page_title: James Hannington
section_title: Ministry
hierarchical_section_title: James Hannington / Ministry
caption_attribution_description: English: Seizure of Bishop James Hannington, by William Hatherell Identifier: storyofafricaits03brow (find matches) Title: The story of Africa and its explorers Year: 1892 (1890s) Authors: Brown, Robert, 1842-1895 Subjects: Publisher: London&#160;: Cassell Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: e fickle king. He now fell underthe thrall of a sorceress, who claimed to bepossessed of the hibari of the Nyanza,and under her influence he and hischiefs prohibited both Christianity ofjS kiSg.and Mohammedanism, and returnedto their old Pagan practices. The year 1880was a period of sore trial for European in-fluence. Only a few lads remained amongMessrs. Mackay and Pearsons pupils, but eventhey deserted the school, and the hves of themissionaries were placed in imminent peril,owing to an absurd story circulated by theArabs to the effect that Mr. Mackay wasan insane murderer who had escaped fromhis own country. Once more, however, the kings attitude to-wards the missionaries altered for the better.The return of the Uganda envoys fromEurope, full of what they had seen of thepopulous cities of England and of the great-ness of its Queen, to whom they had been pre-sented at Buckingham Palace, raised Britishinfluence in Uganda to a level not hithertoattained. The pupils came back to school Text Appearing After Image: wmmmmmm SEIZURE OF BISHOP HANNINGTON, PREVIOUS TO HIS MURDER. 150 THE STOBY OF AFRICA. and several converts presented themselvesfor baptism. Building, carpentering, black-smithing, and other industrial pursuits werelearned by numbers of the intelligent peopleof the country, while various new books weretranslated into the language, in which themissionaries were now joioticient. Anotherevent that relieved the mission of fre-quent embarrassment was the departure, inNovember, 1882, of the French priests toone of their other stations,* after a residenceof three and a half 3^ears in Rubaga. Theirabsence was, however, only temporary. Without following the mission in its encouragements and discouragements from year to year, it may be enough to ^d^y^^ say that its success suffered littlecheck until the 10th of October,1884. Up to that time the English Church inUganda claimed eighty-eight members amongthe natives of the country, and several relaysof missionaries had come and sfone withoutany of Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: James Hannington was an English Anglican missionary, saint and martyr. He was the first Anglican bishop of East Africa.
context_section_description: The family were Congregationalists but joined the Church of England in 1867. In that year the chapel which Hannington's father had built in the grounds of his property in 1852 was licensed for Anglican services. At twenty-one, Hannington decided to pursue a clerical career, and entered university at St Mary Hall, Oxford; he was President of the Red Club and captain of the St Mary Hall Boat. In 1872, the death of his mother spurred a change in Hannington's life; he was awarded his BA, and on 1 March 1874 was made a deacon (by Frederick Temple, Bishop of Exeter, at Exeter Cathedral), and took a  curacy of Martinhoe with Trentishoe, Devon. Having been ordained priest, in 1875 James became curate-in-charge at St George’s, Hurstpierpoint where he stayed until volunteering for missionary work in east Africa in 1882. He had by then been married for five years.
  Around 1882, Hannington heard of the murder of two missionaries on the shores of Lake Victoria. This led to him offering himself to the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and he left England on 17 May, setting sail for Zanzibar on 29 June, as the head of a party of six missionaries. Crippled by fever and dysentery, Hannington was forced to return to England in 1883.
  On 24 June 1884 (Midsummer, or St John the Baptist's Day), having recovered, Hannington was ordained and consecrated a bishop by Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury, at St Mary-at-Lambeth, to serve the See of Eastern Equatorial Africa, and in January 1885, at age thirty-seven,  Hannington again departed for Africa. His diocese included missions of the CMS at the coast and inland in Buganda. While there Hannington collected a number of shells which were described by E. A. Smith in two papers in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History.
  After arriving at Freretown, near Mombasa, in Kenya, Hannington determined to pioneer a shorter and healthier highland road to Buganda, using Christian porters and undercutting the Arab slave route to the south. He was oblivious to the political consequences of traversing Busoga, a strategically sensitive area for the Buganda state. The sudden intrusion of German imperialism at the coast made the Kabaka of Buganda Mwanga, even more suspicious of Hannington's motives. An oracle (emmandwa) had said that Buganda’s conqueror would come from the east. Mwanga forbade Hannington from continuing through Busoga and sent boats to take him to Sukumaland, but Hannington refused. Together with his team, he safely reached a spot near Victoria Nyanza on 21 October, but his arrival had not gone unnoticed, and under the orders of Mwanga II of Buganda, the missionaries were imprisoned in Busoga by Basoga chiefs.
  After eight days of captivity, by order from Mwanga II, Hannington's porters were killed, and on 29 October 1885, Hannington himself was speared in both sides. As he died, his alleged last words to the soldiers who killed him were: "Go, tell Mwanga I have purchased the road to Uganda with my blood."
  It is important to note that the supposed fear by Mwanga about invaders coming from the eastern direction was discussed at that time and dismissed out of hand by Alexander William Mackay, who had first-hand knowledge of events from the Buganda side. In letters dated 2 May 1886, Mackay wrote;
  "Had the matter of the Busoga route been the real point at issue, the king needed only to adopt our advice at the time, and request the Bishop to return to the neighbourhood of Kwa Sundu in Kavirondo, whither the boat had gone for him. But he was determined on shedding the blood of one whom he believed was a European of higher standing than merely an ordeinary missionary or traveler, as 'a challenge to the whole of Europe' as he said himself ... this case was absolutely unprovoked and unjustifiable on any ground, the extent of the crime being much increased by the fact that our brethren were coming after the King's own repeated invitation, although they themselves were, perhaps, not aware of that fact. Further we gave the King perfectly to understand who they were, and why they came via the east, v
caption: Seizure of Bishop James Hannington, by William Hatherell from The Story of Africa and its Explorers (1892)
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