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Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1766; attended the Royal High School; apprenticed to a goldsmith; helped to found the Religious Tract Society of Scotland, 1793; founded the Missionary Magazine in Edinburgh, 1796; promoted Sunday schools and preached widely; among the founders of societies for 'fallen women' in Edinburgh and Glasgow; interested in the condition of slaves; following the Haldane revival, became a Congregational minister; founded an independent chapel, 'Kingsland', and a school in London; minister at Kingsland from 1802; helped to found the Bible Society; director of the London Missionary Society (LMS); appointed to the first deputation to inspect LMS settlements, in southern Africa; sailed to Cape Town, 1812; the first person to visit the missions inside and outside the colony, travelling extensively and visiting Bethelsdorp, Graaff Reinet, Griqua Town and Lattakoo, and communicating with tribes in other localities, 1812-1814; helped John Anderson to establish a permanent Christian presence among the Griqua people; returned to England with his report and maps of the colony and its hinterland, 1814; with the Rev John Philip, sailed to South Africa on a deputation to regulate the LMS mission, 1818; arrived at Cape Town, 1819; the deputation visited Paarl, Tulbagh, Caldon Institution (Zuurbraak), Pacaltsdorp, Bethelsdorp, and Theopolis, but a war prevented them from travelling further; returned to Cape Town; made long journeys across the colonial frontier, travelling to Griqua Town, New Lattakoo (Kuruman), Old Lattakoo, Meribohwhey, Mashow, Kurreechane, and towns west of Kuruman, 1820; returned to England and resumed his pastorship of Kingsland, 1821; a prolific writer on African missions and a pioneer author of children's books; for many years editor of the religious publication The Youth's Magazine; died, 1840. For further information see Robert Philip, The Life, Times, and Missionary Enterprises of the Rev John Campbell (1841). Publications include: Travels in South Africa (1815); Travels in South Africa: Second Journey (1822).

Born at Beeston, near Nottingham, England, 1869; member of a Congregational chapel in Sheffield; appointed as a London Missionary Society (LMS) artisan assistant missionary in the Central Africa Mission; left England and arrived at Fwambo, 1892; settled at Kambole, 1894; returned to England on medical advice and resigned his connection with the LMS, 1896; died at Bournemouth, 1943.

Born near Morpeth, Northumberland, England, 1782; grew up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne; following a rudimentary education, apprenticed to his father as a last and boot-tree maker; joined the Presbyterian church, 1798; decided to prepare for missionary work; studied at Hoxton Academy (later Highbury College), London, 1803; studied at the Missionary Academy, Gosport, Hampshire, 1804; appointed by the London Missionary Society (LMS) and studied medicine, astronomy and Chinese in London, 1805; ordained and sailed via Philadelphia and New York to Canton, 1807; pioneering Protestant missionary to China, though he saw few conversions himself; married Mary Morton (1791-1821), daughter of an East India Company surgeon, in Macau, 1809; became translator to the East India Company's factory in Canton, securing a legal basis for residence and a means of supporting himself, 1809; completed the translation of the New Testament into Chinese, 1813; it was printed, 1814; viewed with hostility by Chinese officials; baptised the first Protestant Chinese Christian, 1814; served as translator on Lord Amherst's abortive embassy to Peking (Beijing), 1816-1817; returned to Canton, 1817; on the completion of his Anglo-Chinese dictionary, received the degree of Doctor of Divinity, University of Glasgow, 1817; with William Milne (1785-1822) founded the Anglo-Chinese College, Malacca, for training missionaries in the Far East, 1818; with Milne, completed the translation of the Bible, 1819; visited Malacca, 1823; travelled to England, 1823-1824; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1824; helped to established the short-lived Language Institution in London; ordained the first Chinese native pastor, 1825; married Eliza Armstrong (1795-1874), 1825; left England and returned to Canton, 1826; died at Canton, 1834. Publications include: Dictionary of the Chinese Language (1815-1823); Grammar of the Chinese Language (1815); Chinese Bible and numerous Chinese tracts, translations, and works on philology. His son from his first marriage, John Robert Morrison (1814-1843), succeeded his father at the East India Company and became secretary to the Hong Kong government.

Born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 1815; educated at Aberdeen grammar school; studied at King's College and University, Aberdeen; MA, 1835; affiliated with the Congregational Church; studied at Highbury theological college, London; appointed London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary to Malacca; ordained at Brompton, London, married Mary Isabella Morison (1816-1852), and set sail, 1839; arrived at Malacca and was appointed Principal of the Anglo-Chinese College, 1840; began translating and annotating the Chinese classics; he was to become a pioneering Sinologist; his wife, also a missionary, pioneered education for Chinese girls; DD, University of New York, 1842; following the treaty of 1842, which opened the ports of China, Legge left Malacca for Singapore, 1843; proceeded via Macau to Hong Kong and attended a conference of LMS missionaries and a general convention of missionaries, 1843; appointed to deliberate on the controversial issue of how to render God' in Chinese, advocating use of the nameShang Di'; head of the Anglo-Chinese Theological Seminary, Hong Kong (which replaced the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca), 1843-1856; the preparatory school attached to the Seminary opened, 1844; it became co-educational, 1846; Legge helped to develop an independent Chinese congregation in Hong Kong; visited England for health reasons, 1845-1846; returned to Hong Kong and, in addition to his missionary work, pastor to an English congregation, 1848; visited England, 1858; married a widow, Hannah Mary Willetts (d 1881, née Johnstone), and returned to Hong Kong, 1859; ceased to be supported by LMS funds and returned to England, 1867; LLD, University of Aberdeen, 1870; pastor at Union Church, Hong Kong, 1870-1873; visited mission stations at Shanghai, Chefoo (Yantai) and Peking (Beijing) and returned to England via Japan and the USA, 1873; withdrew as a missionary of the LMS, 1873; Fellow of Corpus Christi College Oxford, 1875; first Professor of Chinese, University of Oxford, 1876-1897; honorary MA, University of Oxford; LLD, University of Edinburgh, 1884; died in Oxford, 1897. Publications include: translated and edited The Chinese Classics (5 volumes, Trübner & Co, 1861-1872, and 3 volumes, Clarendon Press, 1879-1894); Inaugural Lecture ... in the University of Oxford (1876); The Religions of China (1880); and numerous Chinese translations, Chinese tracts, and other pamphlets on Chinese subjects.

Thomas William Bach: born in Worcester, England, 1868; studied at New College; appointed London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary to Trivandrum, Travancore, southern India, ordained in Worcester, and travelled to India, 1894; married S H Mudie Smith in Madras, 1895; visited England, 1897; resigned on account of his wife's ill-health, 1899; returned to England, 1900.

Born at Tottenham High Cross, London, England, 1796; son of John Williams by the daughter of James Maidmeet; educated at a school in Lower Edmonton; apprenticed to an ironmonger, 1810; his piety in early youth waned until he became a member of the Tabernacle chapel, City Road, Moorfields, London, 1814; appointed London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary to the South Seas, ordained at Surrey Chapel, married Mary Chauner (d 1852), and started his journey to the South Pacific via Sydney, 1816; arrived at Moorea, 1817; travelled from Moorea to Huahine, 1818; frustrated by existing LMS practices, moved to Raiatea and, encouraged by the island's chief, Tamatoa, helped to start a mission there, 1818; Williams was anxious to reach inhabitants of the other scattered islands, but the LMS directors were critical of his schemes; sailed to Sydney to obtain medical advice for his wife and while there purchased a schooner, the Endeavour, for missionary work, 1821; returned to Raiatea, 1822; travelled to the Hervey Islands and introduced Christianity there, 1823; visited the islands of Rurutu and Rimatara, 1823; plans to reach the more distant islands were thwarted by financial constraints which forced Williams to dispose of the Endeavour; sailed to Raratonga, in the southern Cook Islands, 1827; translated part of the Bible into Rarotongan; while there, built the Messenger of Peace, in which he returned to Raiatea, 1828; visited Rurutu and Rimatara, 1828-1829; set out in the Messenger of Peace to visit the Hervey and Samoan Islands, 1830; proceeded to the Friendly Islands (Tonga) and made arrangements with Wesleyan missionaries there regarding the division of missionary labour; settled eight teachers in Samoa and returned to Raiatea, 1830; sailed for Rarotonga, intending to revise the Rarotongan version of the New Testament, and visited the Hervey Islands, 1831; following a hurricane in Rarotonga, visited Tahiti to obtain supplies, visited Raiatea, and returned to Rarotonga, 1832; visited Samoa, Keppel's Island, and proceeded to Rarotonga via the Friendly Islands, where the Messenger of Peace was repaired, 1832-1833; having completed the revision of the Rarotongan New Testament, spent time in Tahiti, Rarotonga, and Raiatea, 1833; sailed from Tahiti for England, 1834; superintended publication of the Rarotonga New Testament by the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1835; his public addresses and appeal raised mission funds and a vessel for work among the islands, the Camden, was purchased and fitted out; his published account of his work stimulated public interest, 1837; sailed to Rarotonga via Sydney and Samoa, 1838-1839; proceeded to Tahiti, Moorea, Huahina, Raiatea and other islands, travelled from Rarotonga via Aitutaki to Samoa, and founded a mission station at Fasitoouta, Upolu, 1839; visited Rotuma and Tanna in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) and proceeded to Erromanga, where his party was attacked and two of them, including Williams, killed, 1839; their remains were subsequently partially recovered and taken to Upolu for burial; his wife returned from Samoa to England, 1841-1842; father of Samuel Williams and John Chauner Williams. Publication: Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands (1837 and later editions). Due to his fate Williams became a legend and inspiration for missionaries and a series of seven LMS mission ships were named John Williams.

Born in Birmingham, England, 1839; studied at Airedale College and at Highgate; appointed London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary to Huahine in the South Pacific; was ordained and married Elizabeth Anne Marston (1835-1903), 1865; sailed in the mission ship the John Williams II, arriving at Adelaide and proceeding to Sydney, Australia, then to Aneiteum, where the ship ran aground and returned to Sydney for repairs, 1866; Neville and other passengers remained at Aneiteum; visited the Loyalty Islands and arrived at Niue, 1866; left Niue for Samoa and proceeded to Huahine, 1867; following the failure of his health, left Tahiti for England, 1874; retired from the LMS, having taken the pastorate of the Congregational chapel at Rye, Sussex, 1878; became pastor of the Congregational chapel at Hailsham, 1905; retired from the ministry and died at St Leonards, 1915. His son, William James Viritahitemauvai Saville (1873-1948), was also a LMS missionary to the South Seas, and his daughter, Lillie Emma Valineetua Saville (1869-1911), was an LMS medical missionary to China.

