda Missions for 1935-1949. The earlier papers for these missions can be found in Parts 19 and 22.

The material for 1935-1949 is arranged differently from the papers up to 1934 being divided into subject areas: General, Dioceses, Education, Mission and Medical. The papers are very easy to read as they are mostly typed. They are arranged chronologically with the most recent papers at the beginning of the file.

Uganda Mission, 1935-1949

The General section contains letters, memos and reports from the missionaries, mission Secretary and the Secretary at headquarters on a wide variety of subjects. Included are: reports on the mission with maps of the diocese, an appeal to raise special funds for the mission, a memo re educational needs, letters of applications from would be missionaries, letters from Stephen H H Wright, the Educational Secretary General re women staff needed, letters from the Archdeacon of Uganda, Bishop Usher-Wilson and Canon A M Williams, details of proposed candidates for teachers, doctors and nurses in the mission, letters re CMS property and re the disposal of the Lweza Rest House, memos re the diocesanization of schools and the relinquishment of mineral rights, memos re grants for European educationalists, re the training of African clergy overseas and re higher education, a printed booklet “Laws of the Uganda Protectorate-Education”, an account of a convention at Namirembe, Annual Letter for 1944 from W H A Butler, annual reports on the mission, a pamphlet regarding self-governing schools, extracts of letters from Canon A E Clarke to Rev H D Hooper re the Kabaka’s wedding, letters re the assassination of the Katakiro in Nsibirwa, details re the disturbances in Kampala in January 1945, notes on labour riots in Kampala, memos re the adoption of children by missionaries, re pension schemes for missionaries and re furloughs, news of the death of Miss E M Furley, the leader of the first party of lady missionaries to Uganda, notes re war measures and military service, notes on a conference of CMS medical representatives for East Africa, agenda for the Uganda Mission Discussion Society, notes on a proposed amendment to the mission constitution and re a new financial supervisor of missions, memo re girls’ education, report on Native Authority Schools, comments on education in Uganda, notes re the development of secondary schools, a report of a committee to consider educational realignment in Uganda, a ten year plan for education, a pamphlet “The Education Ordinance”, report of the Mukono Commission, 1943, a report on the mission by the Bishop of Uganda and a report on a meeting of CMS missionaries at Kabale, correspondence re the publication of Canon Frank Rowling’s writings and re the Margaret Wrong Memorial Fund, notes re the evils of deportation in Uganda, news cuttings re violence in Kampala and petitions re the Buganda disturbances.

Other items include issues of “The Diocesan Gazette - Uganda” and a pamphlet entitled “Presidential Address to the Uganda Education Association” by G C Turner, Principal of Makerere College.

Also included are the minutes of meetings of the Standing Committee, of the Commission on Central Accountancy, the Building Sub-Committee, the Medical Sub-Conference, Finance Sub-Committees and Annual Missionary Conferences. There are also minutes of meetings of the Interdiocesan Education Committee, of General Meetings of the Uganda Society, minutes of a Consultative Committee on African Education and of the Educational Sub-Committee, minutes of a conference of CMS East African Representatives and minutes of a meeting of the Consultative Committee on Education. Many of these minutes include balance sheet and statistics.

Other financial items include extracts from the accounts of the Teacher Training Centres, notes on Reserve Balances, mission estimates, notes re the audit of the CMS Uganda accounts and lists of mission stations with statistics.

The Dioceses section contains letters, memos and reports from the missionaries, mission Secretary and the Secretary at headquarters on the Uganda diocese. It contains among other items a description of the consecration of the first Anglican bishop in Uganda, letters re the marriage of the Namasole and re the training of clergy and issues of “The Diocesan Gazette -Uganda”.

The Education section contains reports, letters, memos and minutes of meetings for the schools and colleges in the mission: King’s College in Budo, Normal College in Buloba, the Girls’ School in Gayaza, Bishop Tucker College and the Women’s Welfare Training Centre in Mukono, the Boys’ School in Mwiri, the Girls’ Primary School in Ndeje, the Nyakasura School and the Namutamba Farm School.

The Mission section gives details on the stations in the mission: Iganga, Jinja, Kabarole, Kampala, Mbarara, Mboga, Ndeje. Contained in this section are reports, letters and pamphlets.

The Medical section contains correspondence, reports and memos for the Kako Maternity Centre and Mengo Hospital.

