"A spirit of comradeship in work"? Anglican women missionaries and ecclesiastical politics in 20th-century South Africa

Abstract

In the first half of the twentieth century, between one and two hundred British women at any one time were serving among South Africa’s black population as paid Anglican missionaries. From 1913, they joined together in a Society of Women Missionaries, holding regular conferences until 1955 and producing an informative journal. These missionaries, often lifelong church employees and occasionally deaconesses, were the first women whom the church hierarchy accommodated as actual lay representatives in its previously all-male preserves of mission consultation and governance, 50 years before women could be elected to Provincial Synod. The SWM Journal’s coverage of its dealings with the Provincial Missionary Conference and Board of Missions encompasses struggles over female inclusion, the inspiration derived from involvement, and key issues raised – especially evangelistic training for women and the hope of comradeship with men in shared missionary work. This period of white female mission leadership and modest official recognition merits greater acknowledgement in the history of both Anglican church government in South Africa and the development of female ministry, including ordination to the priesthood.