Singapore was founded and declared a free port in 1819. Following the end of the East India Company's monopoly of Asian commerce, independent merchant houses were quick to seize the opportunity to establish trading posts on the island. Amongst these pioneers was Alexander Guthrie, merchant with Messrs. Harrington & Company. Guthrie made a success of their enterprise and by 1824, the partnership with Harrington had been formally dissolved. Guthrie took on James Scott Clark as a new partner, to form Messrs. Guthrie & Clark.

During its early history various partnerships controlled the business, from its base in Singapore. Following Clark's departure in 1833, Alexander took on his nephew James Guthrie and renamed the firm Messrs. Guthrie & Co. James became a partner in 1837, and headed the Singapore office from 1847, when Alexander returned to London. In 1849 John James Greenshields became a partner. In 1856, James Guthrie returned to London. In 1857 Thomas Scott (responsible for the formation of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company in 1864) became a partner, and later Senior Partner in 1867. On his return to London in 1873, Scott established a registered office for the firm in London, known as Scott & Company. In 1876, Louis John Robertson Glass was the senior partner in Singapore. On 28 February 1903 Guthrie & Co merged with Scott & Company to become Guthrie & Co. Ltd, with its own London office. Sir John Anderson became the Governing Director of the whole concern, with Robert McNair Scott as the London Director. Anderson went on to launch many of the company's planting and mining interests and shaped its policy for a quarter of a century. By the time Sir John Hay assumed the position of General Manager in 1925, the total range of Guthrie business interests was known as the 'Guthrie Group'. Hay went on to become Managing Director and Chairman, distinguished for his work for the British rubber plantation industry.

By the mid 19th century, Guthrie & Co was a successful merchant house trading British goods (e.g. cotton, wool, manufactured articles) for produce from the Straits (spices, tin, coffee, beeswax, ebony, ivory); India (Punjab wheat, Indian cotton, opium from Calcutta); Java (coffee); Borneo (sago); Malay Peninsula (rattan, pepper); and Siam and Cambodia (sugar, coconut oil, salt, rice, teak). Trading was conducted largely through Chinese merchants, who collected goods from native producers and sold it on to the British merchants for export. In addition the firm managed estates, and acted as agents for numerous banks and insurance companies including the London banking firm of Coutts (from 1830), London Fire Insurance Co (from 1853), and the London & Provincial Marine Insurance Co (from 1861). By 1896 the firm had begun to establish itself in the Malay Peninsula, accepting the agency of 5 coffee estates owned by Thomas Heslop Hill. By 1900 Guthrie agencies included 6 banks, 5 insurance companies, 2 shipping companies and 23 new 'general' agencies. These concerned tin mines, gold mines, tobacco estates, sugar, flour cement, tea and coffee machinery, whiskies, beers, wines and spirits, Jeyes' Fluid and Lipton's Tea.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Guthrie & Co. had taken on the agency of a number of new rubber plantation companies with estates in Malaya, Borneo and Sumatra. Amongst these agencies were the Selangor Rubber Co., Linggi Plantations Ltd. (1904), United Sua Betong Rubber Estates Ltd. (1909), United Temiang Rubber Estates Ltd. (1910), and Malacca Rubber Plantations Ltd. (1920). Guthrie & Co. also played a key role in research in this field, with the development of 'Stimulex' in the 1930's (which significantly increased the output of natural latex), and a new form of natural rubber, 'Dynat', in 1961 (with greater standardisation of physical and chemical composition). Modern day distributors of rubber products for the Group include Guthrie Latex Inc. and its sister company in the UK, Guthrie Symington Ltd.

By the 1920's, the flotation of companies concerned with the oil palm industry had become an important sideline to Guthrie & Co.'s extensive rubber planting interests in Malaya. In 1924 they floated Elaeis Plantations Ltd., and subsequently three of the rubber companies in the 'Guthrie Group' (Linggi Plantations Ltd, United Sua Betong Rubber Estates Ltd, and Malacca Rubber Plantations Ltd) acquired adjoining tracts of land and commenced planting oil palms. In 1930, these three companies merged their interests in oil palms by creating Oil Palms of Malaya Ltd. By 1942 the oil palm interests of Guthrie & Co in Malaya amounted to nearly 20,000 acres.

With the outbreak of War in Asia on 8 December 1941, and the surrender of Singapore on 15 February 1942, business ceased. Bombing destroyed the Guthrie Head Office, and many employees were sent to Japanese internment camps. Following the War, together with other member organisations of the Rubber Estate Owners Company who had suffered losses in the East, Guthrie were able to reclaim their estates and offices in Singapore, Malacca, Kuala Lumpur, Ipon and Penang, and resume trading with the eastern public. From 1947, the commercial side of the firm flourished. There was an extension of activity into Africa with the purchase of Cochrane & Milton (agricultural equipment and builders hardware), the opening of an office in Melbourne in 1953, and the purchase of F. W. Green & Co. in 1959 (general traders in Australia). The London Office also branched out to incorporate the food-importing business of B.N. Sexton, Canadian Foods and John Dorell. The company's Head Office was also transferred to London. Guthrie & Co. became a world-wide network of interests including Guthries' of Singapore and Malaysia (later merged with an off-shoot of the House of Jardine Matheson into Guthrie Waugh), Guthries' of Rhodesia, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Nigeria and innumerable subsidiaries.

On 1 January 1961, the 'Guthrie Group' formed a co-operative - Guthrie Estates Agency Ltd. with a subsidiary, Guthrie Agency (Malaya) Ltd. - to manage the affairs of its constituent companies. In 1964, Sir John Hay died, and Sir Eric Griffith Jones took his place, welding together the rubber and palm interests of the group into the Guthrie Corporation, the largest owner of such plantations in the world. Keith Anderson became Chairman of Guthrie & Co. (UK) Ltd. In 1988, the Guthrie Corporation plc was acquired by BBA Group plc.

Further reading: S Cunyngham-Brown, The Traders: A Story of Britain's South-East Asian Commercial Adventure (London, 1971)

Missionary literature work in Africa was stimulated by the International Missionary Council conference on the Christian mission in Africa, held at Le Zoute in 1926. The Christian Literature Bureau for Africa was founded in 1929, with a full-time secretary and three sectional committees: British, Continental and American. It had close relations with both the International Missionary Council and the Conference of Missionary Societies of Great Britain and Ireland (CBMS). It had its office in Edinburgh House (no 2 Eaton Gate, London, near Sloane Square station), the premises of the CBMS. The Christian Literature Bureau became part of the International Missionary Council as the International Committee on Christian Literature for Africa in 1953. In 1957-1958 its operations were transferred to Africa, although activities which could not then be transferred passed to the CBMS, for instance the periodical Books for Africa (1931-1963), which listed and reviewed publications of potential usefulness in Africa.

John Swire & Sons (JS&S) was founded in 1832 when John Swire, a Liverpool merchant since 1816, extended his business to include his young sons John Samuel (born 1825) and William Hudson (born 1830). On his death in 1847, they inherited a small but solvent business.

Over the next twenty years, evidence points to a series of attempts by the firm to expand its trade in America, Australia, and the Far East when China was finally opened to foreigners. The beginning of the firm's real expansion in the East dates from the creation of Butterfield and Swire. Previously, textiles assigned to JS&S for sale in China were handled for them in that country by the Shanghai firm Preston, Bruell & Co. However, JS&S aimed to have their own trading house in the East to attend to this side of the business. In 1866 they formed a partnership with R. S. Butterfield - a Yorkshire textile manufacturer - to create Butterfield & Swire (B&S) with two other firms in England and America. B&S opened its first office in Shanghai in 1867, with William Lang and R. N. Newby to handle the textile shipments and James Scott employed as a bookkeeper. On 1 August 1868, the short-lived partnership came to an end, leaving B&S in the hands of JS&S, whilst the other two firms became the property of R. S. Butterfield. The prospects of B&S were quickly strengthened with the acquisition of the agency for Alfred Holt's Blue Funnel Line. JS&S continued to develop and expand and in 1870, the London Branch (established 1868/9) became the Head Office. Two years later in 1872, the China Navigation Company (CNCo) came into being, and in 1874 the Coast Boats Ownery was created, extending JS&S's involvement in the shipping trade. Both concerns, which amalgamated in 1883, were intended to act as feeders to Holt's ocean going vessels by capturing the growing steam trade along the China coast and Yangtze River.

It was, however, a period of economic difficulties and fierce competition with existing trading and shipping companies in the East, notably Jardine, Matheson & Company and the Chinese sponsored China Merchants Company. The impetus for the establishment of the Taikoo Sugar Refinery in Hong Kong in 1881 and the insurance interests of John Swire and Sons arose directly from this period of hostility with Jardines. In 1876 William was forced to retire from the firm because of poor health, further increasing the financial strain on his brother but also leaving him in sole control of the business. By the late 1870s the partnership consisted of John Swire, his right hand man in London, F. R. Gamwell, and the three Eastern Managers, William Lang, J. H. Scott and Edwin Mackintosh. Initially however, only John Swire put up any capital and until his death in December 1898 the history of the firm is very much that of its Senior Partner.

When James Scott became the Senior Partner on John Swire's death, he put through two schemes previously vetoed by Swire: the Taikoo Dockyard and Engineering Company (1901), and the Tientsin Lighter Company (1904). Scott died in 1912 leaving three partners: his son Colin, and John (Jack) and George Warren Swire, the sons of John Samuel Swire. These three became life Directors of the private limited company, which was formally announced on 1 January 1914. Throughout the Twentieth Century the firm has remained a family concern. J. K. (Jock) Swire and John Swire Scott joined the Board after the First World War and further generations were brought in after the Second World War.

Despite the internal disturbances in China in the inter-war period, JS&S's interests in the East continued to prosper and expand. The Taikoo Chinese Navigation Company (registered in 1930) was an attempt to encourage Chinese participation in Taikoo; the Orient Paint, Colour and Varnish Company was opened in Shanghai (1934) and continual efforts were made to increase Taikoo's markets in Asia and the Pacific area generally. The Directors and Eastern managers found themselves more involved in Chinese politics and local problems than John Samuel Swire would have approved. B&S senior staff played important parts in Hong Kong and Shanghai municipal affairs, while the London Directors, in particular Warren and Jock Swire, were involved with the China Association and other Eastern trade and political interest groups in Britain.

