The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed in outlook, with Congregational missions in Oceania, Africa, and the Americas, although there were also Presbyterians (notable for their work in China), Methodists, Baptists, and various other Protestants involved. It now forms part of the Council for World Mission.
The Rova of Antananarivo /ˈruːvə/ (Malagasy: Rovan'i Manjakamiadana [ˈruvᵊn manˌdzakəmiˈadə̥nᵊ]) is a royal palace complex (rova) in Madagascar that served as the home of the sovereigns of the Kingdom of Imerina in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as of the rulers of the Kingdom of Madagascar in the 19th century. Its counterpart is the nearby fortified village of Ambohimanga, which served as the spiritual seat of the kingdom in contrast to the political significance of the Rova in the capital. Located in the central highland city of Antananarivo, the Rova occupies the highest point on Analamanga, formerly the highest of Antananarivo's many hills. Merina king Andrianjaka, who ruled Imerina from around 1610 until 1630, is believed to have captured Analamanga from a Vazimba king around 1610 or 1625 and erected the site's first fortified royal structure. Successive Merina kings continued to rule from the site until the fall of the monarchy in 1896, frequently restoring, modifying or adding royal structures within the compound to suit their needs.
Over time, the number of buildings within the site varied. Andrianjaka founded the Rova with three buildings and a dedicated tomb site in the early 17th century. The number of structures rose to approximately twenty during the late 18th-century reign of King Andrianampoinimerina. By the late 20th century, the Rova's structures had been reduced to eleven, representing various architectural styles and historical periods. The largest and most prominent of these was Manjakamiadana, also known as the "Queen's Palace" after Queen Ranavalona I, for whom the original wooden palace was built between 1839 and 1841 by Frenchman Jean Laborde. In 1867 the palace was encased in stone for Queen Ranavalona II by Scotsman James Cameron, an artisan missionary of the London Missionary Society. The neighbouring Tranovola, a smaller wooden palace constructed in 1819 by Creole trader Louis Gros for King Radama I, was the first multi-story building with verandas in the Rova. The model offered by Tranovola transformed architecture throughout the highlands over the course of the 19th century, inspiring a widespread shift toward two-storey houses with verandas. The Rova grounds also contained a cross-shaped wooden house (Manampisoa) built as the private residence of Queen Rasoherina, a stone Protestant chapel (Fiangonana), nine royal tombs, and a number of named wooden houses built in the traditional style reserved for the andriana (nobles) in Imerina. Among the most significant of these were Besakana, erected in the early 17th century by Andrianjaka and considered the throne of the kingdom, and Mahitsielafanjaka, a later building which came to represent the seat of ancestral spiritual authority at the Rova.
Basil Joseph Mathews (28 August 1879 – 29 March 1951) was an English historian, biographer, and writer on the ecumenical movement.
In his early life, Mathews was a librarian, a journalist, and Editorial Secretary of the London Missionary Society. During the First World War he worked for the Ministry of Information.
Tahitian (autonym: reo Tahiti, pronounced [ˈreo tahiti], part of reo Māʼohi, [ˈreo ˈmaːʔohi], languages of French Polynesia) is a Polynesian language, spoken mainly on the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It belongs to the Eastern Polynesian group.
As Tahitian had no written tradition before the arrival of the Western colonists, the spoken language was first transcribed by missionaries of the London Missionary Society in the early 19th century.
Ranavalona I (born Rabodonandrianampoinimerina; 1778–16 August 1861), also known as Ramavo or Ranavalo-Manjaka I or Ranavalona reniny, was the sovereign of the Kingdom of Madagascar from 1828 to 1861. After positioning herself as queen following the death of her young husband Radama I, she pursued a policy of isolationism and self-sufficiency. She sought reduced economic and political ties with European powers and took vigorous measures to eradicate the small but growing Malagasy Christian movement initiated under Radama I by members of the London Missionary Society.
Ranavalona made heavy use of the traditional practice of fanompoana (forced labor as tax payment) to complete public works projects and develop an army. She had a standing army of between 20,000 and 30,000 Merina soldiers, whom she deployed to pacify outlying regions of the island and further expand the realm. The combination of regular warfare, slavery, disease, difficult forced labor and the practice of tangena (a harsh trial by ordeal using a poisonous nut from the Cerbera manghas tree) resulted in a high mortality rate among both soldiers and civilians during her 33-year reign, reducing Madagascar's population from 5 million in 1833 to 2.5 million in 1839.
James Cameron (1799–1875) was a 19th-century British artisan missionary with a background in carpentry who, over the course of twenty-three years of service in Madagascar with the London Missionary Society (1826–1835; 1861–1875), played a major role in the Christianisation and industrialisation of that island state, then under the rule of the Merina monarchy.
Radama I "the Great" (c. 1793–1828) was the first Malagasy sovereign to be recognized as King of Madagascar (1810–1828) by a European state, Great Britain. He came to power at the age of 17 following the death of his father, King Andrianampoinimerina.
Under Radama's rule and at his invitation, the first Europeans entered his central highland Kingdom of Imerina and its capital at Antananarivo. Radama encouraged these London Missionary Society envoys to establish schools to teach tradecraft and literacy to nobles and potential military and civil service recruits. They also introduced Christianity and taught literacy using the translated Bible.
David Livingstone (/ˈlɪvɪŋstən/; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish doctor, Congregationalist, pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, and an explorer in Africa. Livingstone was married to Mary Moffat Livingstone, from the prominent 18th-century Moffat missionary family. Livingstone came to have a mythic status as a Protestant missionary martyr, working-class "rags-to-riches" inspirational story, scientific investigator and explorer, imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of British commercial and colonial expansion. As a result, he became one of the most popular British heroes of the late 19th-century Victorian era.
Livingstone's fame as an explorer and his obsession with learning the sources of the Nile was founded on the belief that if he could solve that age-old mystery, his fame would give him the influence to end the East African Arab–Swahili slave trade. "The Nile sources", he told a friend, "are valuable only as a means of opening my mouth with power among men. It is this power [with] which I hope to remedy an immense evil." His subsequent exploration of the central African watershed was the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of Africa. At the same time, his missionary travels, "disappearance" and eventual death in Africa—and subsequent glorification as a posthumous national hero in 1874—led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European "Scramble for Africa", during which almost all of Africa fell under European rule for decades.
The Rhenish Missionary Society (Rhenish – of the river Rhine; German: Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft, RMG) was one of the largest Protestant missionary societies in Germany. Formed from smaller missions founded as far back as 1799, the Society was amalgamated on 23 September 1828, and its first missionaries were ordained and sent off to South Africa by the end of the year.
The London Missionary Society was already active in the area, and a closer working relationship was formed with them. The Society established its first mission station in the Cederberg in 1829, named Wupperthal, and predated the naming of the German city by 100 years.
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public university in Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as the University of Hong Kong in 1911. It is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong.
The university was established and proposed by Governor Sir Frederick Lugard in an effort to compete with the other Great Powers opening universities in China. The university's governance consists of three bodies: the Court, the Council, and the Senate. These three bodies all have their own separate roles. The Court acts as the overseeing and legislative body of the university, the Council acts as governing body of the University, and the Senate as the principal academic authority of the university.