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The West Indies in Records from Colonial Missionaries, 1704–1950 - Volumes
Volumes
7 volumes in The West Indies in Records from Colonial Missionaries, 1704–1950
C series materials, 1714–1908
The documents in this volume are divided into five sections: the Bahamas, Barbados (including the Codrington estate), British Guiana and Honduras (Central America and the Mosquito Coast), Jamaica, and Trinidad. Read more →
Copies of letters received
This volume contains letters received by the SPG headquarters from missionaries in the West Indies. The letters are divided into documents based on geographical location and cover the period 1835–1928. Read more →
Copies of letters sent
This volume contains letters sent by the SPG headquarters to missionaries in the West Indies. The letters are divided into documents based on the year that they were sent and cover the period 1834–1931. Read more →
The Codrington collection, 1704–1898
Christopher Codrington, who died in 1710, bequeathed the SPG two plantations in Barbados “to maintain a convenient number of professors and scholars”. Bishop William Fleetwood viewed the gift as the foundation for a college devoted to the education of black children. In Britain, there were plans drawn up for the proposed college and construction started in 1717. The funds for construction came from the two plantations. It was not until 1745, however, that the college opened under Thomas Rotherham and established itself as a grammar school for white boys only. This was far from the intention of the college as it was originally conceived. It was not until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when John Hothersall Pinder was appointed catechist, that the religious education of black children began at Codrington. The funds from the two estates were not sufficient and the school closed in 1775. When it reopened in 1797 under Mark Nicholson, who remained college president for the next 24 years, the SPG faced renewed pressure from elements in Britain to take a more active role in the conversion of enslaved children to Christianity. In 1824, William Hart Coleridge was appointed the first Bishop of Barbados. Coleridge was anxious to improve education. Under his guidance, the scope of educational policies widened extensively. Thus, in 1830 he opened a new Codrington College for training candidates for the Anglican ministry. The old grammar school continued, as the Lodge School. Following the Emancipation Act of 1834, greater efforts were made to educate black children and to build schools for the newly emancipated. Far from the intention of the original college, the founding of the grammar school served to help establish a “gentry” in Barbados. On the other hand, the problem of gaining recruits for the theological college was to prove grave. Thus, whilst the schools in Barbados flourished, Codrington College fell on hard times after 1887 and only the celebration of the SPG bicentenary in 1901 revived its fortunes. Arthur Henry Anstey was appointed principal and proved a great success. After 1955 the Community of the Resurrection took over the running of Codrington College. Read more →
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