Record

LevelSub-sub-sub-fonds
Finding Number (Click this to view full catalogue structure)CMS/B/OMS/A4
TitleSouth Africa Mission
Extent2 vols. of letter-books, and mission books, and 8 files (including journals) of original papers
Date1836-1843
DescriptionPre-1880 papers of the South Africa mission.
Access StatusOpen
Physical DescriptionThe archive reference numbers for the pre-1880 papers have been marked in pencil on the back of each individual item e.g. O 3/10. As the papers have been bound into one volume the full reference number [i.e. C A4/O3/10] may not always be present. Pencilled numbers on the front of the papers are the 1952 archive catalogue numbers and are not to be used. Any numbers in ink are those of the nineteenth century headquarters clerks.
Administrative HistoryCMS 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 HistoryPapers catalogued by: H. S. Cobb 1952. Hard copy handlist revised and expanded: Rosemary Keen 1961 and 1980.
CopiesAvailable on microfilm and online.

Microfilm:
Church Missionary Society Archive, Section IV: Africa Missions, Part 16.
Publisher: Marlborough: Adam Matthew Publications, 2004.
Location in the Cadbury Research Library: microfilm drawer B2.

Digital publication:
Church Missionary Society Archive: Africa Missions: South Africa Mission.
Publisher: Adam Matthew Digital.
Access: by institutional subscription: free to members of the University of Birmingham and visitors to the Cadbury Research Library and other subscribing institutions.