CHAPTER EIGHT

THE ORDINATION OF THE FIRST CLERGY

In 1884 William Jones and lshmael Semler had been involved in the church in for twenty years. Their leadership had provided stability; they had taken initiatives in rnission and had been accepted as significant figures in the local community. Under their pastoral care the church had grown dramatically in numbers. But they had not yet been accepted into the ordained ministry; the early expectation of their ordination had not been fulfilled. In 1884 the first bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa was appointed. He was not to have long to exercise his episcopal ministry in his new diocese. The death of Bishop James Hannington on the orders of the Kabaka (king) of was a tragedy not only in the personal sense, but also for the development of the church in . Hannington arrived at Mombasa on 24 January 1885. On July 23 he set off with Mr Jones and a caravan of porters to go to . On 29 October he was killed, far from the coast, near to the River Nile. On 4 February 1886 Mr Jones led back into Rabai the caravan that had set out from there in July of the previous year. Bishop Hannington spent only six months on the coast of Kenya, scant time to achieve much. Moreover, he did not spend all this time at Mombasa, as he made several trips to other parts of his vast diocese. His major journey was the country of the waChagga. The bishop set out at the beginning of March and returned in mid April. From Mombasa he also made a visit to the fugitive slave settlement at Fulladoyo, with William Jones. So the actual time he spent at Frere Town was very short. Yet in this brief time, Bishop Hannington achieved at least one memorable act. He ordained the ·first African clergy. Hannington' s early death was a tragedy for the church, as his journals and correspondence reveal that he held a very positive attitude towards African leadership, and was determined to further it. Had he lived, the future of the mission and the ernerging church might have been different. Bishop Hannington had a vision for what could be achieved with African leadership and he was ready to trust those who were in leadership positions. Moreover, as bishop, he had the power to make the structural changes necessary to ensure the continuation of African participation in power. There was really no reason why William Jones and Ishmael Semler should not have been ordained earlier. They had been trained for ordination from an early age. It had been the expectation in the 1860s and 1870s that 96 CHAPTER EIGHT they would be admitted to holy orders and take leadership in the church. George David had also been prepared for ordination and had actually been spoken of as the future bishop. Jones and Semler had been given the expectation of ordination from their early years in India, yet this recognition of their roJe had never yet been bestowed; Hannington acted to put this right. Why George David was not ordained deacon with Jones and Semler is not clear; possibly it was simply because he was not at one of the main centres, but out at Mwaiba, and so was not able to spend time with the bishop. Sadly, he died in September 1885, shortly after the others were deaconed, and so was never admitted to holy orders. There is no doubt that they had had a real ministry in the church. For long periods there were no clergy at all at the two main centres and the catechists took responsibility for all the services as weil as for the general oversight of the churches, and their pastoral care. So, for example, when the Rev. H.K. Binns went on overseas leave in 1877 he was gone for about a year and William Jones was in sole charge of the church at Rabai. 1 There was no missionary oversight. In 1879 Ishmael Semler wrote to CMS to thank the Society for the books they had sent in reply to Bishop Royston's request. In the Ietter he asked the Committee to send a clergyman to Frere Town as there had been no 'missionary', that is an ordained man, for over a year. He had been entirely responsible for the church. 2 George David, until his death in 1885, had visited the Settlements of runaway slaves, but also taken many of the services at Frere Town. 3 The three had carried out the function of clergy without the recognition or status of orders. As we have seen, during his visit in 1882, the Rev. W.S. Price had recommended they be ordained in India, but this had been vetoed by some other missionaries. The Society could easily have arranged for them to be ordained either in India or at , or by Bishop Royston. Both had visited India, and Jones at least had been to Zanzibar more than once. That they not been ordained was not really for Iack of opportunity. It was surely because of Iack of encouragement from missionaries and the Society after Price had left. Bishop Hannington's first concern was to familiarise hirnself with the situation at Frere Town, and this he did before going to Zanzibar to call on the Sultan and on Bishop Smythies.4 He was pleased with the general conditions that he found at Frere Town, in both the church and schools. The church was 'crammed with a very weil behaved body of worshippers, who

1 H.K. Binns, Recollections, MS, Kenya National Archives, Nairobi, p. 38. 2 Semler to CMS, 27 March 1879, CMS MR 94. 3 Parish service registers, Emrnanuel Church, Frere Town. 4 E.C. Dawson, James Hannington, First Bishop of Eastem Equatorial Africa; a History of his Life and Work 1847-1885, London, Seeley, 1887, p. 309.