Gray, S Douglas

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0102 MMS/Special Series/Biographical/Central Africa/FBN 15-20 (Boxes 613-623)
Held at	: School of Oriental and African Studies   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.soas.ac.uk/Archives/home.html ›
Full title	: Gray, S Douglas
Date(s)	: 1910-1962
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 11 boxes
Name of creator(s)	: Gray | Sidney Douglas | 1883-1963 | missionary

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Born in Rockferry, Birkenhead, England, 1883; trained at Didsbury theological college; ordained as a Wesleyan Methodist minister; served the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society at Chipembi, northern Rhodesia (later Zambia), 1910-1915; chaplain to the armed forces, 1915-1917; returned as missionary to northern Rhodesia, 1917; instrumental in the development of Chipembi mission station and its circuit, although his treks in the Luano Valley did not result in permanent missionary endeavour there owing to shortages of money and manpower; served the Selukewe, Salisbury, Broken Hill, Lusaka, Nambala and Kafue circuits; reduced the language of the Bene-Mukuni to writing, translating part of the Bible and producing a vernacular hymnbook; began the first girls' secondary school in northern Rhodesia at Chipembi, 1928; supernumerary from 1951; subsequently served at Chingola; MBE; married, firstly, Louie (née Barrett) and, secondly, Dorothy Mabel Christian (née Hicks); died, 1963. Publications: articles and books on missionary subjects.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers, 1910-1962, of the Rev S Douglas Gray, comprising personal correspondence, 1910-1940s; personal papers, 1910-1950, among them journals and diary and autobiographical extracts, including accounts of journeys in Rhodesia (later Zambia), addresses on missionary work, notes for sermons, and papers on Gray's furloughs, MBE, health, and retirement; papers relating to missionary work, including correspondence with Missionary Society officials, 1924-1954, correspondence and papers on medical, educational, and evangelistic matters and on indigenous customs including marriage, 1919-1962, and printed material, 1911-1940s; circular letters and circuit and district reports, 1912-1951, on various circuits in north and south Rhodesia; papers, 1911-1955, largely typescript, on general missionary affairs in Rhodesia; correspondence with Oliver Roebuck, 1923-1925, 1930, and Roebuck's diary, 1923.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Unrestricted, but only to be viewed on microfiche.

Conditions governing reproduction:

No publication without written permission. Apply to archivist in the first instance.

Finding aids:

Unpublished handlist.

Archival Information

Archival history:

The papers were deposited with the Methodist Missionary Society and form part of the special series of biographical papers of individual missionaries.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Deposited on permanent loan with the records of the Methodist Missionary Society from 1978.

Allied Materials

Related material:

The School of Oriental and African Studies holds the records of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (Ref: MMS/WMMS), succeeded in 1932 by the Methodist Missionary Society.

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Compiled by Rachel Kemsley as part of the RSLP AIM25 project. Source: Wesleyan Methodist Church Minutes of Conference (1963), p 203.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
Mar 2002