| Description | An in memoriam card for Rev Charles Henry Brierley who died in Madeira in 1870, aged 33 years, after serving 10 years [and 8 months] as a missionary with Church Missionary Society in West Africa. Also two ruled sheets of unsigned, manuscript notes with copies of in memoriam inscriptions dedicated to Rev W. Worth Hoare (d 1869), vicar of St Paul's Church, Staly[bridge], Cheshire 1840-1869, and jointly to Rev Worth and Rev'd Charles Henry Brierley; the latter dedication was made by Ann Eliza Worth Hoare [wife of W. Worth Hoare]. Photographs of Rev Brierley, Mrs Brierley and a sketch of Charlotte church (Sierra Leone) are pasted on to the notes nd [late 19th century]. |
| Administrative History | Rev Charles Henry Brierley was born in Yorkshire in 1837. He worked in a mill in Manchester before entering training at the Church Missionary College in 1858. Having been accepted as a missionary, he departed for Sierra Leone, West Africa in December 1859. He made two return trips to England July 1861-January 1864 and May 1868-November 1869 before his death in Madeira 14 August 1870. He was ordained Deacon by the Bishop of Sierra Leone February 1861. In September 1863, he married Maria Roberts Bywater, also a CMS missionary.
Maria, like her husband, was from Yorkshire, England. Having been accepted by CMS, she sailed to Sierra Leone 24 December 1858 where she worked at the Female Institution. In November 1870, she returned to England after her husband's death but remained with the CMS West Africa Mission, travelling back to take charge of the Liberated African Schools, Charlotte in February 1871. She retired from CMS in March 1876 and returned to England before going out to Liberia with the American Episcopal Mission and died 6 July 1895.
Sources: CMS 'Register of missionaries (clerical, lay & female) and native clergy from 1804 to 1904' (Church Missionary Society, 1905); CMS card indexes; CMS Register of Candidates 1850-1859. |
| Custodial History | The early provenance of the papers is not known. The book in which the papers were found was originally held by Selly Oak Colleges Library whose collections were transferred to the Orchard Learning and Resources Centre, University of Birmingham in 1975. |
| Acquisition | Found loosely inserted in 'Missions in Western Africa : among the Soosoos, Bulloms, &c. : being the first undertaken by the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East' by Samuel Abraham Walker published Dublin : William Curry, Jun. and Company, 1845 (classmark r 266.66/WAL), when the volume was selected for transfer from the Orchard Learning and Resources Centre, University of Birmingham to Cadbury Research Library : Special Collections in July 2012. |