The Second World War appeared at first more likely to affect JS&S in London than its subsidiaries in the East, although Government requisition of shipping in 1940 affected the working of the CNCo. In December 1941, however, the Japanese invasion of China pushed the British firm out of all its interests in the Pacific and China including the Orient Paint, Colour and Varnish Company in Shanghai and the Dockyard and Refinery in Hong Kong. Many of the staff were interned although some escaped from Hong Kong to Australia. For the duration of the war B&S's presence in the East was maintained from Bombay and Calcutta by B&S (India), with an office remaining in operation in Chungking in Free China. In Britain the Directors, particularly J. K. Swire, worked with the Ministry of War Transport and in the National Dock Labour Board to assist the war effort as well as taking an active part in the China Association's plans for the post-war redevelopment of the Far Eastern trade. In the autumn of 1945 the offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai were returned to B&S and the task of rebuilding their interests in the East began.

Further reading: S Marriner & F Hyde, 'The Senior' John Samuel Swire 1825-1898 (Liverpool University Press, 1967); F Hyde, Blue Funnel. A History of Alfred Holt & Co. of Liverpool, 1865-1914 (Liverpool University Press, 1956).

On the Methodist Union of 1932, the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS), United Methodist Missionary Society (UMMS) and the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society (PMMS) merged to form the Methodist Missionary Society (MMS). The formation of the United Methodist Church in 1907 had already brought together the foreign mission activities of the Methodist New Connexion, the Bible Christians and the United Methodist Free Churches under the UMMS. The MMS retained the general administrative structure of the WMMS, so the records of the WMMS and MMS form a continuous sequence. In the early 1970s, the Methodist Church Overseas Division (MCOD) assumed responsibility for overseas work, though the MMS continued to exist.

Wesleyan missions 'among the heathen' began in 1786, when Thomas Coke, destined for Nova Scotia, was driven off course by a storm and landed at Antigua in the British West Indies. There he developed a successful mission of both slaves and landowners. Within a few years almost every colony in the West Indies had been reached. Under Coke's instigation, a mission to West Africa was undertaken in 1811 and successfully established at Sierra Leone (the first scheme for the establishment of a mission to West Africa, devised by Coke in 1769, had proved a failure). In 1814 Coke founded the third Methodist mission, in Ceylon, just prior to his death.

The Methodist Conference of 1804 established a 'Standing Committee of Finance and Advice' to act as an executive through which the Conference would control its foreign affairs, under the General Superintendence of Coke. However, the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS) originated with the District Auxiliaries - the first of which was founded in Leeds on 6 October 1813 - formed spontaneously for the support of overseas missionary work, without the sanction of Conference. By 1818, the proposals put forward by the District Auxiliaries were approved by Conference and embodied in a general missionary society. Meanwhile, following Coke's death in 1814, the London Committee of Finance and Advice was renamed the 'Executive Committee', and in 1815 an additional 'Committee of Examination and Finance' was established to conduct the detailed examination of missionary receipts and disbursements. In 1817 the new Committee mooted the formation of a permanent constitution for the missionary department, and in 1818 the Laws and Regulations of the General Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (the joint work of Richard Watson and Jabez Bunting) were accepted by Conference and the WMMS was fully constituted. The new society embraced the Auxiliary Districts and Circuit Missionary Societies that had already been formed.

Despite its name the WMMS was not a self-regulated 'Society', but rather the Methodist Church 'mobilised for foreign missionary service'. The Conference appointed a new Executive Committee, which in the intervals between the annual Conference was given superintendence of the collection and disbursement of funds from subscribing members and the management of foreign missions. The President of Conference acted as Chairman of the Committee, which included 48 members with equal numbers of ministers and laymen. It met monthly. The Committee included three Secretaries, ordained ministers whose job it was to receive correspondence from the field, and to draw up plans for the stationing of missionaries to be submitted to the Committee and ratified by Conference. By 1834 it was usual to have four Secretaries. In emergencies the Committee was empowered to fill vacancies and recall missionaries for disciplinary proceedings. The Conference was the ultimate judge in these matters.

On the foreign mission field, the Conference and Executive Committee exercised control through the District Synod and District Chairman (General Superintendent). Missionaries from each District were required to meet in an annual Synod. Synod Minutes were sent home. By 1903 the functions of the Synod had been limited to the supervision of ministers and Circuits in the District, and 'Local Committees' had been established as the agents of the Executive Committee in the administration of funds. Local Committees comprised the missionaries of the district in addition to local 'gentlemen'. They met annually, received official letters of instruction from home, and returned minutes of the meeting and letters reviewing the year's work. The District Chairman was responsible for the general welfare of the District and the progress of work in all Circuits. When the Local Committee was in session, its powers were paramount. In the intervals between its sessions, the District Chairman exercised these powers.

Missions in Canada were established in the 1780s in Hudson Bay territory, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward's Island and Newfoundland. The Canadian Methodist Missionary Society was established in 1824 and Canada gained its own independent Conference in 1854.

Work in West Africa had begun in 1811 with Coke's mission to Sierra Leone. A second station was opened on the River Gambia in 1821, and on the Gold Coast in 1834. The first missionary to arrive in South Africa was Rev. John McKenny, who established a station at Namaqualand in 1814. In 1820, work began amongst the slave population in the Cape Colony, in 1822 at Bechuanaland, and in 1841 a mission accompanied British troops to Natal. The South African Conference was established in 1882, and assumed care of mission work in South Africa (with the exception of Transvaal, Swaziland and Rhodesia).

Work in Australia began in 1818 when Rev. Samuel Leigh arrived in Sydney to found a mission for convicts in New South Wales. Work began in Tasmania in 1821, Victoria in 1838 and Queensland in 1850. The Australasian Methodist Missionary Society was organised as an auxiliary in 1822, and in 1855 as an independent society under an independent Conference. Missionaries were sent to New Zealand in 1822, a mission was established in the Friendly islands in 1826, and some years later work began in Fiji.

Work began in China in 1853. In 1860 a new station was established at Fat-shan, and in 1862 a mission for North China was established at Han-kau. By 1903 mission work was underway at Wu-chang, Han-yang, Sui-chow, Wu-hsueh and Hu-nan at Chang-sha. The two Districts were Canton and Wu-chang (including Hu-nan).

In 1885 the West Indies Conference was established, but the area had been brought back under the British Conference by 1903. The first mission to be established in India was Madras, in 1817. By 1903 work was underway in eight districts including Madras, Negapatam, Haiderabad, Mysore, Calcutta, Lucknow, Bombay and Burma. Missions in Europe included France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Mediterranean. The French Methodist Conference was established in 1852.

In 1858 the Ladies Committee for the Amelioration of the Condition of Women in Heathen Countries, Female Education, &c, was founded as an auxiliary to the WMMS, although managed independently.

On 20 September 1932, in the Royal Albert Hall, London, the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the United Methodist Church and the Primitive Methodist Church united to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain. As a result, the missionary societies of the three Churches merged to form the MMS. Thus in 1932, the foreign missions of the MMS encompassed all of the regions where the individual societies previously worked. These included the West Indies (comprising the ex-WMMS districts of Bahamas, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Barbados and Trinidad, and British Guyana); Latin Europe (comprising the ex-WMMS districts of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal); West Africa (comprising the ex-WMMS districts of Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Gold Coast, Western Nigeria and French West Africa, the ex-UMMS work both in the Colony and in the Protectorate among the Mendes, and the ex-PMMS districts of Fernando Po and eastern Nigeria); Ceylon (ex-WMMS districts); South India (comprising the ex-WMMS districts of Madras, Trichinopoly, Hyderabad and Mysore); North India (comprising the ex-WMMS districts of Bengal, Lucknow and Benares, and Bombay and Punjab); China (comprising the ex-WMMS districts of South China, Hupeh and Hunan, and ex-UMMS districts of Hopei and Shantung, Yunnan, Ningpo and Wenchow); Kenya (ex-UMMS district); Burma (ex-WMMS district), and Southern and Northern Rhodesia (ex-WMMS work in both Southern and Northern Rhodesia, and ex-PMMS work in Northern Rhodesia only).

All Methodists were deemed to be members of the MMS. Its headquarters were based in London and it was governed by a General Missionary Committee, which acted on the authority of the Methodist Conference. The administration of foreign missions retained the general structure of that used by the WMMS (which formed the largest group in the union of 1932). Foreign districts were administered in much the same way as home districts, with District Synods and a District Chairman (Superintendent) representing the authority of the General Committee, and ultimately the Conference, in the field. The work of women missionaries in the MMS was represented by the 'Women's Work' department.

The General Committee included several General Secretaries, ordained ministers who were responsible for official correspondence with the missionaries. These positions evolved into 'Area Secretaries', each taking responsibility for a different area of overseas work, i.e. Africa, Asia, Caribbean and Europe. The position of Area Secretary is preserved in the overseas work of the present day Methodist Church.

In the administrative restructuring of the early 1970s, all departments of the Methodist Church became known as divisions, with the Methodist Church Overseas Division (MCOD) assuming responsibility for overseas work. In 1996, further large-scale administrative restructuring removed these divisions and the Church became a single connexional team. The World Church Office took on the work of the MCOD. The Area Secretaries are based in this Office, and their role has become one of liaison and partnership formation. Throughout this period, the MMS has continued to exist.

The nature of the relationship between the Methodist Church of Great Britain and churches overseas has also evolved, from a paternal role to one of equal partnership. Many of the former overseas 'districts' have become autonomous Methodist Churches in their own right, with their own Conference, Synod, and President (known by various titles). The World Methodist Council exists to provide a forum to promote co-operation and common purpose amongst Methodist peoples worldwide.

Further reading: Methodist Missionary Society, Our Missions Overseas - Past and Present. The First Annual Report of the Methodist Missionary Society, 1932 (1932); G Findlay & W W Holdsworth, The History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (5 vols., 1921).

The Primitive Methodist Church did not formally constitute a Missionary Society, though its Missionary Reports used the term from 1843. Overseas work was directed by the General Missionary Committee of the Primitive Methodist Conference. The main Primitive Methodist fields were West Africa (Fernando Po and Nigeria) and Southern Africa (South Africa and Northern Rhodesia). These fields were transferred to the Methodist Missionary Society upon Methodist Union in 1932. Earlier work in the British colonies of North America and Australasia became autonomous by the end of the 19th century.

Primitive Methodism was the largest of the Wesleyan offshoots. Founded by Hugh Bourne (1772-1852) and William Clowes (1780-1851), both Wesleyan Local Preachers, the movement had no essential doctrinal arguments with the Wesleyan Methodism. Whereas the Wesleyans concentrated all power in the hands of the Ministers, the Primitive Methodists placed great emphasis on the role of lay people. Laymen were highly influential at connexional level and were occasionally elected President of the Conference. From 1872 the Vice-Presidency was open to ministers or laymen and after 1883 was almost always held by a layman. Women were permitted to be ministers. The Primitive Methodists represented a desire to be free to experiment in worship. They were sometimes known by the nickname 'Ranters', on account of their habit of singing in the streets.

