Acknowledgements
I am heavily indebted to Jo Davies, who cast an informed critical eye over the whole manuscript and offered many helpful suggestions, on language and style as well as content. Being a gender and education specialist, not a historian, I found her guidance, insights and constructive criticisms invaluable, and her enthusiasm for historical research infectious.
I also have to thank my sister, Alison Smith, and longstanding friend, Liza Sandell, who both read and commented on clusters of chapters as they emerged.
I have taken inspiration from the Christian Missions in Global History seminar series at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, convened by Rosemary Seton and Deborah Gaitskell. Both provided invaluable advice on potentially useful contacts, while I learnt of new avenues of enquiry and new sources when attending the regular seminars.
I have been encouraged over the ten years that it has taken to finalise the book by my son, Alec, and by numerous friends and former colleagues. In particular I must thank Paul Bennell, who never failed to enquire about the book’s snail-like progress during my regular visits to Brighton.
I could not have completed this work without being granted generous access to the Special Collections at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, the Cadbury Research Library Special Collections at the University of Birmingham, and the archives of the University of Sierra Leone. Archivists in all three institutions were exceptionally generous with their time, expertise and patience. The University of Sussex, my last employer, facilitated my access to the above by honouring me with the title of professor emerita.
I am indebted to the following for facilitating my trip to Sierra Leone in 2011: Agnes Pessima, lecturer at the University of Sierra Leone and a former Masters student at the Institute of Education in London, for helping with access to her institution’s archives; the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny at Freetown for providing accommodation in their convent and for taking me to the ruins of the Christian Institution at Leicester Mount; and Augustine Mansare for his willingness to drive me on dangerously rutted roads around the mountain villages above Freetown.
I am grateful to the Cadbury Research Library at Birmingham University, SOAS, the Church Mission Society, the Nova Scotia Museum, the Clapham Society, Lambeth Archives, London Metropolitan Archives and the British Library for permission to use certain images in the book.
I must acknowledge the importance to my research of the British Library in London and the National Archives at Kew, both publicly funded institutions that provide free access to an extraordinarily rich resource of historical material. Without them, I could not have completed my research. Finally, I cannot omit to draw attention to the wealth of archive material now freely available on the internet, in particular in the Hathi Trust Digital Library and the Internet Archive. The internet has transformed historical research beyond recognition and without it my research for this book would have progressed much more slowly and the result been much the poorer.