- Also known as
-
London Missionary Society
-
primary name: London Missionary Society
-
other name: LMS
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other name: Missionary Society
- Details
- organisation; institution/organisation; British
- Other dates
- 1795- (estd)
- Address
- Livingstone House, Broadway, SW1. (1935, 1939)
- Biography
- The oldest of the British missionary societies, interdominational, but mainly from nonconformist Congregational groups. [The Church Missionary Society (qv) was Anglican.] The following information comes from the article by Chris Wingfield:
Its 'Missionary Museum' opened in 1815 in rooms in the Old Jewry, near Cheapside. Included much natural history as well as idols and manufactures in areas covered by the Society’s missionaries. Moved to a new building nearby in Blomfield Street in 1835. Two catalogues known: one in 1826, the other 1859/62. In 1890, the directors of the LMS agreed to ‘lend under certain conditions objects of interest from the Society’s Museum for exhibition at the British Museum’, with the idea that they should be labelled as lent by the London Missionary Society and placed together in a separate case. 234 of the 241 objects shown came from the Pacific (later purchased by the BM see Oc.LMS.1 to 230). In 1903 the Society closed the Blomfield Street building, and in 1910 the decision was taken to close museum and sell its contents ‘for the benefit of the Society, preserving, however, all articles of historic Missionary interest, and such as would be useful for the loan department’. In April 1910, Charles Hercules Read was given the opportunity to be the first to select items for the British Museum (274 additional items registered as 1910,- .253 to 527). On 13 May, further selections were made by Henry Balfour for the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and by the private collector A W F Fuller, who visited together and took turns to make their selections. The dealer W O Oldman bought more on 18 May, as did at some point Dr Harrison from the Horniman Museum. The remainder was sold at an auction at Stevens on 31 May 1910.
The collection of tapa cloths was given in 1921 and other objects came in 1935 and various other times. Some other LMS objects can be found as 1979,01 or Q numbers from 1980/1/2.
The Society's archives are housed in the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London University.
- Bibliography
- www.mundus.ac.uk
William Ellis, The history of the London Missionary Society, comprising an account of the origin of the Society, biographical notices of some of its founders and missionaries, with a record of its progress at home and its operations abroad, 1844
William Fox, A brief history of the Wesleyan missions on the western coast of Africa : including biographical sketches of all the missionaries who have died in that important field of labour ; with some account of the European settlements, and of the slave-trade, 1851
Richard Lovett, ‘The history of the London Missionary Society, 1795-1895’, 1899
James Sibree, 'A Register of Missionaries, Deputations, etc. from 1796 to 1923', 4th edn. London Missionary Society, 1923 (online)
Norman Goodall, A History of the London Missionary Society 1895-1945, Oxford University Press, 1954
Rosemary Seton, 'Reconstructing the museum of the London Missionary Society', Material Religion, 8:1 (2012), pp.98-102
[doi.org/10.2752/175183412X13286288798015]
Chris Wingfield, ‘Scarcely more than a Christian trophy case’? The global collections of the London Missionary Society museum (1814–1910)', Journal of the History of Collections, Volume 29, March 2017, pages 109–128 [https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhw002]
