| Description | Annual Reports 1948-1956, together with a few additional statistical returns, related papers and correspondence. Also including files of typescript office copies of the section of the Annual Report and Statistical Return form used to compile the Review of the Year and Story of the Year [the 'Report and General Outline of Work'] 1954-1956. There are no annual reports for the year ending 1948.
The reports, many of which are enlivened with anecdotal highlights and personal reflections, are equivalent to the CMS Annual Letters. They not only give the missionaries' perspective on their work and daily life but are a useful source of information on the type of work that was being carried out in different mission stations and, in some instances, give eyewitness accounts of local and national events. |
| Administrative History | Each missionary was required to provide an annual report describing their work for the year which was signed by the local Corresponding Secretary and returned to the Society's headquarters in the UK; the Society provided a printed form for the purpose, the final page of which was a statistical return sheet completed by the missionary in charge of each station. The statistical return gives general statistics such as names and numbers of staff, numbers of enquirers, baptisms and homes visited, and where relevant, educational returns including the number of pupils at different classes and institutional returns listing the numbers of children, men or women at orphanages, nurseries, industrial homes and institutions for people who had severe hearing and visual impairments. Missions with hospitals were also expected to submit medical returns signed by the doctor-in-charge. Information from the forms was extracted for use in the 'General Review of the Year' and 'Story of the Year'. The form was revised c 1955 reflecting the Society's move to Cromwell House and organisation of work by diocese rather than mission. |