page_title: Scottish Protestant missions
section_title: Overseas missions
hierarchical_section_title: Scottish Protestant missions / Overseas missions
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Church of Scotland Mission Fields, late 19th century Map depicting the mission fields of the Church of Scotland foreign Mission Committee in the late 19th century. "South Arabia, South Africa, Calabar, Gold Coast, Livingstonia, Blantyre, Kenya&#8221; Image also contains an insert map of Scotland.; The Foreign Mission Committee (later Overseas Council then Board of World Mission and Unity) of the Church of Scotland was responsible for the Church&#39;s mission work around the world. Photographer: Unknown Filename: imp-cswc-GB-237-CSWC47-LS2-001.tif Coverage date: circa 1880 Part of collection: International Mission Photography Archive, ca.1860-ca.1960 Type: images Part of subcollection: Photographs from the Centre for the Study of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh, U.K., ca.1900-ca.1940s Repository name: Centre for the Study of World Christianity Archival file: impaunpub_Volume7/1276.url Geographic subject (city or populated place): Livingstonia; Blantyre Repository address: The University of Edinburgh School of Divinity, New College, Mound Place, Edinburgh EH1 2LX, United Kingdom Geographic subject (country): South Africa; Ghana; Kenya; Nigeria Format (aacr2): 1 lantern slide&#160;: 8 x 8 cm. Geographic subject (continent): Africa Rights: Contact the repository for details. Part of series: Mary Slessor LS2 Repository email: divinity-CSWC@ed.ac.uk Subject (lcsh Keyword): maps Date created: circa 1880 Publisher (of the digital version): University of Southern California. Libraries Subject (aat genre): topographical views Format (aat): lantern slides Legacy record ID: impa-m68141 Access conditions: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/divinity/research/centres/world-christianity/collections-resources File: GB 237 CSWC47/LS2/1
context_page_description: Scottish Protestant missions are organised programmes of outreach and conversion undertaken by Protestant denominations within Scotland, or by Scottish people. Long after the triumph of the Church of Scotland in the Lowlands, Highlanders and Islanders clung to a form of Christianity infused with animistic folk beliefs and practices. From 1708 the Scottish Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge began working in the area. In 1797 James Haldane founded the non-denominational Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at Home. Dozens of lay preachers, divinity students and English preachers were sent to the region. In the early nineteenth century a variety of organisations were formed to support evangelism to the region.
  From the late eighteenth century the Industrial Revolution led to a rapid urbanisation of Scottish society. This created alarm amongst the Christians of the new Middle Class. The first urban mission was founded in Glasgow in 1826 and drew on all the Protestant churches. Thomas Chalmers advocated the "aggressive method", emphasising self-reliance backed up by intensive Sunday school and evangelistic efforts.
context_section_description: The Scottish churches were relatively late in taking up the challenge of foreign missions, but they came to  embrace it enthusiastically. They were among the leading forces in European and American activity in India, sub-Saharan Africa, the West Indies, China and the New Hebrides, and missionary work became one of their major contributions to the business of Empire. Most missionaries worked within either a medical or educational context, establishing schools, universities and hospitals. Scottish missionary efforts were fuelled by the rivalry between different denominations in Scotland, and may have helped distract from problems at home. The missions were popularised at home by publications and illustrations, often particularly designed to appeal to children, and through the new medium of the magic lantern show, shown to audiences in church halls throughout the country.
  Scottish foreign missionary work was mainly undertaken by small, local organisations that were often inter-denominational. The most important was the Edinburgh Missionary Society (EMS, later the Scottish Missionary Society, SMS) and the Glasgow Missionary Society (GMS). Both societies began their work in Sierra Leone in 1797, but the efforts failed and were rapidly abandoned. The societies then worked as associated societies of the London Missionary Society (LMS), through which most Scottish missionaries would be sponsored until the mid-nineteenth century. Scottish missionaries sponsored by the LMS included Robert Moffat (1795–1883). He arrived in Cape Colony in 1817, later to be joined by his wife Mary, and where he worked with Dutch Reformed minister George Thom. The GMS did not resume its direct work abroad until the 1820s after a visit from Thom built up their enthusiasm. They dispatched several missionaries to the Cape, including John Ross (1799–78), the first minister set apart for foreign missionary work by the Church of Scotland, who arrived in 1823. They joined John Brownlee (1791–1871), a Scottish missionary of the LMS, who had founded a station at Tyhume. Ross founded another, later known as Lovedale.
  The most famous Scottish missionary, David Livingstone, was funded by the London Missionary Society. After his "disappearance" and death in the 1870s he became an icon of evangelic outreach, self-improvement, exploration and a form of colonialism. The legacy of Livingstone can be seen in the names of many mission stations founded following his example, such as Blantyre (the place of Livingstone's birth) for the Church of Scotland and Livingstonia, headed for more than fifty years by Robert Laws (1851–1934) for the Free Church, both now in Malawi.
  Women also played a major role. Initially this was as the wives of male missionaries, as was the case with Mary Moffat, the daughter of Mary and Robert Moffat, who married Livingstone in 1845. Increasingly single women began to act as missionaries in their own right, often as teachers. Former Millworker Mary Slessor (1848–1919) spent 28 years as a United Presbyterian missionary in Calabar in modern Nigeria. Arriving in 1876, she combated cruelty and superstition, earning the title of Eka Kpukpro, Mother of All the Tribes.
  In India Alexander Duff (1806–78), who arrived in Calcutta in 1830, played a major part in the development of higher education and the conversion of higher caste Indians. After the Great Disruption many of the staff from the established Church of Scotland's India mission joined the Free Church. Patrick Manson (1844–1922), who worked in China, is considered by many to be the father of modern tropical medicine. In Japan Scottish missionaries enjoyed some success and Henry Faulds (1843–1930) helped implement major advances in medicine under the Meiji. Members of the Free Church became associated with the colonisation of New Zealand: the Free Church offshoot the Otago Association sent out emigrants in 1847 who established the New Edinburgh or Otago settlement in 1848.
caption: Map of Church of Scotland Mission Fields, late nineteenth century
exif: {}