Project Canterbury

A History of the Church of England in India
Since the Early Days of the East India Company

By Eyre Chatterton
Bishop of Nagpur

London: SPCK, 1924.


Chapter VII. The Evangelical Chaplains, 1787-1815

Period.--Europe: War with France, George III. India: Decline of Moghul Power; Growth of Mahratta ascendancy.

Books of Reference.--Life of Charles Simeon, by the Rev. W. Carus Lives of G. S. Smith and Henry Martyn, by C. Padwick; Memoirs of Claudius Buchanan, by the Rev. H. Pearson; Memoirs of Right Reverend. Daniel Come, by his Brothers; Parochial Annals of Bengal, by the Rev H. B. Hyde; One Hundred and Forty-five Years at the Old Church, by Canon E. T. Sandys.

NO account of our Church's work in India would be complete without reference to that body of clergy of the Evangelical school who came out to India as Chaplains of the East India Company towards the end of the eighteenth century, and who were largely responsible for starting definitely missionary work before our English Church Missionaries arrived in person. Certainly if to any one belongs the honour of turning the minds of the young men of the University of Cambridge towards the needs of India, that person was Charles Simeon. His position at Cambridge as Fellow of King's College and Vicar of Holy Trinity gave him a unique opportunity of influencing the younger and more religious men of his University. He was a man of immense devotion to our Lord, of great courage, and never deterred by any difficulty. It speaks highly for his great spiritual power and the remarkable influence he exercised over men that to Henry Martyn and others he was a veritable apostle. It is evident that from the earlier days of his ministry India had a considerable place in his thoughts and prayers. Writing to him from India towards the close of the century, David Brown, the pioneer of these Evangelical Chaplains, who had been deeply influenced by Simeon, says: "From the enclosed papers you will learn the project of a mission to the East Indies." "We understand such matters lie very near to your heart, and that you have a warm zeal to promote their interest. Upon that ground we invite you to become agent on behalf of the intended mission at home. We humbly hope you will accept our proposal and immediately commence a correspondence with us, stating from time to time the progress of our application." On the back of this document (which is now at Ridley Hall, Cambridge) Mr. Simeon wrote in 1830, "It merely shows how early God has enabled me to act for India, to provide for which has now for forty-two years been a principal and incessant object of my care and labour."

Curiously enough, this was one of the periods when the East India Company was most averse to direct missionary efforts in the territories they were administering. As a Company of traders they had not been unfavourable to the work of missions, especially in South India; as rulers they seem to have increasingly feared the effect of preaching Christianity to their Hindu and Moslem subjects.

And so for Englishmen who felt the missionary call in those latter days of the eighteenth century, their one way of fulfilling their heart's desire was to go to India as Chaplains of the Company. It is impossible within the limits of these pages to do more than speak of a few of these Evangelical Chaplains, and so we have selected five of the most outstanding of them. If the others attained not to "the first three" there were many who attained to "the first thirty." The five whom we have selected for special mention are David Brown, Claudius Buchanan, Henry Martyn, Daniel Corrie, and T. T. Thomason. Of three of these five full memoirs have been written, while of the remaining two we learn a fair amount from diaries.

David Brown

First of the five to come to India was the Rev. David Brown, who was destined to labour in Calcutta and neighbourhood for twenty-five years, from 1787 to 1812. The son of a Yorkshire yeoman farmer, he was well educated at Hull Grammar School and Magdalene College, Cambridge. It was while at Cambridge that he came in contact with Simeon, who especially directed his attention to the needs of India. David Brown was a man who combined piety and common sense to a remarkable degree. Simeon, writing of him, says: "His religious faith had not darted suddenly into his mind as the ray of heavenly light which overthrew aa opposing soul; but rather, as the least of all seeds, had grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength."

Mr. Hyde gives us some interesting and amusing extracts from Brown's diary on his voyage to India. In one passage we see "Mr. Brown in the ship's rigging, as high as he can climb, watching the disappearing Lizard, and commending thence his friends, the Church of Christ, and his country to the Lord my Preserver." In another passage we see him "sitting with his wife on the quarter-deck, calmly composing his diary and recording how a fire has broken out in the forecastle, of which the alarm has not reached his wife."

In those days Chaplains were evidently advised to bring wives with them to India, and so some months before sailing Brown was married. On January 17, during the six months' voyage, his wife might have been seen dancing on the deck. On February 1 her son was born, and on February 26 the baby was baptised and the mother in perfect health.