The Primitive Methodist movement grew out of Camp Meetings, all day, open-air prayer and preaching meetings which had been introduced in to England from America. One of the first, and the most famous, of these was held on Mow Cop, on the border of Staffordshire and Cheshire, in May 1807. Camp Meetings spread throughout the Midlands and the North of England. The Wesleyan Conference of 1807 considered this style of meeting to be 'improper' and 'likely to be productive of considerable mischief'. Hugh Bourne was expelled from the Methodist Society in 1808, and William Clowes in 1810. Bourne issued a ticket of membership for the new denomination in 1811, and the following year the first preaching plan was printed. In February 1812 the movement took the name of the Society of the Primitive Methodists, which is thought to represent their desire to revive Wesley's original (primitive) doctrine and practices. The first Primitive Methodist Conference was held at Hull in 1820 and the Deed Poll giving the Connexion official status was signed at the 1829 Conference.

Initially, the Primitive Methodist Church was a Home and Colonial missionary organisation. By 1843 there were 53 Primitive Methodist stations in the British Isles. Each home circuit carried out its missionary operations separately until 1825, when the Conference appointed the General Missionary Committee to provide centralised guidance. This Committee collected and distributed funds for missions, through a Primitive Methodist Mission Fund, and it was responsible for the appointment and supervision of missionaries.

At the beginning of the 1840s the Primitive Methodist Connexion re-organised. With the retirement of Bourne and Clowes in 1843, new figures emerged, notably John Flesher and John Petty. There were changes in the administration of the Conference, and impetus for overseas missionary enterprise. In 1841 the Conference asked John Flesher to draw up a code of Regulations Affecting Foreign Missionaries. These regulations were adopted by the General Missionary Committee and were printed by the Conference in 1843. From the same year Annual Missionary Reports were issued under the name of the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society (PMMS).

The first overseas missions were to the British Colonies. In 1829 Primitive Methodist missionaries sailed to the United States, and they entered Canada the following year. Work began in Australia and New Zealand in 1844. Missions in North America and Australia were absorbed by Methodist Churches in those countries and by 1900, the overseas missionary work was focused on Africa. In January 1870 the first missionaries sailed for Africa and settled on the Island of Fernando Po (now Bioko, Equatorial Guinea), off the coast of West Africa. Nine months later a mission began in South Africa. From these 2 pioneer missions sprang two larger ones: Northern Rhodesia (now the Zambia) in 1893 and Nigeria, by far the largest mission, in 1894. PMMS Reports referred to the African work as 'Foreign Missions' (as opposed to the 'Colonial Missions' in British North America and Australasia).

As overseas missionary work developed, a number of missionary departments arose within the Primitive Methodist Church. In 1897, a Woman's Missionary Federation was organised as an auxiliary to the General Missionary Committee. By 1908 the Women's Missionary Federation had been established, with District auxiliaries attached to it. A Laymen's Missionary League was established in 1910, for the 'education of the Primitive Methodist laity to an adequate sense of the great missionary opportunities at home and abroad'. The League was modelled on existing lay organisations in the United States and Canada. Around this time, the Young People's Missionary Department was also founded. This aimed at bringing awareness of missions to thousands of young scholars.

The General Missionary Committee continued until 1932. When the Methodist Union took place, the overseas missionary work of the Primitive Methodists merged with that of the Wesleyan and United Methodists under the Methodist Missionary Society (MMS). Nigeria was the most significant ex-Primitive Methodist field to be added to the MMS.

Born at Aliwal North, Cape Colony, 7th September 1876; son of the Rev John Smith (1840-1915) and his second wife Fanny Jeary (married 1874), Primitive Methodist missionaries; studied at Elmfield College, York; accepted for the ministry, 1897; Primitive Methodist missionary in Basutoland [Lesotho], South Africa, 1898-1902; married Julia Anne (née Fitch), 3rd October 1899; joined the mission to the Baila-Batonga in northern Rhodesia [Zambia], 1902; at Nanzela, 1902-1908; at Mexborough, 1908-1909; pioneered the mission at Kasenga, 1909-1915; reduced the Ila language to written form, made a grammar and dictionary, and translated most of the New Testament; returned to England, 1915; military chaplain in France, 1915-1916; seconded to the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1916-1939; initially its secretary in Rome, Italy; later at the Society's headquarters giving editorial supervision to Scripture translations in many languages; editorial superintendent, 1933-1939; a prominent anthropologist and pioneer of the study of indigenous African religious beliefs; founder member of the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures (later the International African Institute), 1926; President of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1933-1935; retired from the church, 1939; taught in north America, at the Kennedy School of Missions, Hartford Seminary, and at Fisk University, 1939-1944; editor of Africa, journal of the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures, 1945-1948; honorary Doctor of Divinity from University of Winnipeg, c1937; honorary Doctor of Divinity, University of Toronto, 1942; died at Deal, Kent, 1957. Publications: works on the Ila language and people, anthropological works, works relating to inter-racial relations, and research on missionary history and biography, including: Handbook of the Ila Language (1907); with A M Dale, The Ila-speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia (1920); Robert Moffat (1925); The Golden Stool (1926); The Secret of the African (1929); Aggrey of Africa (1929); African Belief and Christian Faith (1936); The Mabilles of Basutoland (1939); The Life and Times of Daniel Lindley (1947); edited African Ideas of God (1950); biography of Roger Price, Great Lion of Bechuanaland (1957).

Born, 1812; educated in a parish school; farm labourer from c1822; became a Methodist, c1828; studied in his spare time and became a preacher at Swinderby and Potter Hanworth, Lincolnshire; went to study at the Wesleyan Theological Institution, Hoxton, 1835; was ordained and married Hannah Summers (b 1812), 1838; Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society missionary to Fiji, 1838-1848; worked in Rewa, Somosomo, Lakemba, and Viwa (Vewa), travelling to visit various mission stations on the Fijian islands; worked on the translation of the Bible, completing the New Testament and beginning the Old Testament; knowledgeable about Fijian culture; his evangelistic work was successful and he was instrumental in the conversion of the warrior Varani, 1845; died of dysentery, 1848; buried at Viwa; survived by his wife and children, including their eldest daughter, Eliza-Ann, and their second daughter, Hannah, who married Lewis Richings. Publications: Memoir of the Rev W Cross ... missionary to the Friendly and Feejee Islands; with a short notice of the early history of the Missions (1846); Entire Sanctification (1853); the Fijian New Testament, published as Ai Vola ni Veiyalayalati Vou ni noda turaga kei na nodai vakabula ko Jisu Kraisiti (1853), was largely his work, and the whole Bible was published as Ai Vola Tabu, a ya e tu kina na Veiyalayalati Makawa, kei na Veiyalayalati Vou (1858-1864).

Born at Worcester, England, 1796; blacksmith at Hagley, Worcestershire; became a Methodist and soon began to preach; married Sarah Hartshorn (d 1867); accepted by the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS), 1824; pioneering missionary to Tonga (the Friendly Islands) in the South Seas; arrived in Tonga, 1826; preached at Hihifo, Tongatapu, 1826-1828; moved to the island of Ha'apai, 1829; baptized the chief Taufa'ahua Tupou, 1831; a Tonga-wide revival movement began, 1835; Thomas enthroned Tupou, with English rites, as first king of all Tonga, 1845; although the WMMS withdrew from Samoa (1839) by agreement with the London Missionary Society, Thomas advocated re-entry and supported Tupou's policy of sending Tongan Wesleyan missionaries to Fiji and Samoa; persuaded the Australasian Wesleyan conference (which took over the Pacific from the British Wesleyans in 1855) to reverse the LMS decision regarding Samoa; following a visit to England his influence with Tupou waned, 1850s; retired to England and became supernumerary minister at Stourbridge (Worcestershire), 1860; died, 1881. Publication: translated Hymns, Catechisms, Prayers, &c for the use of the Wesleyan Societies in the Friendly Islands (1861).

The connection of John and Sarah Thomas with Methodism in Glasgow, and the provenance of the items relating to it, is unclear.

In 1907 the Methodist New Connexion (formed in 1797), the Bible Christians Methodists (formed in 1815) and the United Methodist Free Churches (formed in 1857 by the union of the Wesleyan Association and the Wesleyan Reformers) united to form the United Methodist Church. The foreign mission activities of all three - the Methodist New Connexion Missionary Society, the Bible Christian Home and Foreign Missionary Society and the United Methodist Free Churches' Foreign Missions - were combined to form the United Methodist Missionary Society (UMMS), under the control of one committee.

The Methodist New Connexion (MNC) began its missionary endeavours in 1824, and established a mission in Belfast, Ireland, in 1826. The conference of 1836 resolved upon a mission to Canada, and in 1837 the Rev. John Addyman became the first MNC minister to be sent out on colonial work. In 1859, Revs. John Innocent and William N. Hall became the first agents of the MNC to be sent to China. They arrived in 1860, worked at Shanghai and eventually settled at Tientsin. By 1907 the mission in China had three circuits, in Tientsin, Shantung Province and in the neighbourhood of Kai-ping, north of Tientsin. In 1862, Rev. J. Maughan began a mission in Adelaide, Australia. A mission was also started in Melbourne. Three years later the Rev. C. Linley began work in New Zealand. In 1874 the Canadian Mission united with the Wesleyan churches, and in 1887 the Australian Mission took a similar course. In 1905 the MNC churches in Ireland united with the Wesleyan churches to form the Methodist Church in Ireland. The MNC Missionary Society was managed by a Committee, which consisted of a President, Treasurer and Secretary, with 16 ministers and 16 laymen appointed annually by the Conference.

The Bible Christian Connexion formed its Missionary Society in 1821. In 1831 it sent two missionaries to North America, Rev. John Glass being stationed in 'Western Canada' and Rev. Francis Metherall in Prince Edward Island. The work was successful, and at the time of the union of Methodist churches in Canada, membership of the mission stood at 7,000. In 1845 two missionaries were posted to commence a mission in the United States (Ohio and Wisconsin). In 1850, Rev. James Way and James Rowe were sent to begin work in Adelaide, South Australia, and in 1855 Rowe opened a mission in Victoria. A New Zealand mission commenced in 1877. In 1885 the Society sent two missionaries to Yunnan, China, under the auspices of the China Inland Mission. This included Samuel Pollard, who became the most famed missionary leader amongst the Flowery Miao, a minority nationality. The Women's Missionary league of the Bible Christian Missionary Society was organised as an auxiliary to the Society in 1892, with special reference to the work in China. The work of the Society was affected by the creation of an independent Canadian Conference in 1854, and likewise in South Australia in 1876 and Victoria in 1886. In Canada in 1884, the Bible Christians followed the example of the MNC in Canada and united with the other Methodist churches. In 1895 they united with the Wesleyans in Queensland, and in 1896 the same thing happened in New Zealand. In 1900 the Bible Christians were involved in another 'Methodist Union' in the South Australian Mission, and in 1902 this was repeated in Victoria.

