- Header
- Church Missionary Society
- Also known as
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Church Missionary Society
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primary name: Church Missionary Society
- Details
- organisation; institution/organisation; British
- Other dates
- 1799- (founded. Still active)
- Address
- CMS, Watlington Road, Oxford, OX4 6BZ
- Biography
- Anglican missionary society, founded in Aldersgate Street, City of London, in 1799 as the Society for Missions in Africa and the East. William Wilberforce (q.v.) was one of the founding members and the Society's three main aims were the abolition of the slave trade, social reform at home and world evangelisation. In 1812, the Society was renamed the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East, and it is currently known as the Church Mission Society. The Society's first overseas mission was in Sierra Leone (1804) and their work spread to, and continues in, various places across Africa, Asia, Australasia, the Middle East and North America.
The BM purchased much of the collection built up by its missionaries at different times. See:
Oc1863,0209.1 to 11
Af1952,07.1 to 321, described in the register as a 'large series, chielfy from West Africa and Uganda dating from about 1880 onwards'.
As1952,09.1 to 13
As1961,01.1 to 16
Af1953,24.1 to 85
Af1962,17.1 to 78
Af1964,02.1 to 84
Af1966,01.1 to 51
As1966,01.1 to 858
The records are sometimes accompanied by information taken from labels supplied by the many missionaries who sent objects to England to help promote and raise funds for their work.
- Bibliography
- Archive in Birmingham University
Rev. Samuel Abraham Walker, Missions in Western Africa, … being among the first undertaken by the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East, London 1845
Eugene Stock, The history of the Church Missionary Society, its environment, its men and its work, 3 vols. 1899
F. Deaville Walker, The romance of the Black River : the story of the C.M.S. Nigeria Mission, 1930
Gordon Hewitt, The problems of success : a history of the Church Missionary Society, 1910-1942, 2 vols 1971, 1977