At the time of Brown's arrival in Calcutta, Kiernander, the veteran missionary, was in the seventy-sixth year of his age and the forty-seventh of his mission. Nearly blind and a bankrupt, his condition was such as to call forth the sympathy of those who had known him in more prosperous days. Certainly one of the darkest days of his life must have been the day when the Sheriff of Calcutta placed his seal on the Old Mission Church, and the building was closed for worship. This Church had been built, as we remember, almost entirely with the help of the second Mrs. Kiernander's fortune. It had no trustees, and so was therefore regarded as the private property of Kiernander. Not for long, however, was this stigma attached to this historic Church, for within a few days Mr. Charles Grant, a Bengal civilian, and afterwards the Director of the East India Company, came forward and bought the Church, school-house and burying-ground for Rs. 10,000. It was in the Old Mission Church that David Brown preached most of his sermons until his death twenty-five years later.

David Brown was a man of immense energy. In spite of his heavy duties as Garrison Chaplain of Calcutta, he sympathised so deeply with the missionary side of things that he started a boarding school for young Hindus near the Military Orphan Institute, which was part of his special charge.

Just about the time of David Brown's arrival in Calcutta, the Church of St. John was completed and consecrated. For a long time it was called the New Church, to distinguish it from Kiernander's, which was called the Old. In both these Churches David Brown, as a Company's Chaplain, was expected to officiate, though his chief work was connected with the Old Church. So popular were its services, which were attended by many leaders of Calcutta society, including the Governor-General Lord Wellesley and his illustrious brother Arthur, afterwards Duke of Wellington, that the Church had during his ministry to be enlarged.

For one thing especially David Brown's name should always be held in honour, as it was in his mind that first took shape the ideas which eventuated in the formation of the Church Missionary Society.

Canon Sandys tells us: "About this time Brown, Grant, and Udny met together to consult more definitely about a Church Mission 'for Bengal and Behar,' and Brown drafted a scheme which he sent home to 'Revs. N. and S.' (evidently meaning John Newton and Charles Simeon), and also to William Wilberforce, and to various dignitaries of the Church at home, including the Archbishops."

If, therefore, as a matter of history the Church Missionary Society was inaugurated in London at the Castle and Falcon in 1799, the correspondence which led to its formation had been going on for some years between this little handful of Christians in Calcutta and their friends in London and Cambridge.

In the words of Canon Sandys, "The Old Mission Church, Calcutta, may be regarded as the true birthplace of the Church Missionary Society, and the Rev. D. Brown as the true father of it." "When the Society was finally launched its object was enlarged, and it was sent forth under the name of the Society for Missions in Africa and the East. Thirteen years later it changed its name to the Church Missionary Society."

In the year 1800 a College was started in Fort William, Calcutta, under the advice of the Governor-General Marquis Wellesley for the training of Junior Civil Servants. It was felt that they needed fuller knowledge of India, its customs, laws, languages, and people, before it was wise to place them in stations by themselves; and that there could be no better place for studying such things than Calcutta. This Fort College had but a short Hie. For various reasons, partly climatic, partly opposition to Lord Wellesley, the Court of Directors decided to abandon it for a home training at Haileybury.

It speaks highly for David Brown that for the first seven years of its existence he was appointed Provost, William Carey, the celebrated Baptist Missionary, being appointed a Professor of Languages. Writing of Brown's Provostship, Simeon says "that he superintended with renewed alacrity the heavy duties necessarily attendant on the first formation and arrangement of a collegiate establishment. He looked forward, he says, to the recompense of reward which he desired to obtain ... in winning souls to the paths of serious piety from among the youth brought by this institution under his especial observation: and it is undeniably true that a striking improvement took place in the moral deportment of the students of the College. Among other means of attaining this advantage, they were induced by its rules to become regular in attendance on the ordinances of religion, which in some of them laid the groundwork of a serious and consistent profession of the Christian faith. The Lord's Table was no longer utterly shunned; and the whole system of morals was gradually improved. The unprincipled tide of debt was likewise stemmed; and, as was to be expected, the culture of talent became the prevailing taste."

"The Provost conciliated the affectionate respect of the students who were placed under him; and felt, as was usual with him, more attached to the charge assigned him, the longer he was connected with it. His ardour was great, and his labour incessant for the welfare of the institution, that it might become a real and permanent blessing to the rising generation, and to the country in which it was planted."

