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Description area
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History
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).