A newly-discovered photograph dating from 1873 demonstrates that Victorian evangelicals knew what it meant to be a truly multi-racial church.
The picture was discovered on the prayer desk of the late David Ide, father-in-law of The Revd Tim Hastie-Smith, a Cotswold vicar. (David Ide’s obituary was carried in the September issue of en.)
An inscription says: ‘An impromptu assumed by the chairman at the Annual Evening Meeting for the Church Missionary Society in Ripon, October 1873, as he quoted the words, “Ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Subsequently photographed at the earnest request of friends. Sold for the benefit of Rev James Johnson’s church in West Africa.”’
The Revd J.J. Johnson was born in Sierra Leone in 1836. Having been a teacher, he then became an Anglican minister in Nigeria, and was also one of the first members of Nigeria’s Legislative Council. In 1890, Johnson became assistant Bishop of the Niger Delta and Benin territories, holding this post until his death in 1917.
