Methodist Missionary Society Library Manuscripts

Primarily items relating to Methodist mission personnel (mainly from Great Britain) and their work consisting of notes, cuttings, reports, correspondence, journals, etc. Includes: some translations of Christian texts and hymns; manuscript biographical and autobiographical material; a small notebook with accounts by and photographs of Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society personnel in preparation for their centenary in 1913; three sketch books of scenes in China, 1877-1880; notebooks on the Efik language by C P Groves; manuscript history of the Chou [Zhou] dynasty; notes on the Cree language and an ms of the gospel of St John; Luke Scott's scrapbook on Ceylon [Sri Lanka] mission (1868-1871); Edwin W Smith's bible (annotated). Also there are catalogues of the Methodist Missionary Society Library for when it was at Mission House [now Methodist Church House], London. Material in English, Xhosa, Efik, Fijian, Tongan, Batonga, French, Yoruba, Nama, Chinese, Cree, Kanarese, Sinhala, Tamil.

The items in this collection were either originally part of the Methodist Missionary Society (MMS) Library as deposited in 1977 or were included within one of the later deposits to said Library. However, the items here are clearly not published (although some of them are printed) and have therefore either been removed from the MMS Library or were removed from later deposits so that they would not be added to the MMS Library. Where a former reference does exist for an item it has been included in its entry, even where it was the 'in-house' reference used at Mission House [now Methodist Church House], London.

Open

Deposited by or through the Methodist Church since 1977

Catalogued

For permission to publish, please contact Archives & Special Collections, SOAS Library in the first instance

Copyright held by various

Previously formed part of the MMS Library at Mission House or part of subsequent additions to that Library once relocated to SOAS.

The Methodist Missionary Society Library is held here in Archives & Special Collections at SOAS but has been catalogued onto the Library's online catalogue (http://library.soas.ac.uk/).