The Missionary Society of the United Methodist Free Churches was formed in 1857, by a union of the Wesleyan Association with certain churches of the Wesleyan Reformers. At the time of the union in 1857, the Wesleyan Association had several missions in Jamaica and the Australian colonies, which were continued by the new body. Following the amalgamation of the two churches a special Foreign Mission Fund was started, and as a first step Rev. Joseph New was sent to Sierra Leone. In 1860 a Foreign Missionary Committee was formed to develop the overseas work. Additional men were sent to strengthen the work in Jamaica and Sierra Leone, and entirely new missions were undertaken in East Africa, Tasmania and Australia. In 1864, Rev. W. R. Fuller was sent to China to begin work in the city of Ningpo. In 1865 the Jamaica Mission undertook work at Bocas del Toro, on the Isthmus of Panama, in order to minister to the Jamaicans who had settled there in search of employment. In 1878 the work in China was extended to Wenchow. In 1892 the UMFC Missions in Australia and Tasmania formed two independent 'Assemblies'. In 1896 the UMFC joined with the Bible Christians and Wesleyans in New Zealand to form the Methodist Church of New Zealand, and in 1902 the same three Churches entered upon a similar union in Australia. In 1912 there was a union in Jamaica, between the UMFC and the Wesleyan churches. This extended to Bocas del Toro.

Women's work in the United Methodist Church was represented by the United Methodist Women's Missionary Auxiliary. This organisation incorporated the Ladies' Missionary Auxiliaries of the United Methodist Free Churches. These auxiliaries are first mentioned in the UMFC Annual Report for 1898, which reports that 'the last Annual Assembly laid special emphasis on better organisation in our Sunday Schools, and the creating of ladies' missionary auxiliary societies as a means to this end'. The Annual Report of 1900 devotes a section to these Ladies' Missionary Auxiliaries, reporting the spread of the movement within the denomination and the formation of district branches.

In 1932 the United Methodist Church joined the Wesleyan Methodists and the Primitive Methodists Church to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain. The Uniting Conference was held on 20 September 1932. The work of the UMMS merged with that of the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists to form the Methodist Missionary Society (MMS).

Further reading: A S Hopkins, Trail Blazers and Road Makers: a History of the East African Mission of the United Methodist Church (1928).

Henry Dundas was born 28 April 1742. He was educated at Edinburgh High School and Edinburgh University and was admitted as a member of the Faculty of Advocates in 1763. His family connections and skills as a public orator ensured him a thriving business as a barrister and at the age of twenty-four he was appointed Solicitor General for Scotland. From October 1774-1790 Henry Dundas served as a member of the House of Commons and in 1775 he was appointed Lord Advocate, a post he held until 1783.

Henry Dundas' links with India began in April 1781 when he was appointed chairman of a secret committee on the war in the Carnatic and British possessions in India. The following year Dundas was appointed Minister Treasurer of the Navy, entered the Privy Council and took the office of the Keeper of the Scotch Signet. Although Dundas lost his job as Minister Treasurer of the Navy in 1783 he was made a member of the Board of Control for India in 1784 and became its President from 1793-1802. During this period he held a number of other political appointments most notably from 1791-1794 as Home Secretary, during which he defended the East India Company as Secretary of War in 1794 and as Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland in 1800. He was created Viscount Melville in 1802 and was First Lord of the Admiralty from May 1804-1805. It was following this appointment that he was accused of using monies for purposes other than the Navy. In June 1805 he was called upon to defend himself in the House of Commons and there was some debate over whether he should stand trial or face impeachment. The impeachment before the House of Lords took place in April 1806 and eventually Dundas was acquitted of all charges. He never again held public office and died on 28 May 1811.

Robert Saunders Dundas (1771-1851) was the only son of Henry Dundas. He too was educated at Edinburgh High School and entered Parliament in 1797 as MP for Hastings. He then acted as private secretary to his father until 1801. In 1807 he was appointed to the Privy Council and in April of that year, following in his father's footsteps, he became the President of the Board of Control. From 1812-1827 he was first Lord of the Admiralty, and again from 1828-1830. Like his father Robert Dundas also held a number of important appointments in Scotland, including Governor of the Bank of Scotland. From 1814 he was Chancellor of the University of St. Andrews and in 1821 became a Knight of the Thistle. He died on 10 June 1851.

Robert Hart (Chinese name He De) was born in Milltown, Co Armagh, on 20 February 1835. He was educated at Queen's College, Taunton, Wesley College, Dublin, and Queen's College, Belfast, where he received a BA in 1853. The following year he entered the consular service, working in Hong Kong, Ningo and Canton before resigning in 1859 to join the Chinese Maritime Customs. After working as Deputy Commissioner in Canton and Commissioner in Shanghai he was appointed as the first Inspector General in 1863. He held this post for nearly fifty years until his death and his commitment to the service led him to refuse the post of British Minister to China in 1885. As well as his work in the Customs he was used by the Quing government to further their aims in dealing with foreign powers. He became supreme advisor to Zongli Yamen (the Chinese office dealing with foreign affairs). On behalf of the Quing government he arranged the Lisbon Protocol in 1885 after negotiations with the Portugese over Macao. He negotiated with the Indian government over Sikkim and with the British over navigation of the Yangtze River. His efforts led to his receiving honours from a number of countries including Italy, Portugal, Norway, and Holland, and a number of Chinese honours. He gained an honorary doctorate in 1882. He was also asked to help with efforts towards 'modernisation' such as the establishment of the Chinese postal system and the establishment of Tong Wen Guan (Institute of Education).

In 1866 he married Hestor Jane Bredon and they had three children including a son, Bruce, who took over from J D Campbell in the London office in 1907. He also had three children from an earlier liaison with a Chinese woman. These children he supported as his 'wards'. Hestor's brother, Robert, was also a member of the Chinese Maritime Customs and became Acting Inspector General when Hart returned to England from 1908 until 1910. In 1901 he wrote These from the Land of Sinim. He died on 20 September 1911.

James Duncan Campbell was born in Edinburgh in 1833. Educated at Cheltenham College and the universities of Paris and Heidelberg, he worked for the Post Office and the Treasury before 1862. In that year he joined the Chinese Maritime Customs and became non-resident secretary in London in 1874. He was sent to Paris in 1884 by Robert Hart to negotiate on behalf of the Quing government a cease-fire agreement in the Sino-French War. He married Ellen Mary Lewis in 1870. He died on 3 December 1907.

The Imperial Maritime Customs (later called the Chinese Maritime Customs) collected customs duties from foreign ships at treaty ports and administered port facilities on behalf of the Chinese government. It was managed and staffed mainly by foreigners, largely British.

These papers were possibly collected by Margaret Burke, who worked for the Friends Service Council Madagascar Committee.

The Friends Service Council (FSC) was established in 1927 by the amalgamation of the Friends Foreign Mission Association (FFMA) and the Friends Council for International Service (CIS). The FSC is the standing committee responsible for the overseas work of the Religious Society of Friends in Great Britain and Ireland. Its predecessor the FFMA was formally established in 1868 in succession to a provisional committee set up a few years before. It remained an independent organization until it became a committee of London Yearly Meeting in 1918. Its fields of action included Madagascar, from 1867.

Madagascar was also among the mission fields of the London Missionary Society, whose first missionaries arrived in 1818.

Gladys Aylward was born in 1902 in Edmonton, North London. Following service as a housemaid, and rejection by the China Inland Mission, she went to China as an independent missionary. Travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway to Tientsin she then continued to the province of Shansi in North-West China, where she worked from 1931. She became a Chinese citizen in 1936. In 1940, against the background of government, communist and Japanese warfare she led a group of orphans on a perilous journey to Sian. She returned to England during the Second World War, but returned to work with children at the Gladys Aylward Children's Home in Taiwan from the late 1940s until near her death in 1970.

Her life was the basis of the 1959 film 'The Inn of the Sixth Happiness' starring Ingrid Bergman. A number of books have also been written about her life including: Gladys Aylward, One of the Undefeated by R O Latham (1950); The Small Women by Alan Burgess (1957); London Sparrow by Phyllis Thompson (1989); and Gladys Aylward: the Courageous English Missionary by Catherine Swift (1989).

Born in Oxford, 1878; educated at Magdalen College School and New College, Oxford; MA; Cadet, Federated Malay States Civil Service, 1902; posted to Perak, and studied Malay language and culture; appointed District Officer, Kuala Pilah, 1913; appointed to the education department, 1916; stationed in Singapore for 15 years; DLitt, Oxford, 1920; first President of Raffles College, Singapore, 1921-1931; his recommendations were instrumental in the founding of a new teacher training college, the Sultan Idris Training College at Tanjong Malim, to which was attached the Malay Translation Bureau, 1922; acting Secretary to the High Commissioner, 1923; Director of Education, Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States (FMS), and member of Legislative Council, Straits Settlements, 1924-1931; CMG, 1926; member of Federal Council, FMS, 1927-1931; General Adviser to the Malay State of Johore, 1931-1935; retired from the Malayan Civil Service and was appointed KBE, 1935; lecturer in Malay, School of Oriental (later Oriental and African) Studies; Member of the Colonial Office Advisory Committee on Education, 1936-1939; Reader in Malay, School of Oriental Studies, 1937-1946; President, Association of British Malaya, 1938; member of Governing Body, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), 1939-1959; Director, Royal Asiatic Society, 1940-1943, 1946-1949, 1952-1955, 1958-1961, President, 1943-1946, 1949-1952, 1955-1958, 1961-1964, Gold Medallist, 1947, and Honorary Vice-President, 1964; during World War Two, broadcast in Malay to Malaya under the Japanese occupation; following the re-occupation his joint authorship of a letter to The Times played a role in the reversal of the British government's Malayan Union policy and the institution of a federal government which led ultimately to Malayan independence; Fellow of the British Academy, 1945; retired from SOAS, 1946; Honorary Fellow of SOAS, 1947; Vice-President of the Royal India Society, from 1947; Vice-Chairman of Executive Committee for Exhibition of Art from India and Pakistan, Royal Academy of Arts, London (and headed a delegation to India to arrange for collection of exhibits), 1947-1948; Hon LLD (Malaya), 1951; Honorary Member of South-East Asia Institute, USA; Honorary Member, Royal Batavian Society and of Kon Instituut voor Taal-Landen Volkenkunde, The Hague; died, 1966. Publications: numerous works on Malay language, culture and history.

