Missionary History

Recently the author acquired a Victorian Photo album which contained a number of Carte-de-Visite format photographs of Berlin Mission Society missionaries, all attached to the German Lutheran church in Berlin (dating from between 1865 and late 1870s).

The 31 images contained in the album are mainly of missionaries who did duty in South Africa (12 images), East Africa (6 images) & China (3 images). The remainder of the images had no inscriptions on them, making it almost impossible to identify the missionary that was photographically captured.

Amongst the South African group of images, 10 missionaries have been identified and are presented in this article. The probability exists that some of the remaining images without inscriptions could also have been South African based missionaries.

Fortunately, research by both German and Missionary historians has resulted in sufficient information being recorded on most of the missionaries, which makes the sharing of the images more impactful.

Whilst much may have been published on most of the missionaries listed below, the primary purpose of this article is to share the images in the public domain.

Many questions arise around the existence of the album. Sadly, the author has no detail as to where the album originated from. Was this a formal album that would have belonged to the mission administration, or was it an album of a missionary (or his family) that just passionately compiled such album keeping track of their colleagues doing duty around the globe?

The German mission societies in South Africa included the Berlin...

As a callow teenager, Joseph Kirkman left an indelible mark on the annals of early Natal history. He is remembered for his efforts in assisting the American missionaries to establish a bridgehead in Zululand and his subsequent heroic exploits in assisting the evacuation of those missionaries following the turbulence consequent on the Retief massacre. He will also be remembered for having the expedient foresight to commit his observations of those calamitous happenings to paper, which provided unique insights and enabled historians to interpret some of the causes and consequences of those events more precisely. Regrettably, his records disappeared before qualified historians could carry out adequate studies.

Joseph was a scion of the 1820 Settlers. The young twin sons of 1820 Settler John Kirkman, John and Joseph, were orphaned in the early months of the 6th Frontier War. Their father and stepmother succumbed to the rigours of escaping the sacking of the Rev John Brownlee’s Mission station on the Buffalo River (the site of present-day King Williamstown), where they had taken refuge. With the missionary’s party, they experienced a harrowing flight to Graham’s Town, fraught with protracted terror and hardship.

Shortly after these tragic events, three young children of the folk involved were placed in the employ of parties of American missionaries who were destined for the hinterland and for Port Natal. These missionaries had been sent to South Africa by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, of Boston, Massachusetts, as a result of advice sent to the Board by Dr...