| Description | This collection includes a series of letters and journal letters written by Frances Dennis, mostly addressed to 'My dear Friends' which relate to her service as a CMS missionary at Onitsha, Ugboke and Owerri in Southern Nigeria, 1902-1907. They also include, for example, reports of various journeys in the hinterland of Asaba and Benin and a journey from Ibadan to Idumiye in 1907. Other material includes a typescript of her autobiographical experiences as a missionary, entitled 'Niger Dawn', notes of Ibo folk tales and proverbs which she collected, some photographs and letters she received |
| Administrative History | Frances Mary Dennis (b 1874) was accepted as a CMS missionary in 1897. She served in Southern Nigeria and was stationed at Onitsha, Ugboke and Owerri. She had two brothers and a sister who were also CMS missionaries, Thomas, Edward and Ellen. Her fiance, Rev Charles Geoffrey Hensley, also a CMS missionary, died in 1901. Frances resigned from missionary service in 1909 on her marriage to Rev. Stephen Hensley, a clergyman
Reference: Register of missionaries (clerical, lay & female) and native clergy from 1804 to 1904 (Church Missionary Society, 1905) |
| Custodial History | Presented to the CMS by Mrs. F. M. Hensley, Sep 1959; transferred on permanent loan to the Special Collections Department by the CMS in the 1980s |