Joseph Merrick (missionary)

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Joseph Merrick at an Isubu funeral in Bimbia, 1845

Joseph Merrick (August 1808 – 22 October 1849) was a Jamaican Baptist missionary who, assisted by Joseph Jackson Fuller, established the first successful mission on the Cameroon coast of Africa.

Biography[]

Merrick was born in August 1808 in Jamaica.[1]

Merrick began preaching in 1837 in Jamaica[2] and was ordained a full missionary in 1838.[3] In 1842, Reverend and Dr. , members of the Baptist Missionary Society of London, were seeking Jamaican lay missionaries to join them on an expedition to the Cameroon coast. Merrick signed on.[4] The party reached England on 8 September 1842,[5] and arrived at Spanish-controlled Santa Isabel on the island of Fernando Po in 1843.[3]

Ministry[]

The following year, 1844, Merrick visited Bimbia and spoke to King William of the Isubu people to request permission to establish a church on the mainland. Despite some initial resistance, the king acquiesced. Merrick founded the Jubilee Mission in 1844/5,[3] and over the next four to five years, translated parts of the New Testament into the Isubu language,[2] set up a brick-making machine and a printing press, and used the latter to publish his Bible translation and a textbook for teaching in Isubu. Merrick made excursions into the interior, as when he climbed Mount Cameroon and when he became the first non-African to visit the Bakoko people.[6]

In 1849, Merrick was in ill health. He set off for England on furlough, and on 22 October, he died at sea.[3] On Merrick's death, Joseph Jackson Fuller took charge of the mission station and congregation at Bimbia. Merrick's efforts also paved the way for Alfred Saker to make further progress - he made use of Merrick's printing press to translate and print the Bible in Duala.[7] Joseph Merrick Baptist College in Ndu, Northwest Province, Cameroon, is named for him.[6]

Notes[]

  1. ^ Mark Dike DeLancey, Rebecca Neh Mbuh, Mark W. Delancey, Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon, Scarecrow Press, USA, 2010, p. 245
  2. ^ a b Ngoh 352.
  3. ^ a b c d Fanso 102.
  4. ^ DeLancey and DeLancey 45; Fanso 101–2.
  5. ^ Ngoh 49.
  6. ^ a b DeLancey and DeLancey 174.
  7. ^ DeLancey and DeLancey 174; Ngoh 69.

References[]

  • DeLancey, Mark W., and Mark Dike DeLancey (2000): Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon (3rd ed.). Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press.
  • Fanso, V. G. (1989). Cameroon History for Secondary Schools and Colleges, Vol. 1: From Prehistoric Times to the Nineteenth Century. Hong Kong: Macmillan Education Ltd.
  • Ngoh, Victor Julius (1996). History of Cameroon Since 1800. Limbe: Presbook.
  • Sundkler, B. & Steed, C. (1993) A History of the Christian Church in Africa
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