Nigeria obtained its independence on 1 October 1960, having been formerly under British rule. In the same year a Federal Government based on the parliamentary system was created. Elections had been held in 1959, centred on a number of ruling parties including the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), which had control of the Eastern region and was led by Nnamdi Azikiwe; the Northern People's Congress (NPC), which had control of the Northern region and was led by Ahmadu Bello; and the Action Group (AG), which had control of the Western region and was led by Obafemi Awolowo. No party won a majority during the elections, and the NPC joined with the NCNC to form the government. When independence arrived in 1960, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was made Prime Minister and Nnamdi Azikiwe was made Governor General.

In 1962, part of the Action group split off to form the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), led by S. I. Akintola. In 1963, the Mid-Western Region was formed from part of the Western Region. In 1963, Nigeria became a Federal Republic with Nnamdi Azikiwe as President. A great deal of controversy followed the 1963 population census, which the NCNC felt overestimated the number of people in the Northern Region, giving them a greater representation in the federal parliament. In January 1966, a group of Igbo army officials staged a coup d'etat to overthrow the government, killing Balewa, Bello and Akintola and placing General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi in charge of the new military government. He suspended the regional constitution, dissolved all legislative bodies, banned political parties and formed a Federal Military Government that was more central in nature.

There were strong suspicions that Aguiyi-Ironsi favoured the Igbo (Ibo) over other ethnic groups, fuelled by the fact that the military government did not prosecute the army officers responsible for killing the northern leaders. Many northerners saw the coup as a plot to make the Igbo dominant in Nigeria, and there was hostility from the Muslim population. Fighting broke out between the northerners and the Igbo, and in July 1966 a group of northern army officers revolted against the government, killed General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, and appointed the army Chief of Staff, General Yakubu Gowon, as head of the new military government. In 1967, Gowon moved to split the existing 4 regions of Nigeria into 12 states. The military governor of the Eastern Region, Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, refused to accept the division of the Eastern Region and declared that this region would become an independent republic, named Biafra. This led to a civil war between Biafra and the remainder of Nigeria. The war began in June 1967 and continued until Biafra surrendered on 15 January 1970. Over 1 million people died during the conflict.

Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje was born on 9 October 1876, in the district of Boshof, Orange Free State, South Africa. His parents were Barolongs, coming originally from Thaba Ncho, and trekking eventually to Mafeking. He was educated at Pneil Mission Station (Berlin Missionary Society), near Barkly West, until he passed the fourth standard. He then worked as a student teacher, continuing his study through private lessons from the Rev. G. E. Westphal. In March 1894 he joined the Cape Government Service as a letter-carrier in the Kimberley Post Office. In his own time he studied languages and passed the Cape Civil Service examination in typewriting, Dutch and native languages. In 1898 he was transferred to Mafeking as interpreter, and during the Siege of Mafeking at the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899, he was appointed Dutch interpreter to the Court of Summary Jurisdiction.

Plaatje decided to become a journalist in order to give a voice to the Bantu people. He edited a number of Bantu language newspapers including Koranta ea Becoana (The Bechuana Gazette) 1902-1905, a weekly paper in English and Sechuana, which was financed by Chief Silas Molema. He then became Editor of Tsala ea Batho (The People's Friend) 1910-c1912.

He was elected First Secretary-General of the South African Native National Congress (forerunner of the African National Congress), 1912-1917. In 1914 and 1919 he was a member of the Congress delegation to London against the Natives' Land Act of 1913.

As a result of financial difficulties he became stranded in London for some time, but used this time to address meetings and to write Sechuana Proverbs. He returned to South Africa in 1917. Plaatje was also a delegate to the first Government Conference held under the Native Affairs Act. He travelled throughout Europe, Canada and the United States to draw attention to the plight of the black South Africans.

He was the author of numerous books including Native Life in South Africa (1915), Sechuana Proverbs and their European Equivalents (1916), and A Sechuana Reader. In 1919 he wrote Mhudi (published in 1930), which was the first published novel written in English by a Black South African.

He died on 19 June 1932.

Further reading: B Willan, Sol Plaatje: South African Nationalist 1876-1932 (Heineman, 1984).

The Republic of Biafra was a short-lived secessionist state, established in 1967 by the Ibo (Igbo) people of south-eastern Nigeria. Biafra proclaimed its independence on 30 May 1967 after the Islamic Hausa and Fulani peoples, who dominated the Nigerian federal government, massacred between 10,000 and 30,000 of the Christian Ibo. Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu (military governor of the Eastern region of Nigeria, 1966-1967) led the new secessionist state of Biafra, 1967-1970. The country took its name from the Bight of Biafra (an arm of the Atlantic Ocean). It comprised roughly the East-Central, South-Eastern and river states of the federation of Nigeria, where the Ibo predominated. Biafra's original capital was Enugu, but Aba, Umuahia and Owerri served successively as provincial capitals after the Nigerian forces captured Enugu. Civil war followed the proclamation of independence, beginning in June 1967. Nigeria imposed economic sanctions on Biafra from the start of the secession, and by 1968 Biafra had lost its seaports and become landlocked. Starvation and disease followed. The Biafrans surrendered on 15 January 1970. Estimates of mortality range from 500,000 to several million.

John Boden Thomson was born on 14 April 1841 at Kirkpatrick, Kirkcudbrightshire. He studied at Western College and Highgate Missionary College. He married Elizabeth Edwards in 1869. In the same year he was appointed to Matabeleland with the London Missionary Society. He was ordained on June 17 at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Thomson and his wife sailed on 9 August 1869, and arrived at Inyati, Matabeleland on 29 April 1870. Thomson was initially posted to the Matabele Mission, where Robert Moffat, William Sykes and Thomas Morgan Thomas were already based. He was to replace Thomas, who was due to return to England. During his service in Matabeleland, Thomson was able to negotiate the grant of a valley 50 miles from Inyati with the Matabele Chief, Lobengula. The site was to form the basis of the new Hope Fountain Mission - a difficult station, which was to be destroyed twice through local conflict before the end of the nineteenth century.

In 1876, Thomson was recalled to England to discuss the possibility of establishing a new Mission at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika. Together with Roger Price, he was appointed leader of the Central Africa Mission to Ujiji. Leaving his family in England, he sailed for Zanzibar on 6 May 1877. The party, including Thomson, Roger Price, Elbert Sellis Clarke, Edward Coode Hore, Arthur William Dodgshun and Walter Hutley, left Zanzibar for the Ujiji on 21 July 1877. The expedition was beset by difficulties. To travel across Central Africa with ox-drawn wagons proved impracticable, and after deliberation the Mission members decided that their original objective of reaching Ujiji without establishing intermediate stations was over ambitious. Price was dispatched to England to consult with the Directors of the London Missionary Society. The remaining members decided to press on to Ujiji. Clarke withdrew from the Mission in January 1878. When Price failed to return from England, Thomson was appointed overall leader of the expedition (February 1878). The party set out from Kirasa on 29 May 1878. Thomson's group arrived in Ujiji on 23 August 1878. Dodgshun's group failed to reach Ujiji until 27 March 1879, Dodgshun dying seven days after his arrival. Thomson himself died suddenly of a fever on 22 September 1878.

Margaret Katherine Sabin was born on 17 Apr 1887. She was educated at Camden School, with a scholarship of three years to the North London Collegiate School. From 1913-1914, she undertook a training course at Westhill, Selly Oak. She was a member of the Church at Lyndhurst Road, Hampstead, North London, and its associated Mission at Kentish Town. In 1919, she accompanied her sister on a two-year visit to China, where she observed the work of the London Missionary Society. In 1922, she returned by way of South Africa, and spent a few months at Hope Fountain. In 1926, she was appointed as an educational missionary with the London Missionary Society, and posted to Mbereshi, Northern Rhodesia. She remained in Mbereshi until 1948, assisting Mabel Shaw (founder of the Livingstone Memorial School) in building up the girl's boarding school and home. She died in 1978.

John Baker Carpenter was born in Cheltenham in 1874. He was educated at Cheltenham and County School and later attended Corpus Christi College, Cambridge where he graduated with a second class Theology Tripos in 1896. He was appointed to the Church Missionary Society on 30 June 1896. From 1897 to1899 he served as Curate of St. Thomas's, Birmingham. He was posted to Fukien Mission, Foochow on 6 October 1899. He served in Foochow from 1899 to 1901, and 1908 to 1911. Between 1901 and 1907, he was stationed at Futsing, and between 1911 and 1914 at Kutien. From 1915 to 1920 he taught at the Union Theological College at Foochow (later the Fukien Christian University), and from 1917 to 1920 he was Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Fukien. He returned from China in 1921. He married Edith Casson on 22 April 1901. Their son John was a missionary with the China Inland Mission.

The excavation of Kom-Ed-Dik (also known as Kom-El-Dikka), Alexandria, Egypt, began in 1947. It was conducted by the Farouk 1st University, Alexandria, under the direction of Alan John Bayard Wace. Arthur Lane of the Department of Ceramics at the Victoria and Albert Museum joined the team in 1949 to study the pottery found.

Chaloner Alabaster was born in 1838 at Barcombe in Bournemouth, and educated at King's College, London. In 1855 he was appointed student interpreter in China and served through the Opium wars and the Taiping Rebellion. He was Vice-Consul at Shanghai (1869-1873), and went on to become Consul General at Hankow (Wuhan) (1880-1886) and Canton (1886-1891). In 1892, the year of his retirement, he was knighted. He died in 1898. Sir Chaloner Alabaster was married in 1875, to Laura, daughter of Dr. D. J. MacGowan of New York.

His elder brother was a member of the China Consular Service from 1856 and his son became Attorney General in Hong Kong.

George Percival Bargery was born in Exeter on 1 October 1876. He was educated at Hele School, Exeter, Islington College and the University of London. He was ordained as a chaplain to the Church Missionary Society in 1899. In 1900 he went to Northern Nigeria, where he served as a missionary until 1910. In that year he was invalided home as unfit for further service in the tropics, but within two years he had been accepted for a post in the Colonial Education Service and was back again in Northern Nigeria, where he remained until 1930. It was for his work during this period that he is best known. After founding the first government school among the Tiv people on the Benue, he turned his attention to the Hausa language and was appointed Government Examiner in it. In 1921 he was seconded by the Governor, Sir Hugh Clifford, to compile a dictionary of that language. His Hausa-English Dictionary was published in 1934 and included the first tonal analysis of the Hausa language. For his work he received a Doctorate in Literature from University of London in 1937.

