Microcosm of a missionary library – Church Missionary Society, New Zealand, 1824.

Yesterday, I came across this fascinating little insight into the reading world of an early nineteenth century, evangelical missionary. Recorded in Missionary Committee minutes of meeting is the following little window on this world:

Mr [Henry] Williams reports that Mr [Thomas] Kendall has delivered at his Station [Paihia] the following Books belonging to the Society:

Encyclopedia [Britannica?]

Newtons Works [Sir Isaac Newton, obviously]

Henry’s Bible [Matthew Henry’s commentary on whole Bible, c. 1706]

Leighton

Doddridge’s Rise & Progress [of Religion in the Soul, 1745]

Do Family Expositor [“Do” is Philip Doddridge, 6 vols., 1739–1756]

Milner’s Works [Joseph Milner, probably]

Robinson’s Scripture Characters

Robinson’s Scripture Essays  3 vols

Fox’s Martyrs  1 vol 

Missionary Registers

Life of Colonel Gardner  1 vol [also by P. Doddridge]

Cennick’s Discourses  2 vols [John Cennick, Twenty Discourses..., 1790]

Missionary Anecdotes 1 vol

Three Dozen of Spelling Books [probably for Māori school pupils]

I have only partly annotated this; not all of the names here are well known today, but the mix of natural science (Newton) and general knowledge (Encyclopedia) with Bible commentaries (Matthew Henry), church history, contemporary missionary journals (Missionary Register), and Nonconformist, puritan classics (Doddridge), and the classic Christian martyrology (Fox) paints a little picture of the intellectual world of the missions: learned, Enlightened even, and most definitely, devout.

Not that they had too much time for reading once they were on the whenua in Aotearoa NZ – but that’s another story!

Here’s the original page from the minutes: