CSCA: An Introductory Note on the History of the Province Wellesley Mission Institution

Michael Poon, February 2006

Download History of the Province Wellesley Mission Institution

M Orsler's History of the Province Wellesley Mission Institution (Penang: Georgetown Printing Ltd, 1957) gives an account of an educational institution started in late nineteenth century by children of missionaries in Malaya. Province Wellesley stretches 45 miles along the coast, opposite to Penang, with an area of 270 square miles. In 1874 it became part of the British Crown Colony in the Straits Settlement.

The Institution was a joint Anglican and Presbyterian initiative from the beginning.  Bishop Walter Chambers and David Brown conceived the project in 1878. The first Chaplain was Rev. H McDougal Courtney, nephew of Bishop Francis McDougal, the first Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak. He was educated in Pembroke College, Oxford.  In May 1879, he arrived in Province Wellesley to take up his new position.

The contents of the short History, written in 1957 (as suggested by the British Library), are as follows:

Introductory Note by H Wakefield

A Right Good Man

Rev. Courtney's Last Years

The Two Schools

Interlude February 1889 - December 1892

The First Part of Rev. H C Henham's Chaplaincy December 1892 - 1900

Finance

2. The Rev. H C Henham

3. Butterworth Church

4. Province Wellesley

I am grateful to the Seminari Theologi Malaysia for this copy of the History.  I found it within a microfilm on the history of Saint George's Church, Penang in STM's good library.  The microfilm is digitally scanned in Trinity Theological College, Singapore.

For background reading, see my Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Microfilm Guide.

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