While he was still working in London on the final stages of the dictionary, Bargery was appointed as Lecturer in Hausa to the School of Oriental Studies. He was made Senior Lecturer in 1935, and Reader in 1937. He did not retire from this post until 1947. After his retirement from the School he continued similar teaching under the Colonial Office at both Oxford and Cambridge until 1953. In 1953, at the age of 77, he returned to Kano at the invitation of the British and Foreign Bible Society, to superintend work on a new Hausa translation of the New Testament. He was awarded the OBE when he returned to England in 1957. He outlived both his wives: Eliza Minnie, whom he married in 1906 and who died in 1932, and Minnie Jane, whom he married eight years later, and who died in 1952. He had one son by his first marriage. Towards the end of his life he was plagued by ill health and became almost totally blind. He died on 2 August 1966.

Bantu refers to an African ethnic and linguistic group, numbering c120 million and inhabiting much of Africa south of the river Congo. There are almost a hundred Bantu languages, which include, for example, Swahili and Zulu. Most are tonal. The Bantu group of languages forms a subdivision of the Benue-Niger division of the Niger-Congo branch of the Niger-Kordofanian language family. African languages have been subject to scholarly interest particularly in the 20th century.

The Philippines comprise thousands of islands and rocks, of which c400 are permanently inhabited. Luzon is among the largest islands, and the capital Manila is located there. The majority of the inhabitants, known as Filipinos, belong to the Malay group. Other groups include the Negritos and the Dumagats. Over 80 per cent of the population is Roman Catholic. Some 70 native languages are spoken. Ferdinand E Marcos was elected President in 1965, and he remained in office until he fled the country in 1986.

The medical missionary Frederick Charles Roberts (1862-1894) was commemorated in the London Missionary Society's Roberts Memorial Hospital, which opened in in T'sangchou (Tsangchow or Changzhou), about 90 miles south of Tientsin (Tianjin) in northern China, in 1903. Its establishment was funded by gifts from the Roberts family and by support from the local community. Its staff included Dr Arthur Davies Peill (1874-1906), who worked for the London Missionary Society as medical missionary to north China from 1896, and his brother Dr Sidney George Peill (1878-1960), medical missionary at Tsangchow from 1907.

Born at Sherborne, 1845; studied at Cheshunt College (Cambridge); appointed London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary to Peking, was ordained, and sailed for Peking, 1871; married Edith Prankard (d 1903), 1872; engaged in pastoral and evangelistic work in Peking and its out-stations; in charge of the native church and out-stations, 1873-1876; settled in the West City; left Peking and joined the mission station at Chi Chow (Siaochang), 1897; with his family and other missionaries, forced to leave due to the Boxer Uprising, 1900; fled to the coast near Chefoo, took a steamer to Japan, and returned to England via Canada; returned to Peking, 1902; joined the staff of the Union Theological College, Peking, 1905; resigned and was transferred to Sioachang, 1915; served for many years as Secretary of the LMS North China District Committee; returned to England, 1921; resigned his position as a missionary, 1922; subsequently went back to live in China, but returned to England, 1933; died at Marlborough, Wiltshire, 1937. Publications: contributed several articles on the Chinese version of the Scriptures to Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible. His daughter, Gladys Evans Meech (1888-1935), was also a missionary to China, 1925-1935.

The Advisory Committee on Oriental Materials (ACOOM) was set up in 1980 as an advisory committee of the Standing Conference on National and University Libraries (SCONUL). The organisation acted as a discussion group for matters concerning libraries holding collections of Oriental material, largely university libraries (particularly Durham, Exeter, Cambridge, Hull, Oxford, and the School of Oriental and African Studies) and national libraries such as the various departments of the British Library relating to Oriental materials. ACOOM was formerly known as the SCONUL Group of Orientalist Libraries and in 1991 became the National Council on Orientalist Library Resources.

Harold Edgar Wareham was born on 8 January 1872 at Guildford, son of the Rev. Edward Allport Wareham who was a missionary to Southern India with the London Missionary Society. He studied theology at Edinburgh Congregational Hall, and medicine and surgery at Edinburgh University. He was ordained in April 1902, and was appointed to the London Missionary Society Central African Mission as a medical missionary. He married Rebecca Purves Stewart (b 1877) on 19 April 1902. Dr and Mrs Wareham left Britain on 30 April 1902 and arrived in Kawimbe on 3 August. They were stationed at Kambole until October 1903, when they were transferred to Kawimbe. In 1921, Dr Wareham was appointed temporarily to Mpolokoso. He left in May 1922 to open a new mission station at Kafulwe in Lake Mweru district. The Warehams carried out medical, educational and some evangelical activities. In 1925 they were transferred to Mbereshi. Their work as missionaries in Northern Rhodesia ended in 1931, when Dr Wareham retired on grounds of ill health. They returned to Britain on 21 September 1931. Harold Edgar Wareham died in Edinburgh on 4 February 1955. Mrs Wareham died on 15 March in the same year.

Edith M Lucas was born into a wealth Jewish family, but converted to Christianity and served as a missionary with the China Inland Mission, working in Chinkiang in KiangSu province. After her marriage she was Edith Cox.

Born in Suffolk, 1901; known as Wouse; emigrated to Kenya, 1920; became an education officer among the Masai; learned the language and became an expert on Masai culture; transferred to the Administrative Service; serving as District Commissioner of Turkana District when Jomo Kenyatta (later Prime Minister, 1963, and President, 1964, of Kenya) and other convicts of the Mau Mau organisation (which aimed in the 1950s to force the expulsion of white settlers) were detained there; became friends with Kenyatta, who influenced his views on African politics; retired at the time of Kenyan independence (1963) and became a Kenyan citizen, helping to demarcate the national boundaries and travelling long distances through wild terrain; continued to work as a magistrate into old age; awarded Kenya's highest decoration, Grand Warrior of Kenya; died, 1989. For further information see Elizabeth Watkins's biography, Jomo's Jailor: Grand Warrior of Kenya (Britwell Books, Watlington, 1996; first published in France, 1993).

Cecil Edward Seager was born on 1 April 1908, in Leicester. He was educated at Leeds Modern School (Secondary) between 1913 and 1926. On leaving school, he was accepted as a missionary student at the United Independent College, Bradford. He took an arts course at Edinburgh University, graduating with an MA in October 1931. He went on to read for a theology course at the United Independent College, which he completed in June 1933. In the same year he was appointed as a missionary with the London Missionary Society. He was posted to Inyati, Southern Rhodesia, where he became Principal of the Institution (school), with additional charge of the Inyati District. From 1937, he and his wife were stationed at Tjimali and Dombodema, Matabeleland. In 1941, he resigned from the London Missionary Society and took up alternative ministerial work in southern Africa.

Lancelot Lawford worked for the Chinese Maritime Customs in Shanghai and Peking at a period of political instability and fighting following the Chinese revolution of 1911 and the establishment of a republic.

The Rev J Martin was a missionary in China, possibly with the Church Missionary Society.

Roger Virgoe was appointed as Lecturer in History at the University of Khartoum, the Sudan, in July 1961. He remained there until 1964. He and his colleagues were witness to the role of the University in political events in the Sudan, in the 1960s.

By the early 1960s there was considerable opposition to the military government established by the Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Army, General Ibrahim Abbud. In the coup d'état of 1958, he had dissolved all political parties and set up the Supreme Council of Armed Forces. The policies of the regime were most fiercely opposed in southern Sudan where, in 1963, a revolt broke out against the imposition of Arab rule led by the Anya Nya (a southern Sudanese guerilla organisation).

In October 1964, students at the University of Khartoum held a meeting - in defiance of a government prohibition - to condemn government action in southern Sudan and denounce the military regime. Demonstrations followed, leading to violent clashes with the police during which one student was killed and several injured. A 'National Front' was formed to oppose the government, led by university staff and professionals. The headquarters of the organisation was based at the University. As disorder spread, Abbud was forced to dissolve the ruling Council and resign his position as Head of State. A transitional government was appointed, and elections were held in 1965 to form a representative government.

Born, 1888; educated at the Perse Grammar School; Christ's College, Cambridge (Senior Scholar); first class, Classical Tripos Part I, 1909; first class, Oriental Languages Tripos, 1910; first class, Classical Tripos Part II, 1911; awarded the Brotherton Memorial Sanskrit Prize; elected Fellow of Christ's College, 1912; Indian Educational Service Lecturer in Sanskrit at Queen's College, Benares, 1913; Wilson Philological Lecturer, Bombay University, 1914; served with the 2nd/3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles in Palestine and India, 1915-1919; awarded the Military Cross; twice mentioned in despatches; Examiner, Oriental Languages Tripos and Classical Tripos Part II, Cambridge; Professor of Indian Linguistics, Benares Hindu University, 1920-1922; Wilson Philological Lecturer, Bombay University, 1922; Professor of Sanskrit, School of Oriental Studies, University of London, 1922-1954; Philological Society Honorary Treasurer, 1931-1962, and President, 1939-1943; Director of the School of Oriental Studies, from 1938 the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), 1937-1957; under his Directorship the first department of the languages and cultures of Africa in a British university was begun, and the School moved from the City of London to Bloomsbury; during the Second World War, following his warnings that the forces lacked sufficient personnel trained in Asian languages, SOAS trained servicemen in Chinese and Japanese for intelligence work; elected Fellow of the British Academy, 1942; instrumental in the appointment of the Scarborough Commission (which was to recommend expanded provision in British universities for the study of Asia and Africa), 1944; subsequently engaged in implementing the Commission's recommendations at SOAS; Knight, 1950; Honorary Fellow, Christ's College, Cambridge, 1950; Royal Asiatic Society President, 1952-1955, Gold Medallist, 1953, and Honorary Vice-President, 1963; retired as Professor, 1954; Emeritus Professor, 1954; Honorary Fellow, SOAS, 1957; Honorary Fellow, Deccan College, Poona; member of the Inter-Services Committee on Language Training, Linguists' Committee of Ministry of Labour and National Service, Colonial Social Science Research Council, Advisory Committee on the Humanities of the British Council, Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, Treasury sub-committee for studentships in foreign languages and cultures, and University Grants Committee sub-committee on Oriental and African Studies; member of various overseas learned societies in Europe, America and Asia; recipient of numerous medals, honorary degrees, and awards; died, 1983. Publications: various works on linguistic subjects, including Indo-Aryan languages, among them A Comparative and Etymological Dictionary of the Nepali Language (1931), and A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages (1966), with Indexes by his wife Lady Dorothy Rivers Turner (1969) and a Phonetic analysis (1971), and the posthumously-published Addenda, ed J C Wright (1985).