Tanganyika Mission, 1935-1949

The General section contains letters, memos and reports from the missionaries, the mission secretary and the Secretary at headquarters on a wide range of topics: letters from Archdeacon H S Kidner, memos re German missions in Tanganyika and re missionary allowances, memo re more staff needed and re candidates, memos re mission property, re new staff needed and re the financial position of the mission with a short summary of the budget, memos re reconstruction after WWII, a report of the Commission on Education and on post war education. One section is devoted to the Ground Nut Scheme with news paper cuttings, letters and official reports on the scheme.

The Dioceses section contains letters, memos and reports from the missionaries, the mission Secretary and the Secretary at Headquarters. It contains letters from the secretary of the mission, H S Kidner, minutes of meetings of the Federal Council of the CMS of Australia and Tasmania, a printed pamphlet - “The Constitution of the Diocese of Central Tanganyika” and letters re proposals for its amendment and minutes of meetings of the Diocesan Council of Kikuyu and the Tanganyika Missionary Council.

The Education section contains letters, reports and memos for the schools in the mission: the European School in Arusha, the Dodoma School and the Kilimatinde School.

There are no papers in the Medical Section of the Tanganyika Mission, 1935-1949.

Rwanda Mission, 1935-1949

The General Section contains letters, memos and reports from the missionaries, mission Secretary, Reginald R Webster and the Secretary at headquarters on a wide variety of subjects: memos re missionaries sent to Rwanda, mission rules for African workers in Rwanda, memos re a proposed school for missionary children, letters from A Stanley Smith, a survey of the administration of the mission and a note on its constitution, report on Kigezi educational work, circular letters from the Rwanda Council, a letter from Archdeacon Pitt Pitts re Revival difficulties, a survey of the administration of the mission, a report on the opening of new stations in Urundi and the history of the administration of the CMS in Rwanda, memos re the recruitment of nurses, a list of staff needed for the mission, circular re the Congo Missions Committee, estimate of receipts and expenditures for the Rwanda General and Medical Mission, memos re the political situation in Rwanda-Urundi, memos re the establishment of church schools and re the conflict with the Catholic missions, report on a tour of Rwanda-Urundi by Rev B R Isaac, report on the Mutaho Convention,1945 by M Guillebaud, memo on the Rwanda Revival Fellowship, a survey of and letters regarding the Rwanda mission by Algie Stanley Smith, a report by the Secretary to the Home Council, 1936, proposal for a new diocese of Rwanda-Urundi and the constitution of the Alliance of Protestant Mission in Rwanda-Urundi, 1935, a report on the mission and on the Mataho Convention, extracts of a letter from P Guillebard re the Revival, re the appointment of a bishop, a memo on education in Belgian Rwanda and Urundi, a copy of the Rwanda Constitution, correspondence re Women’s Training and the Revival controversy.

Also included are minutes of meetings of the Rwanda Executive Committee, the annual conferences of the Rwanda Council, of the Rwanda Executive Committee, of the Congo Missions Committee and of the Rwanda Sub-Conference.

There are no papers for Dioceses or for Education.

The Missions section gives details on the stations of the mission and includes the Boys’ School at Buhiga, Bunyonyi Leper Colony, Gahini, Ibuye, Kabale school, Kigezi High School and Shyira Girls’ School.

The Medical section contains correspondence and memos for the Gahini Hospital and for the Matana Hospital.

EXTRACTS

Reel 461 Uganda Mission Sub File 4

“MEMORANDUM ON SPECIAL APPEAL FOR A ‘UGANDA SEVEN’ ,1937

The object of this memorandum is to put forward a scheme for the raising of special funds and seven Missionaries for Uganda, in view of the urgent need and of the signs of Revival.

Introduction

Uganda has grown in prosperity and to-day holds a position of definite leadership in Africa. She has been spared much of the controversy and racial feeling that has been so evident in other parts of Africa especially South Africa and Kenya. And moreover under God the problems of multiplicity of Protestant organizations as in the Congo for example has not arisen. The result is that there presents itself to-day in Uganda a solid and united foundation of African Christian man power under the Leadership of the CMS.

Education has steadily progressed in co-operation with a friendly and sympathetic Government policy and recruits and funds have not been lacking for this side of the work.

The devolution of the Church work on to the African has gone on according to plan, and many European Missionaries during the past years have been able to be withdrawn from their stations as the Church work has been handed over to the ordained African Clergy. But it is becoming more and more evident that the spiritual growth of the Church has not kept pace with the material growth….