In 1803 Brown purchased Aldean House at the Danish Settlement of Serampore, ten or twelve miles from Calcutta, where he lived a great deal of the latter years of his life. Here he kept open house, especially for his missionary friends, in spite of the fact that he had a family of nine children to support.

David Brown was a man, as we have already stated, of sound judgment as well as of deep piety, and it is evident that he won the universal respect and confidence of every one in Calcutta. Though his emoluments had been large, his hospitality and charity had been so great that he died a poor man, and a large sum was immediately raised for the benefit of his family. He died in 1812, with his last breath uttering thanksgiving for all the consolations God had showered on him. There is a tablet in the Old Church, Calcutta, on which is the following inscription:--

"To the poor the Gospel was preached in this Church
by
The Rev. David Brown,
Twenty-five years. Obt. ap. Calcutta, 14 June 1812, Aet. 49."

Claudius Buchanan

Of Claudius Buchanan we may say at the outset that there were but few signs in his youth of what he was to be in later years. His parents were not well off, and as he was a clever, hard-working lad, following the custom of a good many other young fellows in Scotland of his period, he obtained the post of tutor to the sons of a wealthy man. A youthful and impossible love affair made him decide, in the bitterness of his heart, to forget his troubles by wandering through Europe, like Oliver Goldsmith, keeping soul and body together by playing on his violin. Knowing that such a life would never receive the approval of his parents, he let them think he had obtained the post of tutor to a young fellow who was travelling on the Continent. Leaving home he started- on his travels on foot. Before reaching the border, however, he utterly sickened of his tramp life, and as his pride prevented him from returning home, he took ship at South Shields, and after a rough voyage arrived in London.

His early days in London were days of hardship and poverty. At times he literally did not know where to get his next meal. Pride still stood in his way, and even a year later, when the sad news of his father's death reached him, he wrote a letter of condolence to his mother, pretending that he was writing from Florence.

Down in the heart of Buchanan, however, the Spirit of God was silently working. As a boy he had not been without religious feeling, and now at length a Divine discontent began to break forth in his soul. His first step on the road of repentance was to let his mother know that he tad all along been deceiving her about his movements, and that he had never left London. She seems to have treated his deceit somewhat lightly, and her one apparent anxiety was that he should cultivate the acquaintance of John Newton, then one of the great Evangelical preachers in England.

The Rev. John Newton had himself once been a sailor and for a time a blaspheming slave-driver on the African coast. Converted to God in a remarkable way, he was then one of the most powerful preachers of repentance in England. His hymns are familiar to most of us. Under his guidance Buchanan came forward rapidly in spiritual matters. Along with the deepening of his spiritual life came strong drawings towards the ministry of the Church. For a time it seemed that lack of means must for ever bar the road to the University and Ordination, when an unexpected friend turned up in Mr. Thornton, a rich banker. Mr. Thornton was strongly drawn towards Buchanan, and decided to support him through his course at Cambridge.

When Buchanan first went up to Cambridge he was much older than the ordinary undergraduate. With a fair knowledge of classics he was extremely weak in mathematics, which was then the most important subject in the Cambridge course. In spite of this deficiency, which would have been fatal in most cases, Buchanan worked so hard and so steadily that before leaving Cambridge he was elected to a Fellowship.

Shortly after leaving the University he received his appointment to an Indian Chaplaincy, and arrived in Calcutta on March 10, 1797. After a short stay with Mr. David Brown and his family at Aldean, he was posted to the military station of Barrackpore, not far from Calcutta. Barrackpore at that time was without a Church, and Divine Service was never so much as required by the military staff to which Buchanan was attached. As he could hold no public services without an order from the Commanding Officer, and as this order was withheld, Buchanan found himself in a very unhappy position of enforced idleness. One can well understand how galling to a man of his intense religious convictions this compulsory inactivity must have been, and one need not wonder that doubts assailed him as to whether he ought to have come to India at all.

This unhappy state fortunately did not last for long, as a few months later he was posted to Calcutta to assist the Rev. David Brown in his important work. When Dr. Brown's health deteriorated Buchanan was called on to take an ever-increasing part in the work of the Old Church. His ability was also recognised, as he was appointed Vice-Provost of the East India Company's College at Fort William.

To Claudius Buchanan the Church in India owes far more than is generally realised. To him belongs the honour of first suggesting the need of an Ecclesiastical Establishment for India. His method of presenting the idea was regarded at the time as so able and convincing that when the question of the appointment of the first Bishop of Calcutta came up for consideration, his name was mentioned, and he would most probably have been appointed had it not been that his health prevented his returning to India.

