| Description | Primarily comprising manuscript and typescript copies of minutes of sub-committees appointed by the CMS governing committees (the General Committee, Foreign Committee and its predecessor the Committee of Correspondence, and Executive Committee) but also including minutes of committees appointed by the Clerical Sub-Committee, Medical Committee and others. This sequence includes the first minutes of the Committee of Correspondence 1799-1818, Committee of Accounts 1808-1818, minutes of the Patronage Committee 1812-1815, 1889-1923, and minutes and papers of its successor, the Appointments Committee 1924-1949; minutes of the Ecclesiastical Committee 1889-1922, 1927-1930, 1936, 1942; various Secretariat Committees 1892-1895, 1897-1915, 1923 and other special and sub-committees. In most of the volumes there are printed and typescript reports, regulations and other sub-committee papers pasted in with the minutes.
Many of the sub-committees were appointed to enable specific issues to be dealt with in more depth than could be achieved in ordinary committee meetings so the minutes typically give more detail than can be found in the main committee minutes with much concerning CMS procedures, regulations, training for missionary candidates, 'native church' constitutions, some references to the role of women in the CMS, and other issues concerning the Society's work at Home and overseas.
The minutes of meetings at which the sub-committees were appointed, and at which they reported back, are largely recorded in the principal series of minute books (CMS/G/C 1). Additional minutes and committeee papers for a number of the committees in this series can be found elsewhere in the records of the General Secretary's Department and other CMS Home Departments (see CMS/G/C). |