John Thomas Darragh was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin [1] who served as a priest and school master in the Anglican Church in South Africa in the late nineteenth century, at Kimberley and in Johannesburg, where he was the founder of St John's College.
Darragh was on the staff of St Cyprian's Church in Kimberley from at least 1881, when he contributed an article to the Quarterly Paper of the Free State Mission. In the early 1880s he placed services on a more regular footing at St Alban's, De Beers (a chapelry then of St Cyprian's), which met in the old De Beers Boardroom. In 1883 he was teaching at the St Cyprian’s Mission School accommodated in a tin house in Clarence Street, Kimberley: Darragh taught "the half-castes who nearly all spoke Dutch". He produced over 70 communicants from among the 200 pupils at the school. [2] Darragh also took classes, with Canon Gaul, at St Cyprian's Grammar School: "The idea was to keep the boys’ school in the first place among the Kimberley Schools."
In 1887 John Darragh went to the Gold Fields and laboured there for thirty years. He was appointed Rector of St Mary's Anglican Church in Eloff Street, Johannesburg. In 1898 he was responsible for the establishment of an Anglican school for boys, the St John's College, with his curate the Revd J.L. Hodgson as first Headmaster.
Whereas many English-speaking people were expelled from Johannesburg during the Anglo-Boer War, Darragh, as a priest, was allowed to remain and did so. [3]
An Anglo-Catholic opposition to the 1920 South African edition of the Book of Common Prayer was led by Darragh. [4]
Kimberley is the capital and largest city of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is located approximately 110 km east of the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The city has considerable historical significance due to its diamond mining past and the siege during the Second Anglo-Boer war. British businessmen Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato made their fortunes in Kimberley, and Rhodes established the De Beers diamond company in the early days of the mining town.
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.
Wilfrid Gore Browne was an Anglican bishop, the first Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman from 1912 to 1928. He was described as a saintly bishop with "a keen sense of humour" and "a winning courtesy."
Theodore Sumner Gibson (1885–1953) was the second Anglican Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman and subsequently the fifth Bishop of St John's from (collectively) 1928 until 1951.
Oswald Peter Patrick Swartz is a South African Anglican bishop. He was the twelfth Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman.
Kenneth Cyril Oram AKC was an Anglican clergyman who served as Dean of Kimberley and of Grahamstown before his elevation to the episcopacy as Bishop of Grahamstown, 1974 to 1987.
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 Bulmer Maude was an Anglican priest in the last third of the nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth.
The Perseverance School, Kimberley, was founded as such in 1883 but might be seen as having arisen from the St Cyprian's Mission School dating back to the early 1870s. Until 1917 it was officially called St Cyprian’s (E.C.) Mission School, although known as Perseverance from 1884. For part of its history it was referred to in the plural as Perseverance Schools, after a teacher-training section was established; and latterly the name applied principally to the teacher training college, Perseverance College, in Barkly Road, Kimberley.
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.
The Reverend Canon Robin Roy Snyman was a priest in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, who served as Dean of Kimberley and rector of St Cyprian’s Cathedral, and afterwards was Vice-Provost at the Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin, Port Elizabeth. He was born at Waterval Boven, in what is now Mpumalanga in 1934. He died in Port Elizabeth on 15 September 2020.
The Very Revd John Ranulph Vincent was Dean of Bloemfontein, in South Africa, from 1892; and afterwards of Grahamstown, 1912–1914.
The Venerable Fr George Merwyn Lawson (1865–1945) served as archdeacon of Kuruman, 1913–1941, in the Anglican Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman, and as Director of Missions for Griqualand West from 1903 until his death.
The Revd W. P. Hanbury was Rector of St Cyprian’s Church, Kimberley on the South African Diamond Fields, 1882–1884.
Justus Mauritius Marcus was a South African Anglican bishop. He was Regional Bishop of Saldanha Bay in the Diocese of Cape Town from 2002 to 2003, having served as Dean of Kimberley and Rector of St Cyprian's Cathedral from 1992 to 2002. He died from cancer, aged 48, on 1 December 2003. Marcus was predeceased by his first wife, Milly. His second wife and widow is Sarah Rowland Jones, a fellow priest who then fulfilled a research ministry in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa at the behest of two successive Archbishops of Cape Town before returning to Wales in late 2013.
Brian Victor Beck, an Anglican priest in South Africa, served as Dean of Kimberley from 2003 to 2010. He is an Honorary Canon of St Cyprian's Cathedral.