In the late 19th century European powers including Italy sought to extend their influence in east Africa. Italy extended its influence sufficiently to proclaim the colony of Eritrea in the 1880s. Dispute over the meaning of a treaty signed by Menelik II (d 1913) of Ethiopia with Italy (1889), whereby Italy claimed it had been given a protectorate over Ethiopia, led to an Italian invasion in 1895 which resulted in Italy being defeated. Under the Treaty of Addis Ababa (1896) Italy recognized the independence of Ethiopia, but retained its Eritrean colonial base.

Nafka is a town in north-western Eritrea, a commercial centre of the Habab people and the site of an Italian Residenza.

Born, 1795; married Anna Wale (d 1859); appointed by the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society to St Vincent, West Indies, 1824; stationed in the West Indies, 1825-1838; minister at Retford, 1838-1840; minister at Belper, 1840-1842; returned to missionary work, serving in Demerara and the West Indies, 1842-1851; returned to England, serving as minister at Launceston, Kingsbridge, Ashburton and Bridgewater, 1851-1857; returned as missionary to Demerara, 1857-1861; missionary to Antigua, 1862-1866; returned to England and died at Weston-super-Mare, 1866.

Francis Light was born in Suffolk. Although his date of birth is unknown, his baptism is recorded as 15 December 1740. He was educated at Seckford's Grammar School, Woodbridge from 1747. He entered service as a surgeon's servant on the HMS Mars in February 1754, and subsequently served as midshipman on the HMS Captain, the HMS Dragon and in 1761 aboard the HMS Arrogant. His employment with the Navy ended in 1763. In 1765 he embarked on a journey bound for Madras and Bombay aboard the East India Company's ship 'Clive'. In India, he secured command of a 'Country Ship' (owned in India and engaged in trade in Eastern waters) belonging to a Madras firm of merchants, Jourdain, Sulivan & Desouza. Light was posted to Kedah with the company, where he quickly attained an influential position with the Sultan of Kedah. From 1771, he was involved in various proposals to cede land belonging to Kedah to the British. In 1786 Light was able to report to the Bengal Government that he had persuaded the Sultan to cede the Island of Penang (Pulau Penang) to the East India Company for $6000 a year. The offer was accepted and in June 1786 Light was appointed first Superintendent of the new British colony. He landed with his forces in July 1786, and on 11 August the colony was christened Prince of Wales Island. He combined his position as Superintendent with his role as principal merchant.

By 1791, the Sultan of Kedah found that his revenues were being seriously diminished by the growing prosperity of Penang, and he demanded additional income to compensate for this loss. He simultaneously made preparations to seize the island, constructing a fort at Prye. Light obtained reinforcements from Bengal and attacked the fort, capturing it on 12 April 1791. The Sultan sued for peace and a treaty was agreed. The Sultan was granted an annual payment of $6000, on condition that the English could continue in possession of Penang. The settlement entered a period of relative quiet during which Light oversaw its administration, with periodic requests to the Bengal Government for a larger administrative staff.

With the beginning of the French War with England in February 1793, and the threat that this posed to English trade in the East, Light called for the reinforcement of troops in Indian waters. He also set about rebuilding Penang's defences. Naval reinforcements arrived in Madras at the end of 1793. The French attempt to capture Penang did not take place until 1796, after Light's death.

Light married Martina Rozells, by whom he had 3 daughters and 2 sons. His eldest son, William Light, became the first Surveyor General of Southern Australia and founder of the city of Adelaide. Francis Light died from a Malarial attack on 21 October 1794.

Further reading: A F Steuert, The Founders of Penang and Adelaide: a Short Sketch of the Lives of Francis and William Light (London, 1901); H P Clodd, Malaya's First British Pioneer: the Life of Francis Light (London, 1948).

The Presbyterian Church of England (PCE) Foreign Missions Committee, or the English Presbyterian Mission, was established in 1843, as one of the first committees of the reconstituted Presbyterian Church. It resolved at its Synod to 'institute foreign missions in connection with this Church as speedily as possible'; however, the first missionary was not appointed until 1847. China was chosen as the first mission field for the English Presbyterian Mission, due in part to the interest engendered by the Opium Wars and in part to the fact that the Free Church of Scotland were unable to set up a Presbyterian mission in China at that time. In 1847 William Burns was appointed, and worked firstly in Hong Kong, moving on to Amoy in 1850.

The first mission field for the English Presbyterian Mission was Amoy (South Fukien) established by Burns and Dr James Young. Work was extended to the Swatow (Lingtung) area of East Shandong. George Smith was the first permanent PCE missionary in the area from 1858, and the Swatow Mission Hospital was established in 1863, while the Women's Missionary Association was founded in 1878. The mission field in China was further extended inland with the establishment of the Hakka mission in 1879.

Work began in Formosa (Taiwan) in 1865, and it was quickly designated as a children's field. Medical and education work was carried out by missionaries Dr Maxwell and Thomas Barclay, the latter founding the Tainan Theological College. The growing power of Japan in the 1930s led to a reduction of PCE staff in Formosa, and missionaries finally withdrew in 1940. In the post-war period however the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan was able to recover, and the relationship between the Church and PCE has undergone profound change.

Whereas the Formosa mission extended out from Amoy, the extension of PCE mission work to the Singapore and Malaysia field was as a response to calls from missionaries in the Swatow and Hakka fields, and from the expatriate Presbyterian congregation of Orchard Road, Singapore. John Bethune Cook began work in the area in 1881, and retired in 1925. The fall of Singapore and the Japanese occupation effectively ended the PCE mission, a small number of missionaries were interned and the Church cut off from mission support. In the period of ecumenical change following the War, PCE missionaries worked primarily at a congregational level and in local schools.

The withdrawl of the PCE from China, as for other missionary societies, is also a phenomenon of the post-war period. Despite the optimistic attempts to re-establish the missions after the Japanese occupation, the situation became increasingly difficult and the PCE, along with other missionary societies, withdrew from China between 1949 and 1953.

Work of the English Presbyterian mission was not confined to East and South East Asia, and in 1862, a mission was established at in the district of Rajshahi, Bengal, India (now Bangladesh). The mission was started by Rev. Behari Lal Singh who was an agent of the Free Church of Scotland's mission in Calcutta. The first English Presbyterian missionary Dr Donald Morison arrived three years after his death in 1878. Medical and educational work was carried out, with limited successes, and the mission was both understaffed and often in danger of being closed down. In the period after the partition of India in 1947, the mission increased its staffing and developed a hospital, nursing school and Girls High School. Work was also carried out among the Santal tribal people. However, the civil war between East and West Pakistan, which led to the establishment of Bangladesh in the 1960s, affected the mission field, which is now the Rajshahi deanery of the Church of Bangladesh.

In 1972 the Presbyterian Church of England joined with the Congregational Church in England and Wales, a constituent body of the Council of the Congregational Council for World Mission, to form the United Reformed Church. The CCWM changed its name to the Council for World Mission as a result of the inclusion of both Congregational and Reformed members. In 1981 the URC joined together with the Re-formed Churches of Christ.

Further information on the history of the Presbyterian Church of England Foreign Missions Committee can be found in the following works: Edward Band, Working His Purpose Out: the history of the English Presbyterian Mission 1847-1947 (London, 1948); Reginald Fenn, Working God's Purpose Out 1947-1972 (London, 1997); George Hood, Pilgrims in Mission: Celebrating 150 years of the English Presbyterian Mission (Alnwick, 1998); George Hood, Neither bang nor whimper: the end of a missionary era in China (Singapore, 1991).

William Mackinnon was born on 13 March 1823 in Campbeltown, Argyleshire. He was educated in Campbeltown and trained in the grocery trade there. Early in his life he went to Glasgow, where he was employed in a silk warehouse and afterwards in the office of a merchant engaged in the Eastern Trade.

MacKinnon began his business career in 1847, when he joined an old school fellow Robert MacKenzie who was engaged in the coasting trade in the Bay of Bengal. Together they founded the firm of Mackinnon, MacKenzie & Company. On 29 September 1856, the Calcutta and Burmah Steamship Navigation Company was founded, mainly through Mackinnon's exertions. In 1862 the rapidly expanding company was renamed the British India Steamship Navigation Company. What had begun as a single steamer plying between Calcutta and Rangoon, became one of the greatest shipping companies in the world. Under Mackinnon's guidance it developed and created a vast trade around the coast of India and Burma, the Persian Gulf and East Coast of Africa, besides establishing subsidiary lines of connection with Great Britain, the Dutch East Indies and Australia. In 1873, the company established a mail service between Aden and Zanzibar. Mackinnon gained the confidence of Sultan Seyyid Barghash and in 1878 opened negotiations with him for the lease of a territory extending 1,150 miles along the coastline from Tungi to Warsheik, and extending inland as far as the eastern province of the Congo Free State. The British Government however, declined to sanction the concession, which if ratified would have secured for England the whole of what became German East Africa. In 1886 the British Foreign Minister availed himself of Mackinnon's influence to secure the coast line from Wanga to Kipini, a charter was granted and the Imperial British East Africa Company was formally incorporated on 18 April 1888 with Mackinnon as Chairman. The territory was finally taken over by the British Government on 1 July 1895, and became British East Africa. Mackinnon was also instrumental in promoting and funding Sir Henry Morton Stanley's expedition for the relief of Emin Pasha in 1886.

In 1858 Mackinnon became a Director of the City of Glasgow Bank, resigning that position in 1870, eight years before the Bank's complete collapse. Mackinnon did not escape from the consequences of the failure of the Bank, one of the most serious crises in modern Scottish financial history. The liquidators sued him for close to a quarter of a million pounds on a claim connected with advice Mackinnon was said to have given on American railway securities. Following protracted litigation, Mackinnon was completely exonerated by the court from the charges against him when it was demonstrated that the course of action taken by the remaining directors was contrary to his express advice.

Mackinnon was one of the chief supporters of the Free Church of Scotland. However, towards the end of his life the passage of the Declaratory Act, of which he disapproved, led to a difference of opinion between him and the leaders of the Church and he materially assisted the seceding members in the Scottish Highlands. In 1891 he founded the East African Scottish Mission.

In 1882 he was nominated C.I.E. He was created a Baronet on 15 July 1889. He married Janet Colquhoun (d 1894) on 12 May 1856. They had no children. William Mackinnon died on 22 June 1893, in the Burlington Hotel, London. He was buried at Clachan, Argyleshire.

Ernest A Findorff was Commissioner of Commerce in Belgium and UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) consultant in the Philippines in 1969-1970.