| Administrative History | CMS work in South Africa was begun as a mission in Zulu country in 1837. This was terminated abruptly by Dingaan's killing of the Boers in 1838.
A mission to Mosita, north of Grahamstown, was then begun on the understanding that work there by the Protestant Missionary Society of Paris was to be given up. The Paris society sent fresh missionaries out, however, and CMS then decided to withdraw entirely from the country.
Secretaries with primary responsibility for South and East Africa missions:
1836-1846 Dandeson Coates; 1847-1865 Henry Venn; 1868-1873 Edward Hutchinson; 1873-1880 Henry Wright; 1880-1881 Edward Hutchinson; 1881-1892 Robert Lang; 1892-1912 Frederick Baylis; 1912-1925 George Thomas Manley; 1926-1934 Handley Douglas Hooper
Secretary to the General Committee [The General Committee was responsible for main Society policy and its Secretary was considered primus inter pares. Henry Venn (a Secretary 1841-1872) acquired the title of Honorary Clerical Secretary and this was retained by his successors until 1922 when, having become anomalous, it was changed to General Secretary]:
1825-1846 Dandeson Coates [layman]; 1846-1872 Henry Venn; 1872-1880 Henry Wright; 1880-1895 Frederick Edward Wigram; 1895-1910 Henry Elliott Fox; 1910-1922 Cyril Charles Bowman Bardsley; 1923-1925 Herbert Lankaster; 1926-1941 William Wilson Cash
Lay Secretary [Financial Secretary]
1820-1846 Dandeson Coates; 1846-1863 Major Hector Straith; 1859-1866 Colonel Michael Dawes; 1867-1881 Edward Hutchinson; 1869-1875 Major General Edward Lake; 1882-1887 General George Hutchinson; 1888-1894 Major General Clennell Collingwood; 1895-1907 David Marshall Lang; 1908-1909 Robert Maconachie; 1910-1921 Herbert Lankaster; 1922-1925 John Kinahan [acting]; 1925-1937 Louis Steele |
| Custodial History | Papers catalogued by: H. S. Cobb 1952. Hard copy handlist revised and expanded: Rosemary Keen 1961 and 1980. |