The many African clergy who at first readily took the added responsibilities that were pressed upon them, now find themselves swamped by ever increasing administrative duties entailed in routine Church work. They are beginning to look anxiously again to the European for spiritual help in this direction….”

Reel 463 Uganda Mission Sub File 7

Letter from the NAC Education Office, Namirembe, Kampala, April 1942

“Dear Hooper

Our Inter-Diocesan Education Committee have asked me to put before you the complete story of the controversy we have had with Government over what has become known as the ‘Deflection of Fees’. The whole matter hangs on the question: ‘Who really owns the aided schools? The Mission, as the owners of the property, or the Government as the suppliers of the Grants in Aid?’ Actually we have not based our arguments on this principle, as we have left it as a last card to be played if necessary. Our arguments have so far been mainly that the levy of a percentage of the income of all schools to be used for educational work generally is a sound principle and helpful in general to the educational community…..”

Reel 463 Uganda Mission Sub File 8

Letter from the General Secretary of the CMS and NAC in Uganda, Namirembe, September 1945

“My dear Hooper,

I sent you on the 5/9/45 the following cable ‘G L T Katikiro Nsibirwa murdered to-day . Vice President Society’ This is a major tragedy and no doubt will have far reaching results. The prayers of the Society are greatly needed for Buganda at this time.

Martin Luther Nsibirwa was one of those rare people, fearless and resolute of purpose of few words. He belonged to the Old School and was not highly educated in the academic sense but was blessed with many gifts that men prize, simplicity, humility, freedom from ostentation of any kind, and withal an honest forthrightness.

In the uproar over the Namasole in 1941 Nsibirwa was forced to resign under pressure from the British Government. It was my opinion at the time as I wrote to you that the Government was greatly in error in bowing to the demands of a faction who used what they were pleased to call a break with custom as a pretext for the removal of the Katikiro which they desired for other reasons….”

Reel 464 Uganda Mission Sub File 13, 20 January 1945 by A M Williams

My dear Hooper

Peaceful Uganda

I have sent you today (20.1.45) the following cable ‘Serious labour disturbances Kampala and elsewhere. Personnel and property safe to date’

We have had such a week as I hope will not be repeated during my time in Uganda. Although our experiences have been mild compared with what our early missionaries had to go through, yet we have seen enough to show that Uganda has a long way to go.

…. On Monday (15th) morning I heard that all the labour in Kampala, ie Township Authority and PWD labour had come out on strike and were demanding a minimum wage of 45 shillings a month, next that they were parading the town insisting on all Africans in paid jobs leaving their work ie houseboys of Indians and Europeans, garden boys, shop and office runners, shop assistants, clerks, bus drivers and conductors, railway and post office workers and everybody else. By Tuesday they were running round with sticks, and their number being steadily increased, intimidating and beating boys and men who would not join in. By Wednesday practically all African employees in Kamapala were out. We suffered in Namirembe in the same way. On Monday afternoon as I got back to the office after attending a Board of Missions Meeting at the Biship’s Council room my labour gang, with the cathedral labour and various garden boys, 20 or so altogether, waited for me outside my office to demand more pay….”
Reel 469 7/4 Uganda Mission Report of the Committee appointed to consider educational realignment in the diocese of Uganda

From the beginning of the work of the CMS in Uganda, when Alexander Mackay produced his 1st simple reading sheets in 1879, education and evangelisation have gone hand in hand. The Government education Department was not set up until 1927. Since then the number of missionary educationists has not greatly increased, and yet the schools of the country are still almost all in the hands of the Anglican and Roman Churches. The Government has watched more or less patiently while we have tried to cope with this rapid growth, while an increasingly intricate pattern of organisation, interdependence and shifting responsibilities and loyalties has developed between the Mission, The African Church, the Native administration and the Protectorate Government. In the middle of it all the African child stands waiting to be educated….”

Reel 470 7/7 Uganda Mission Extract from an Official Communique on Disturbances in Uganda in 1949

“….. During the night of the 26th April the municipal area of Kamapala was quiet, but in the surrounding neighbourhood organised bands of hooligans burnt the houses of Chiefs and others and the Editor of an African newspaper was savagely attacked and dangerously injured. There was looting of houses and shops, and some buses were burnt. The organised bands have continued widespread arson throughout to-day (27th April) and the Police have responded to innumerable calls for help. There was an incident at Mile 5 on the Mubende Road this morning when a Police party encountered a larger band, with a lorry drawn across to block the road, engaged in cutting telegraph wires. A struggle ensued in which the Police were forced in self-defence to fire three rounds, killing two men.

