The London Missionary Society’s stations near Lake Tanganyika
Subtitle: a photograph album
Published: 1924
Language: eng
Other titles: Snapshots
Description: The photographs depict the London Missionary Society’s Station and Girl’s Boarding School in Kawimbe (Northern Rhodesia), Local Students, Preachers, Bible Teachers, Orphaned Children and Foster Moms, British Missionaries, Community Vaccinations, Christmas Celebrations, LMS Station in Kasanga, the Town of Abercorn, Lake Tanganyika, etc.
Notes: Provisional cataloging from description supplied by vendor.

All but a few photos with period white ink captions in English on the mounts

Includes over a hundred original photos taken or compiled by a British female missionary who worked in the 1920s-1930s at the London Missionary Society’s station in Kawimbe, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia since 1964). The album houses two important group portraits of native teachers and students, taken in front of the Kawimbe church next to the signs “Kawimbe teachers, 1920” and “Evangelists and teachers from Kambole and Kawimbe in training, 1920.” Another interesting portrait shows native “Kawimbe deacons, 1933” photographed with an elderly British missionary. The compiler of the album herself is depicted on a photo from the LMS’s camp at Kasanga (modern-day Tanzania); the caption reads “Mango tree & myself”. There are also photos of the missionaries’ house in Kawimbe under construction (“dragging logs to saw pit for beams of new house,” “our house at Kawimbe being built”) and after its completion. Several photos portray other missionaries (“Miss Couper”, “Miss Maken,” missionaries at a Christmas dinner, etc.)

Most photos are portraits of Kawimbe school’s native students and teachers, station doctors, priests, orphaned babies cared for, foster mothers, and others. Interesting images include four portraits of “old school girls & their wedding groups,” a scene of a lesson “how to wash the baby, 1923,” portraits of “Danyeli, motherless, but happy,” “motherless babies & helpers,” “our best foster mother & midwife,” children with “the empty plate,” children holding cups & bowls (captioned “a milk ration”), “Kawimbe Evangelist Moffat & his family,” “medical orderly at Kawimbe,” “chief Zombe & his chief wife,” “chief Tafuma & his prince” (holding “Huntley & Palmers Biscuits” poster with a portrait of Edward, Prince of Wales), “Kate, a Bible woman for 30 years,” a group of three “Bible women,” “one of the school girls ready to become a nurse maid,” boys doing “bead work,” “girls at drill,” “blind children learning to sing” (with a British teacher), “old school girls and their children,” “girls clearing their gardens,” “girls school Kawimbe, 1932” (wearing uniform), and others. Other interesting photos include two scenes of public vaccinations, several scenes of a Christmas celebration at Niamkolo (“children dancing round a Christmas tree,” “kneeling to receive gifts from Father Christmas,” “two of the Shepherds seeing the star,” “Marjorie’s Nativity play, 1929,” and others), views of “our cottage at Niamkolo,” “the monthly steamers coming into harbour, Mpulungu,” nearby town of Abercorn, now Mbala (post office, government offices, main road and hotel with the clear sign “Abercorn Arms Hotel”), and others. Several photos depict the missionary camp in Kasanga (now Tanzania) – “our camp under the Mango trees… & bricks made for” “this house built for a teacher,” “a congregation under the trees at Kasanga,” “a distant view of the camp,” and others. Half a dozen photos show a car trip in July 1934, with interesting views of the travellers’ car crossing the Chambezi River on a cable ferry, native canoes on the Kalungwisi River, the two missionaries “washing up on the road,” etc. There are also views of Kigoma (Tanzania), “Kigoma custom sheds,” Lake Tanganyika, and Kalambo Falls on the border between Tanzania and Zambia.

Kawimbe mission became the third station founded by the London Missionary Society within its Central Africa Mission project south of Lake Tanganyika (est. in 1887 in Fwambo and moved to Kawimbe in 1890). The station was located on the territory of what was to become Northern Rhodesia and subsequently Zambia. The Kawimbe boarding school for girls became LMS’s second school in Rhodesia after the famous Mbereshi boarding school founded by Mabel Shaw in 1915.“In 1915, an important step forward was taken with the establishment of a boarding school for Girls at Mbereshi [later the Livingstone Memorial School], under the guidance of Mabel Shaw, and of the appointment of women missionaries to specialize in work amongst women and girls. The Bemba work centred on Mbereshi was further strengthened by medical missionary work and with the opening of a clinic and teaching centre in maternity and welfare work. The Central Africa Mission was also responsible for industrial as well as educational work, which included training in skills such as carpentry, blacksmithing, and horticulture. <…> By 1962 all work of the mission came under the United Church of Central Africa in Rhodesia, and in 1965 the United Church of Zambia was inaugurated”

Period black pebbled cloth album fastened with a string; Ccovers slightly warped, a few images slightly faded, a couple with minor stains.