The Revd George Mitchell was a missionary priest of the Anglican Church serving in the Free State, South Africa, from 1864, and afterwards at Kimberley, who pioneered early translation of liturgical Epistles and Gospels and portions of the Book of Common Prayer into Setswana. [1] [2] He was born near Mintford in England in 1835 and died in Kimberley, South Africa.
Mitchell attended St Augustine's College in Canterbury, where he became acquainted with fellow student Samuel Moroka, son of the Barolong ruler of Thaba 'Nchu, South Africa. He determined to take up missionary work at Thaba 'Nchu and accompanied Moroka to South Africa, arriving at Bloemfontein in November 1864. [1]
Mitchell became part of the burgeoning first generation of Anglican church workers to join the new Diocese of Bloemfontein, formed under its inaugural bishop, Edward Twells, in 1863. [3] Within a month of his arrival, on 18 December 1864, Mitchell was ordained deacon, in Bloemfontein, and he took up residence at Thaba ‘Nchu on 10 May the following year. [1]
Thaba 'Nchu was at the time the capital of an independent Barolong polity within the Free State, ruled by Kgosi (Chief) Moroka II (it was annexed to the Free State in 1884 following the death of Moroka’s adopted son and successor Tshipinare). [3] In a report of June 1865 Twells recorded that Mitchell was “studying the language” (SeTswana) and “commencing the mission work”. [3] Deacon Mitchell was recalled to Bloemfontein in 1867, to extend work there through the newly established St Patrick's mission.
Mitchell was ordained by Twells to the priesthood on Trinity Sunday 1869 - the first occasion of the ordering of a priest in the diocese – and was sent to assist Canon Beckett of the Brotherhood of St Augustine, who was at Thaba 'Nchu prior to the brotherhood's relocation to Modderpoort. [1] For a time Mitchell ran the mission at Thaba 'Nchu unassisted.
The Revd William Crisp joined the mission at Thaba 'Nchu, where Mitchell continued until 1880 – save for a period when he visited England. [2] [1]
In 1880 Mitchell was appointed to a new mission at Kimberley, then still part of the Diocese of Bloemfontein, where he served the mining compounds and co-founded the parish of St Matthew's, Barkly Road. He remained in Kimberley in his retirement and was still active as a priest in what was by then the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman in 1913. [2]
St Matthew's was founded jointly by Mitchell and Canon W.H.R. Bevan. In 1882 Mitchell secured the land on which the church was to be built. It was erected in 1888 and dedicated by the Bishop of Bloemfontein on 2 June 1889. [4]
As he mastered the Serolong (Setswana) language, Mitchell prepared translations of the liturgical Epistles and Gospels and portions of the Book of Common Prayer. These were printed on the mission press at Thaba 'Nchu in 1875. They were “revised and greatly enlarged in their scope” by William Crisp. [2]
Barolong is a tribe of Tswana people from Botswana and South Africa. Their King, Tau was the descendant of King Morolong who is the founder of Barolong tribe. He reigned around 1240 and adopted Tholo as the Barolong totem. King Tau was a warrior king who reigned around 1660. He fought many battles and consolidated the Barolong tribe to become a very strong kingdom. He had many wives and begot many sons and daughters. The prominent four sons are Ratlou, Tshidi, Seleka and Rapulana. The Barolong tribe later used the names of the warrior King Tau's sons as their clan names. The Barolong tribe spread across the regions covering Botswana, through to Transvaal, Northern Cape and Free State. Its important to note that King Tau’s heir to the throne was Ratlou. After the death of King Tau in Taung, to which Taung is named after, Barolong left Taung under Nthua, the younger brother of Tau. They settled in Dithakwaneng, and later, Dithakong, where Nthua died and was buried. Ratlou and the tribe left Dithakong for Mamusa, and later settled in their former capital I.e. Setlagole. This is the place where the kingship of Barolong disintegrated into a number of clans, after Tau's sons. This is after the death of Ratlou. He (Ratlou) had four sons i.e. Mariba, Seitshiro, Mokalake and Moirwagale. Two of these sons fought for the throne, with Mokalake supporting Mariba while Moirwagale supported Seitshiro. Moirwagale became the Regent for Seitshiro while Mokalake became one for Mariba. Finally Barolong disintegrated into four clans, and later five. Their final settlements are as follows; Ratlou; Mariba (Ganyesa); Seitshiro (Khunwana); Tshidi and Makgetla-Mahikeng; Seleka-Thaba nchu; Rapulana-Bodibe.
Thaba 'Nchu, also known as Blesberg, is a town in Free State, South Africa, 63 km east of Bloemfontein and 17 km east of Botshabelo. The population is largely made up of Tswana and Sotho people. The town was settled in December 1833 and officially established in 1873. The town grew larger following the 1913 Natives' Land Act that declared the area a homeland for the Tswana people.