As a result of pickets posted on the roads, and of active intimidation of individuals, only about half Kampala’s labour force reported for work this morning….”

Reel 473 Tanganyika Mission 8/1 Annual Report on the Mission, 1948

“Steady if unspectacular progress has been made with the carrying out of the Ten Year Development Plan for African Education. The numbers of new primary schools opened, new teachers registered and new pupils enrolled have all shown a marked increase….. The year 1948 was notable for the census, the first to be undertaken in this Territory since 1931; …. For the educational planner the final count of the African population has been somewhat disturbing. A figure of six million was taken in 1947 as the estimated African population and the detail of the Ten Year Plan was worked out according to this estimate. It is now apparent that the figure should have been much higher, for the 1956 estimate of population, given as seven million in the Plan, is in fact less than the figure now revealed by the census for 1948….

In August and September the Territory was visited by the United Nations Visiting Mission. Members of the Mission visited the three senior secondary schools of the Territory, the Government school and White Fathers’ school, Tabora, the Universities Mission to Central Africa school at Minaki, Malangali Provincial Secondary School and several Native Authority primary schools…. The suggestion was made that more vocational and trade schools, teacher training centres, senior secondary schools should be provided together with opportunities for higher education both in East Africa and abroad. It advocated further the establishment of a college in Tanganyika to provide higher education facilities for Africans in their own Territory….”

Reel 476 Tanganyika Mission Headmaster’s Report on CMS Boys’ School, Dodoma for 1940

.… I propose to outline briefly the policy of the school, and to do so it is first necessary to sketch the background of native life in the area from which the boys are drawn.

While many of the tribes are represented in the school, the majority of the boys are Wagogo from the central part of the Central Province. I think we should recognise quite plainly that the Wagogo are a backward tribe and have very little desire at all to improve or change their manner of living. This may easily be the result of the uninspiring physical environment of their country, but whatever its cause, this attitude influences very strongly any attempt which is made to give them new ideas and to inculcate a spirit of initiative. There are signs of a genuine desire for progress among a very small number, but until this desire becomes more general educational work among the Wagogo will be difficult and limited in scope - at present it is a matter of driving rather than leading, and that is bad educational method….”

Reel 483 Rwanda Mission 11/2 General Secretary’s Report for 1948

“The CPC Secretariat has not been living an isolated life. It has lived the life of the Missions it serves. This has meant sharing in a very real sense, not only the joys of our fellow-workers, but also their burdens.

The past year has not been one of spectacular advance, but messages received witness of steady progress in most places. The missionary staffs that were rather depleted during 1947, owing to many furloughs after the end of the war, have increased again. We are particularly glad to report the arrival of several new doctors. The great need now is for well qualified educationalists…..

In May our Missions were struck by the terrible news of the air catastrophe near Libengo, where six of our fellow-workers lost their lives…..

In July, the Capital celebrated with imposing festivities of the Jubilee of the Lower Congo Railway….

A most significant event came in August, when the Government announced to the CPC its decision to invite the Protestant Missions to cooperate in the New Educational Plan for Congo’s native population….”


Reel 483 Rwanda Mission 11/2 A Report on a Tour of Ruanda-Urundi by Rev B R Isaac

“…. Shyira was my first station in Ruanda. One noticed the difference straight away—the Church was less advanced, people were far more backward in education. The day at Shyira always starts with station prayers where the leaders of all sections, educational, hospital and Church meet for talk and prayer, for three quarters of an hour before they start their work at 9 o’clock….

The poverty of evangelists throughout the whole of Ruanda-Urundi was most marked; from the point of view of pay, which worked out to something like 10 shillings a month, of which 1 shilling had to be deducted for Poll Tax and occasionally it was impossible to give them more than half pay also from the point of view of cultivation in a busy life and in a rocky soil. One of their teachers to whom I spoke had had no food for two days because of poverty in the pocket as well as of the soil in his garden….

The school work is advancing at a tremendous speed. The son of a witch doctor is at the University. The headmaster of one of our schools comes from a home where no one else can read or write, but unless we can provide them with Christian education they will all go the Roman Catholic State aided schools….”

 

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