Again it was by Claudius Buchanan that the needs of the Syrian Church at Travancore were first fully realised. His researches into the work of the Christian Church in Asia, as well as an open letter which he wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, produced a considerable effect at the time, and drew the attention of thousands in England to this most . interesting part of the mission field. Claudius Buchanan's stay in India was but for twelve years. After he retired he continued to exercise a considerable influence on the Church at home by his writings on the mission field, some of whioh passed through several editions.

Henry Martyn

Certainly there is no more remarkable, and at the same time pathetic, figure in the records of missionary effort (though he himself was a Chaplain and not a missionary) than that of Henry Martyn. Able as a classic and brilliant as a mathematician (he was Senior Wrangler and Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge), Martyn was destined in a short life to do more for the cause of missions than probably any other missionary in modern times save St. Francis Xavier. An interesting life of him has been written by Mr. George H. Smith.

Martyn was one of Simeon's disciples, and it was largely through Simeon's influence that he came to India. When he left England for India he had to pass through a great sorrow. Deeply attached to one who seems to have returned his love, he was compelled to leave her behind. They never saw one another again on earth.

The ship which carried Henry Martyn to India first called at Rio Janeiro in Brazil. Of his visit to this place it is recorded that he was "the first to proclaim the pure Gospel in South America since 300 years before, when Colligny's and Calvin's missionaries were silenced by Ville-gagnon and put to death." After leaving Brazil the vessel, which was carrying troops, went to Cape Town. Here the troops were landed and took part in a campaign against the Dutch, from whom we captured the Cape Colony. To the soldiers before going into action Martyn spoke with great earnestness: "It is now time to be decided in religion." He himself was deeply affected by the grief of the ladies whose husbands were taking part in the campaign.

Martyn, like other preachers of his school, was inclined to lay more stress on the severity of God and the danger of hell-fire than on the Divine love. If he was inclined to judge his fellow-men severely, he judged himself even more so.

He arrived in India on May 16, 1806. While coming up the Hooghly his vessel struck on the dangerous James and Mary sand-bank. Had the same fate befallen this ship which has befallen many other gallant ships which have struck on this sand-bank, the Church certainly would have lost one of its most famous sons. When Martyn arrived in Calcutta, David Brown and Buchanan were away from home. He soon found a most congenial spirit in William Carey, the great Baptist Missionary, then one of the Professors at the Fort College.

The followings extracts from Martyn's diary are worth quoting:--

"With Carey I breakfasted, and joined him in worship, which was in Bengalee for the advantage of a few servants, who sat, however, perfectly unmoved. I had engaged a boat for Serampore, when a letter from Mr. Brown found me out, and directed me to his house in the town, where I spent the rest of the day in solitude, and more comfortably and profitably than any time past. I enjoyed several solemn seasons in prayer and more lively impressions from God's Word. Employed at times in writing to Mr. Simeon. Mr. Brown's munshee, a Brahman, of the name of B. Roy, came in and disputed with me two hours about the Gospel."

"May 17. What I hear about my future destination has proved a trial to me to-day. Brown and Buchanan wish to keep me here as Chaplain at the Old Church. I have a great many reasons for not liking this; I almost think that to be prevented going among the heathen as a missionary would break my heart. I have hitherto lived to little purpose, like a clod upon the earth. Now let me burn out for God!"

"May 18. So unwell with the cold and sore throat that Mr. B. did not think it right for me to preach. Went with him at 10 in the morning to the New Church. Mr. Jeffries read one part, Mr. Limrick another, of the Service; Mr. Brown preached. At 8 in the evening went to the Old Missionary Church, where I ventured to read the Service. Mr. Brown preached on 'Behold the Lamb of God.' I was very agreeably surprised at the number, attention, and apparent liveliness of the audience; and I may safely say that most of the young ministers that I know would rejoice to come from England, if they knew how attractive every circumstance is respecting the Church. Stayed in the vestry some time conversing with Mr. Bourne."