The Community of St Michael and All Angels was an Anglican religious order of nuns in South Africa. The Community was founded by Allan Webb, the second Bishop of Bloemfontein in 1874 – although the idea was first mooted by Webb's predecessor, Edward Twells. In a letter he'd written in 1868, Twells highlighted the need for a Sisterhood to set up schools for girls in Bloemfontein.
The Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman is a diocese in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and encompasses the area around Kimberley and Kuruman and overlaps the Northern Cape Province and North West Province of South Africa. It is presided over by the Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman, until recently Ossie Swartz. On 19 September 2021 the Electoral College of Bishops elected to translate the Right Revd Brian Marajh of George to become the 13th Bishop of Kimberley & Kuruman. The seat of the Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman is at St Cyprian's Cathedral, Kimberley. There had been so far 12 bishops of the See, though one of these served for two different periods of time.
Oswald Peter Patrick Swartz is a South African Anglican bishop. He was the twelfth Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman.
The Diocese of the Free State is a diocese in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.
The Cathedral Church of St Cyprian the Martyr, Kimberley, is the seat of the Bishop of the Kimberley and Kuruman, Anglican Church of Southern Africa. The building was dedicated in 1908, becoming a Cathedral when the Synod of Bishops mandated formation of the new Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman in October 1911. The first Bishop, the Rt Revd Wilfrid Gore Browne, was enthroned there on 30 June 1912.
William Thomas Gaul (1850–1927) was Rector of All Saints Church, Du Toit's Pan, Kimberley, afterwards of St Cyprian's Church, Kimberley, Rural Dean of Griqualand West, and Archdeacon in what was still the Diocese of Bloemfontein, before being elected the second Bishop of Mashonaland, where he styled himself "the smallest bishop with the largest diocese in Christendom." He officiated at the funeral of Cecil John Rhodes and helped draft the Rhodes Trust Deed.
John Witherston Rickards, priest, founded the Anglican Parish of St Cyprian the Martyr at New Rush, Kimberley, on the South African Diamond Fields, in 1871. He served a curacy at St Cyprian's, Marylebone, London, and following his time in South Africa he was vicar of Dixton in Monmouthshire, from 1886 until his death in 1921.
Neville Arthur Blachley Borton, M.A., was the second rector of St Cyprian's Church, Kimberley, South Africa, serving from 1876–77, being successor to Fr John Witherston Rickards. He afterwards ran a small church school at St Mary's Barkly West, was appointed principal of St Andrew's, Bloemfontein, and subsequently Vicar of Burwell, Cambridge, where he served until 1920.
Charles Oswald Miles was an Anglican priest.
Sister Henrietta, CSM and AA was a British nursing pioneer and Anglican religious sister. Through her influence and pressure the first state registration of nurses and midwives in the world was brought about when the Cape of Good Hope Medical and Pharmacy Act of 1891 passed into law. She was a member of the Anglican Community of St Michael and All Angels.
Allan Becher Webb was the second Anglican Bishop of Bloemfontein, afterward Bishop of Grahamstown and, later, Dean of Salisbury.
Edward Twells was the first Bishop of Bloemfontein in South Africa from 1863 to 1869. He was the younger brother of Henry Twells. He died at the age of 70 at his house, Pembrokegate, at Clifton, Bristol.
The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Barkly West, was for some years the principal Anglican parish on the Diamond Fields, South Africa, and the churches established soon afterwards at the Dry Diggings – what would become Kimberley – were at first mere outstations.
The Brotherhood of St Augustine of Hippo was an Anglican brotherhood founded in the Orange Free State, South Africa in 1867, and was based at Modderpoort from 1869, in the Diocese of Bloemfontein.
Simon Mark Aiken is Dean of Benoni and rector of St Dunstan's Cathedral in the Diocese of the Highveld. He was previously the 12th Dean of Kimberley and rector of St Cyprian's Cathedral, Kimberley, in the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman in South Africa. Born in England in 1962, he went to South Africa in 2006, initially as subdean at Bloemfontein Cathedral.
Former religious orders in the churches of the Anglican Communion are those communities of monks, nuns, friars, or sisters, having a common life and rule under vows, whose work has ended and whose community has been disbanded. In a very few cases this is due to the termination of the work for which the community was established, but in most cases it is due to amalgamation or the death of the final remaining member of the community.
The Revd William Crisp was a missionary priest of the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Bloemfontein, South Africa, who served there from the mid-1860s. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel described him as “the first and greatest apostle of the native races” in the central part of South Africa, who, it added, “had sympathy with the native point of view”. Crisp was born at Southwold, England, in 1842. He died in Cape Town in 1910.
Walton Zacharias Fenyang was a South African politician. He was a central figure of the political establishment of Thaba Nchu as an independent reserve in South Africa. He was one of the Barolong members of the Thaba Nchu board.
