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The letters of Rev. Phillip Quaque, 1766-1811

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  • Metadata Key Metadata Values
    Title Indigenous Cultures and Christian Conversion in Ghana and Sierra Leone, 1700–1850
    Rights Images © 2009 Microform Academic Publishers. All rights reserved.
    Description

    Indigenous Cultures and Christian Conversion in Ghana and Sierra Leone, 1700–1850 was curated in association with the Bodleian Library. 

    This collection contains records compiled by the United Society Partners in the Gospel (USPG), a UK-based Anglican missionary organisation that operates globally. From the eighteenth to the early twentieth century the USPG went by the name of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG). 

    This collection contains letters and supplementary material compiled by the organisation’s West African branches during the period 1700–1850. It includes the papers of Thomas Perronet Thompson, the first governor of the Colony of Sierra Leone, and those of Rev. Phillip Quaque, the first African to be ordained a minister of the Church of England. The collection contains a variety of sources that evidence the continuation of the slave trade. There is also material on the influential Rio Pongas mission conducted by the West Indian Church. The documents in this collection grant insights into the nature of British colonialism, the process of Christian conversion, and the functioning of the slave trade in West Africa.
    ISBN 9781851172047
    Contributor Rhodes House Library; Hull History Centre; Bodleian Library
    Type collection
    Format jpg
    Identifier https://britishonlinearchives.com/collections/10/indigenous-cultures-and-christian-conversion-in-ghana-and-sierra-leone-1700-1850
    Source
    Creator
    Language
    Publisher Microform Academic Publishers
    Coverage 1700-1850
    Created On 17th November, 2009 - 3:58pm
    Last Updated 18th November, 2025 - 11:40am
  • Metadata Key Metadata Values
    Title Miscellaneous materials from the USPG archives
    Rights Content © USPG; images © Microform Academic Publishers, 2009. All rights reserved.
    Description