"May 19. We got a boat, and the stream in an hour aad a haM helped us up to Serampore to Mr. Brown's house. In the oool of the evening we walked to the Mission House, a few hundred yards off, and I at last saw the place about which I hare «p long read with pleasure. I was introduced to all the missionaries. We sat down 150 to tea at several long tables in an immense room. After this there was Evening Service in another room adjoining. Mr. Marshman then delivered his lecture on Grammar. My habitation assigned to me by Mr. B. is a pagoda in his grounds on the edge of the river. Thither I retired at night, and really felt something like supernatural dread at being in a place once inhabited as it were by devils, but yet felt to be triumphantly joyful that the temple, where they were worshipped, was become Christ's Oratory. I prayed out aloud to my God, and the echoes returned from the vaulted roof."

Martyn remained in Calcutta for the first six months of his time in India. The Calvinistic tone of some of his sermons aroused a deep resentment in the minds of some of his brother Chaplains. On June 8 he preached in the morning at the New Church (St. John's) for the first time, on 1 Cor. i. 23-24. The sermon excited no small ferment, so much so that the Chaplains took to opposing the doctrines preached by Martyn, even from the pulpit.

Martyn's fears that he would be kept in Calcutta as a preacher in the Old Church with its big congregation proved groundless. He afterwards wrote to Brown from Cawnpore, referring to this when he said, "The evangelisation of India is a more important object than preaching to European congregations in Calcutta."

Towards the end of October, Martyn left for Dinapore. In addition to his Evangelical zeal and preaching to non-Christians, he spent a great deal of his time in translating the New Testament into Urdu. Probably next to his devoted life, this piece of work was his greatest contribution to the cause of Christianity in India.

From Dinapore he was transferred to Cawnpore. Here he lived for a time with Captain and Mrs. Sherwood. At Cawnpore there was no Church. Parade services were held in the open air, with disastrous results for his health, as he soon became a victim to malaria. He asked permission to use the billiard-room for his services, but was refused. He was, however, given the Riding School to hold them in (the effluvium of which would only please "knights of turf"). In the face of these difficulties he asked the question, "What must Mahomedans think of us?" The tone of society seems to have been decidedly low, as Martyn remarks that on one occasion, when he was invited to dine with the Brigade-Major, "he could gain no attention while saying Grace, and the moment the ladies withdrew the conversation took such a turn that he was obliged to retreat." In spite of all opposition, however, he managed to start schools and translated a little book on the Parables into the dialect of Behar. He was much helped in his work of translation by an Arab of the name Sabat. Sabat seems to have been a most unreliable and unpleasant character, and at times gave Martyn very great pain and grief.

Martyn left Cawnpore on October 1, for Calcutta. He had decided to return to England via Persia. He wished to preach the Gospel in that country, and also to get a fuller knowledge of Arabic and work amongst the Mahomedans. He remained in Calcutta for nearly two months, where he stayed with "dear Thomason," and preached regularly at the Old Mission Church. On January 1, 1811, he preached the anniversary sermon for the Bible Society and suggested the formation of a Calcutta Auxiliary.

He says, "I preached an unwieldy sermon, which has just been delivered. We have received 2600 rupees in donations. We proceed without delay to form an Auxiliary Bible Society by the few who were at Church."

On January 6 Henry Martyn preached his last sermon in India: "The one thing needful." On January 7 he sailed away for Persia. Martyn died on his way home at Tokat. Tokat, the ancient Romana Pontica, was the place where St. Chrysostom died on the 14th September 407.

Martyn's great desire when he reached India was like that of Francis Xavier: "Now let me burn out for God!" There is a tablet to his memory in the Old Church, Calcutta, which reads as follows:--

"To the memory of
The Rev. Henry Martyn,
Chaplain of the Bengal Establishment.
'He was a burning and a shining light.'
He died at Tokat in Armenia,
16th October 1812, aged only 32."

Certainly no one who is interested in foreign mission work should fail to read the Life of Henry Martyn.

Daniel Corrie

Daniel Corrie, another of the great Evangelicals, arrived in Calcutta a few months later than Henry Martyn. Unlike Martyn, he was destined to give over thirty years of his life to India and to finish his career as first Bishop of Madras. From his Memoirs we learn that when he first went up to Cambridge he was careless and indifferent to things spiritual, and though afterwards a devoted disciple of Simeon, was by no means attracted to him at first, even professing himself "disgusted" at his preaching. Not long afterwards, however, the Spirit of God began to work deeply in his soul, and after a severe spiritual struggle accompanied with much depression and even despair, he attained peace of soul.

