“It’s Really Where Your Parents Were”

Abstract

This essay focuses on early twentieth-century missionary British world missionary children and their families to provide a point of comparison with an existing body of work on nineteenth-century missionary children. Through a case study approach, focusing on two Presbyterian missionary families (Scottish and New Zealand) and using both written and oral sources, it asks how we might usefully historicize their lives. The case studies indicate that early twentieth-century children's historical lives were primarily framed within the religiously defined narratives of the missionary family-albeit narratives that varied depending on geographical, cultural, theological, and temporal contexts or with respect to points of family origin-and that these narratives were articulated differently from children's and parents' perspectives. While family is central to the analysis, the article makes a case for attending to the voices of both children and parents, within broader historiographical and historical contexts.

Introduction

“…There is a growing interest in oral history as a method in mission historiography. Oral history has been widely employed to supplement existing data with voices that are typically omitted from the mission archives; in general, the focus has been on silenced voices of people within the Christian fold, such as indigenous workers, women in mission or missionary women and children (Benson 2015;Morrison 2017;Phiri 2000;Verstraelen-Gilhuis 1982). Oral history however could prove a valuable tool in documenting the reception (or rejection) of Christian mission.…”

“…A derivative from approaches centring women and gender, there is a strand of research that focusses on the missionary family as a form of performative mission, embodying the nuclear modern family, and "demonstrating exemplary domestic Christianity to missionary subjects" (Morrison 2017: 431). As part of this approach, research has been conducted into missionary children (Hillel 2011;Manktelow 2016Manktelow , 2017Miller 2012;Morrison 2017) as well as in cases of deviance that permeate the clear-cut boundaries between missionary and 'the other' (Manktelow 2012(Manktelow , 2014(Manktelow , 2015(Manktelow , 2017.…”

‘It is well with the child’: Changing Views on Protestant Missionary Children's Health, 1870s–1930s

“…Missionary children lived where they lived as a consequence of their parents' religious dispositions, motivations and decisions; albeit shaped further by their various imperial or colonial contexts. 30 In this regard John W. de Gruchy insightfully links parents' religious vocation with children's health experiences, among other things, when he asks what children might have thought about their parents' motivations: 'That is surely an interesting subject for consideration and research, not least because of everything children had to endure for the sake of the missionary cause, many not surviving to tell the tale.' 31 As overall missionary numbers surged from the late nineteenth century, 32 so too did the numbers of their children.…”