| Description | Papers predominantly relating to Mary Brighty's service as a CMS missionary to Persia. Including a letter book, notebooks, diaries, a Persian bible, and photographs of, and collected by, Mary Brighty. One diary and some of the photographs, appear to date from before Mary Brighty's involvement with the CMS.
The letterbook contains copies of Miss Brighty's letters to England, 1899-1902.
One of the diaries and a notebook contain notes about Persian customs and traditions. Other diaries contain records of journeys.
A diary which covers the period of the First World War makes reference to the withdrawal of missionaries from Yezd to Tehran, 1915-1916.
The bible had once belonged to Mary Bird, another CMS missionary in Persia, who died in 1914. |
| Administrative History | Mary Ellen Brighty (b c 1874) of St Helen's, Lancashire was accepted as a CMS missionary in 1899 at the age of 25. She departed for the Persia Mission in 1899 after training at The Olives and was stationed at Yezd. She appears to have served with the Persia Mission from 1899 until 1937. Reference: Register of missionaries (clerical, lay & female) and native clergy from 1804 to 1904 (Church Missionary Society, 1905) |
| Custodial History | Deposited with the CMS by Miss M. E. Brighty, 1963; transferred to the Special Collections Department in the 1980s. |