Corrie was directed by Simeon to an Indian Chaplaincy. After spending a few months with David Brown in Calcutta, he was stationed at Chunar, then a frontier fort in the modern province of Behar and Orissa. Here, like Martyn, he found the military part of his flock both careless and godless. Alter two years' work at Chunar he was transferred to Cawnpore, where he relieved Henry Martyn, who was about to leave India for Persia. From Cawnpore Corrie was transferred for a time to Calcutta, where he assisted a good deal in preaching at the Mission Church. Before leaving for Agra, his next station, he was married at Calcutta to Miss Myers' daughter of a leading Evangelical layman. In Agra, where he spent three years, he laid the foundation of its Church Missionary work. He was a man of immense missionary zeal, who was never weary of delivering the Gospel message In 1815 Corrie visited England, and on his return was posted to Benares. There he did a big work in laying foundations for further missionary effort. During his time in Benares a famous Hindu philanthropist, the Rajah Jay Narayan, decided to endow a Free School, which still bears his name. Corrie had a good deal to do with drawing up the rules and regulations of the school and preparing its trust deed. It was placed under the care of the Church Missionary Society, and has been under it ever since.

After several years in Benares, Corrie was transferred to Calcutta, where he spent the greater part of what remained of his Indian career. Two years before his death he was consecrated first Bishop of Madras.

Corrie was an intimate friend of Bishop Heber, who made him his Archdeacon. He was also on intimate terms with Heber's successors, Bishops James and Turner. It is impossible to read his memoirs without realising how entirely whole-hearted he was, and how his zeal for God was the mastering passion of his life. His name will always be held in honour in the Church as one who gave a long and devoted service to the Church in India.

T. T. Thomason

Of the Rev. T. T. Thomason, last of our five great Evangelical Chaplains, we have less information than of any of the others. He came to India at a much later age than they did. Unfortunately, no Life was ever written of him After a brilliant University career at Cambridge (he was fifth Wrangler and Fellow and Tutor of Queen's College), he worked for twelve years as Curate to Simeon. Of all Simeon's disciples Thomason was the one who enjoyed his most intimate friendship. Simeon loved Thomason as his son. He writes of him as follows: "He had such a loveable spirit, he was so gentle, so humble, so little selfish, so little envious; it would have been difficult not to love him." When he eventually decided to accept the Chaplaincy of the Old Church, Calcutta, his departure was a real blow to Simeon. The boat on which Mr. and Mrs. Thomason sailed for India was lost off Cape Negrais, and they with the others on board had a marvellous escape. On November 19,1803, they arrived in Calcutta, having lost all they possessed except the clothes they had on.

Thomason exercised an immense influence while in Calcutta amongst all classes. He was the friend of rich and poor alike. So highly did the Governor-General, the Earl of Moira, think of him that he even invited him to accompany him when he went on one of his tours. It was during this tour that Thomason was placed in a most difficult position. A strong Sabbatarian, he felt called upon to protest against what he considered the desecration of the Lord's Day in the Governor-General's Camp. Some very unpleasant hours followed, and he was almost requested to leave the camp. His protest, however, in the long run had considerable effect.

Thomason was in Calcutta when the Rev. W. Greenwood and the Rev. Schroetar, the first missionaries of our Church to North India, arrived in the year 1816, and needless to say he gave them a warm welcome.

In 1826 Thomason left India for England on account of his wife's health. He had the great sorrow of losing her at sea.

In 1828 he returned to India, having married a second time, hoping to take up charge of the Old Church once more. Shortly after his return he fell ill and was ordered by the doctors to go on a sea voyage to Mauritius, where he died June 21, 1829. There is a tablet in the Old Church, Calcutta, in memory of Thomason. He was a man of splendid devotion as well as sound ability. His son James, who became Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces in 1843 to 1853, took a lively interest in founding the Church Missionary Society stations in that province.

These five were certainly the most distinguished of the Evangelical Chaplains of those days. Others there were also who, while not quite attaining to their position, were in many ways men of great gifts and devotion. Thomas Dealtry, who succeeded Corrie as Archdeacon of Calcutta and was third Bishop of Madras, Boyes, Henry Thomas, Hutton, Lovekey and M. D. C. Walters, were all men of great spiritual influence and were connected closely with the wonderful Old Mission Church in Calcutta. Later on came Stuart, afterwards Bishop of Waiapu in New Zealand; the Rev. J. Wetland, brother of the Bishop of Down; Williamson, who started the Gond Mission in the Central Provinces; Parker the Bishop of Uganda, and others who carried on the high tradition bequeathed them by the first five.


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