| Description | This collection comprises miscellaneous circular letters and printed material relating to mission work in South India and to the Church of South India. This material was largely collected by the Rt Rev Norman C. Sargant, as a Methodist missionary in Mysore and later Bishop of Mysore. It also includes material collected by Rev A. H. Dammers and presented to Sargant. Although this collection does not include circular letters of Sargant himself, the materials were probably used by him when writing his memoirs in the 1970s
The collection comprises circular letters from Methodist missionaries in South India, 1932-1969, printed material, including annual reports, other reports, and printed orders of service relating to establishments associated with mission work in South India, 1931-1976, publications of the Methodist Missionary Society, 1934-1981, and miscellaneous publications relating to South India and South Indian mission work, 1911-1975 |
| Administrative History | Norman Carr Sargant (b 1909) trained for the Methodist ministry and went to India as a missionary in 1931 where he worked with the Methodist Mission in Mysore. He was chosen to represent the Mysore Methodists at the inauguration of the Church of South India in Madras in 1947. In the Mysore Diocese, Methodists were in the majority in the new Church of South India: of the total Christianity community, 17,000 belonged to former Methodist circuits, 4,500 to Anglican parishes and 9,500 to the South India United Church. After the death of the first bishop of Mysore, Premaka Gurushantha, in 1950, Sargant was appointed the next bishop and was consecrated in 1951. He was Bishop of Mysore until 1972 when he returned to England. During his retirement he wrote his memoirs which include details about the Mysore State and the Methodist Mission and the political and ecclesiastical events which led up to Indian independence and the creation of the Church of South India in 1947 and to the beginnings of the Mysore Diocese.
Reference: Typescript memoirs of Sargant, A Missionary in Mysore, 1978. A copy of this is available at the Orchard Learning Resources Centre, q283.5487092SAR |
| Custodial History | These papers were received by Selly Oak Colleges Library as a gift from the Rt. Rev. Norman C. Sargant. The date of the first deposit of papers is unknown; the second deposit of papers was made in 1981. The collection was then transferred to the Orchard Learning Resources Centre which was opened in 1997 following the merger of the Selly Oak Colleges Library and the Westhill College Library. In 2000, the custodianship of all archive collections held at the Orchard Learning Resources Centre was transferred to the University of Birmingham
Cataloguing of the papers was undertaken by the Special Collections Department, University of Birmingham, in June 2000, as a result of the University of Birmingham's relationship with Selly Oak Colleges' endowment trust |