Administrative History | In 1951 work in mainland China was closed and in 1957 CMS amalgamated with the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society (working mainly in India). As a result, the work-load of the East and West Asia Secretaries was so uneven that it was decided to merge the two committees. From September 1957 there was one Asia Committee served by a Secretary for Asia and Egypt. The two committees, Africa and Asia, continued to be responsible for the administration of the overseas work of the Society until 1973. A working group to examine the committee structure of CMS was set up in 1969 and its proposals for re-organisation were approved by General Committee and brought into effect in September 1972. Under that re-organisation a new committee, the Mission Operations Committee (from 1980 Mission Overseas Committee) was charged with the overall direction of the Society's work overseas. In 1981-1983 the Society re-organised the entire pattern of committees, changing from a hierarchical to a grid system. The Mission Overseas Committee met for the last time in May 1981 and its work was replaced by Regional Groups each of which supported a Regional Secretary. |
Custodial History | Catalogued by Rosemary Keen; deposited in the Library of the University of Birmingham, 1989. |
Copies | Many of the records of the CMS Foreign Division have been microfilmed by Adam Matthew Publications and the films are available for consultation in Cadbury Research Library and elsewhere. In addition to the microfilm, a few items have been digitized by Adam Matthew Digital and can be seen online by members of subscribing institutions at http://www.amdigital.co.uk/.
Records from the Overseas (Missions) Series 1803-1934 (CMS/B/OMS) which have been microfilmed: Africa missions: all (A1; A2; A3; A4; A5; A6; A7; A8; A9; A10; A11; E; S; SN) Canada missions: all (C1; C2) China missions: all (CH; CH1; CH2; CH3; CH4; CH5) India missions: part: India General 1811-1815 (I - part); North India 1815-1880 part only (I1 - part); South India 1815-1880 part only (I2 - part) Japan mission: all (J) Mauritius, Madagascar and Seychelles missions: all (MA) Palestine mission: all (P) West Indies mission: all (W) Where a microfilm copy is available, further details are given in the sub-sub-sub fonds level entries of the online catalogue (see, for example, CMS/B/OMS/A1). Where a record can be seen online, this is noted in the lower levels of the catalogue (sub-sub series, file or item level, etc); see, for example, CMS/B/OMS/C C1 O 21/1-11. |