CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ARCHIVE
Section IV: Africa Missions

Part 5: West Africa (Sierra Leone), 1820-1880

" The archives of the Church Missionary Society’s Africa missions are among the most important documentary sources on 19th century European missionary enterprise in Africa. They tell us much about African social history and thought during this period, and about the aspirations and prejudices of Victorian and Edwardian expansion. Their publication in microfilm will ensure that this material is for the first time placed within reach of a wide community of scholars."
Ike Achebe,
Trinity College, University of Cambridge

Please see the copy for Section IV Part 1 for details of the CMS missions to Sierra Leone.

Part 5 continues the Original Papers begun in Part 2 of this Section. Part 2 covered O1-87 and Part 5 completes the Original Papers covering O88- 235.

The papers consist of the letters and papers of individual missionaries, catechists and others arranged alphabetically. O88 begins with Dicker and O232 ends with Young, O233-235 containing two more missionaries not listed alphabetically. The locations given are their permanent stations.

Some examples of interesting material contained are: a report on the mission of research to Temne country in the papers of Archdeacon John Ulrich Graf; copies of letters from James Africanus B Horton, an army staff assistant surgeon to the Governor of the Gold Coast and the army medical authorities on the training of Africans as army doctors and the confidence in which those already trained are held by the European and native communities. There are also letters and translations of Susu Spelling Book sent by Mrs Susanna Klein, wife of Rev Jonathan Solomon Klein; the letters and yearly reports of Miss Henrietta Elise Konig, a schoolmistress at the Female Institution in Freetown; letters from Misses Anne and Hannah Nylander, schoolmistresses at Bathurst; letter and reports of Miss Julia Emily Sass, Superintendent of the Female Institution at Freetown from 1849-1869.