    In January 1752 Reverend Thomas Thompson arrived at James Fort on the Gambia river. This marked the launch of the first mission by The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in West Africa (more than fifty years after its incorporation by royal charter during the reign of William III). From 1766 onwards, the mission was overseen by the Reverend Philip Quaque, the first African to be ordained into the priesthood of the Church of England. Although an Anglican bishopric of Sierra Leone was established by the Church Mission Society in Freetown, there seems to have been a pause in SPG activity in the region following Quaque's death in 1811. This hiatus drew to a close during the mid-nineteenth century. This period witnessed the establishment of the West Indian Church Association for the Furtherance of the Gospel in Western Africa and its mission to the Rio Pongas.
    ISBN 72047-SPG
    Contributor Bodleian Library; Rhodes House Library;
    Type collection
    Format jpg
    Identifier https://britishonlinearchives.com/collections/1456/volumes/18/miscellaneous-materials-from-the-uspg-archives
    Source
    Creator
    Language eng
    Publisher Microform Academic Publishers
    Coverage 1752-1865
    Created On 17th November, 2009 - 3:59pm
    Last Updated 6th January, 2025 - 5:16pm
  • Metadata Key Metadata Values
    Title The letters of Rev. Phillip Quaque, 1766-1811
    Rights Content © USPG; images © Microform Academic Publishers, 2009. All rights reserved.
    Archive Reference
    Shelfmark
    Description Philip Quaque (now spelt, Kwaku or Kweku) was the only one to survive of the three Cape Coast boys sent by the missionary Thomas Thompson to London to be educated at the Society's expense. He lived to be ordained first deacon (25 March 1765) and then priest (1 May 1765) in the Church of England, to marry in England, and to return to Cape Coast to continue Thompson's work. As the SPG's "Missionary, Catechist and Schoolmaster on the Cold Coast", Quaque was obliged to send regular reports of his activities to the Society in London. A surprisingly large number of these letters survive in the Society's archives. Some additional matter can also be seen in the Society's Journals, which record in great detail the minutes of the Society's meetings and of its committees, and especially correspondence with its Secretary. (We are largely dependent on the Journal for details of Thompson's dealings with the Society, his letters having apparently disappeared. Thompson did, however, publish a short book about his experiences in America and Africa, entitled An account of two missionary voyages.Reproduced here, after a letter from his tutor John Moore dated 15 January 1766, are all of Quaque's surviving letters and reports including, for instance, specimens of pupils' handwriting), with the exception of first letter, dated 29 February 1766, sent to the Society after his arrival at Cape Coast, describing his journey and reception. The letters are full of interest, containing, as they do, a picture of life in a semi-military, semi-trading, European fort on the African coast in the second half of the eighteenth century, as well as an impression of African life and customs seen through the eyes of an African whose formative years had been spent in Dr Johnson's London. Quaque also had plenty to say about his personal troubles, his three marriages, his worries about the education of children, his fears, as an old man, that his widow would not be adequately supported by her stepchildren, and his difficulties with insolent or irreligious European governors and officers.Quaque seems to have been a lonely and unfortunate man and, when he died in 1811, left no immediate successors. His own church, which was largely dormant in the Gold Coast during the century after his death, is now active and vigorous and almost entirely African. It looks back with pride on the apparently unsuccessful Philip Quaque as a faithful pioneer, the first non-European priest in the history of the Anglican Communion.
    ISBN 72047-SPG-1765
    Contributor Rhodes House Library
    Type collection
    Format jpg
    Identifier https://britishonlinearchives.com/documents/1456/the-letters-of-rev-phillip-quaque-1766-1811
    Source Miscellaneous materials from the Society for the P
    Creator
    Language eng
    Publisher Microform Academic Publishers
    Coverage 1766-1811
    Created On 17th November, 2009 - 4:00pm
    Last Updated 1st June, 2025 - 12:35pm
  • Metadata Key Metadata Values
    Title img 1:
    Rights Content © USPG; images © Microform Academic Publishers, 2009. All rights reserved.
    Archive Reference
    Shelfmark
    Description Philip Quaque (now spelt, Kwaku or Kweku) was the only one to survive of the three Cape Coast boys sent by the missionary Thomas Thompson to London to be educated at the Society's expense. He lived to be ordained first deacon (25 March 1765) and then priest (1 May 1765) in the Church of England, to marry in England, and to return to Cape Coast to continue Thompson's work. As the SPG's "Missionary, Catechist and Schoolmaster on the Cold Coast", Quaque was obliged to send regular reports of his activities to the Society in London. A surprisingly large number of these letters survive in the Society's archives. Some additional matter can also be seen in the Society's Journals, which record in great detail the minutes of the Society's meetings and of its committees, and especially correspondence with its Secretary. (We are largely dependent on the Journal for details of Thompson's dealings with the Society, his letters having apparently disappeared. Thompson did, however, publish a short book about his experiences in America and Africa, entitled An account of two missionary voyages.Reproduced here, after a letter from his tutor John Moore dated 15 January 1766, are all of Quaque's surviving letters and reports including, for instance, specimens of pupils' handwriting), with the exception of first letter, dated 29 February 1766, sent to the Society after his arrival at Cape Coast, describing his journey and reception. The letters are full of interest, containing, as they do, a picture of life in a semi-military, semi-trading, European fort on the African coast in the second half of the eighteenth century, as well as an impression of African life and customs seen through the eyes of an African whose formative years had been spent in Dr Johnson's London. Quaque also had plenty to say about his personal troubles, his three marriages, his worries about the education of children, his fears, as an old man, that his widow would not be adequately supported by her stepchildren, and his difficulties with insolent or irreligious European governors and officers.Quaque seems to have been a lonely and unfortunate man and, when he died in 1811, left no immediate successors. His own church, which was largely dormant in the Gold Coast during the century after his death, is now active and vigorous and almost entirely African. It looks back with pride on the apparently unsuccessful Philip Quaque as a faithful pioneer, the first non-European priest in the history of the Anglican Communion.
    text Fe 1766. Jan 15th Rw John Moore ( u. & N.B. )th 7yrs Tutor to the 2 hegro boy, Kev. the Thompion in 1756. brought from by (2mm Cudgo has become a lunatic) 7
    ISBN 72047-SPG-1765
    Contributor Rhodes House Library
    Type collection
    Format jpg
    Identifier https://britishonlinearchives.com/documents/1456/the-letters-of-rev-phillip-quaque-1766-1811
    Source Miscellaneous materials from the Society for the P
    Creator
    Language eng
    Publisher Microform Academic Publishers
    Coverage 1766-1811
    Created On 17th November, 2009 - 4:00pm
    Last Updated 1st June, 2025 - 12:35pm
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Documents in this VolumeView all

Licensed to access An account of two missionary voyages

1745   1758
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Licensed to access The letters of Rev. Phillip Quaque, 1766-1811

1766   1811
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Licensed to access Report of the West Indian Church Association

1852   1853
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Licensed to access The beginning of Africanisation

1752   1865
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Volumes in this CollectionView all

Licensed to access Miscellaneous materials from the USPG archives

1752   1865
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Licensed to access Papers of Thomas Perronet Thompson relating to Sierra Leone

1804   1838
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