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Religious Practice in Mashonaland/Southern Rhodesia: English Models and South African Influences; Local Adaptations; and ‘Religion on the Veld’

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Religious Practice in Mashonaland/Southern Rhodesia: English Models and South African Influences; Local Adaptations; and ‘Religion on the Veld’ CHAPTER SIX RELIGIOUS PRACTICE IN MASHONALAND/SOUTHERN RHODESIA: ENGLISH MODELS AND SOUTH AFRICAN INFLUENCES; LOCAL ADAPTATIONS; AND ‘RELIGION ON THE VELD’ I English models, South African influences The primary models for the institutions and religious practice of the Diocese of Mashonaland/SR, in the period 1890–1925, were those of the ‘mother church’, the Church of England. This was most clearly the case where ministry to settlers was concerned: Knight-Bruce and Powell, for example, both assumed it was their duty to provide the settlers with both pastoral care (churches and clergy) and education (church schools), on English lines. Gaul proposed to recreate English home life (where the social, religious and the cultural were intertwined) for the settler community. Upcher wrote that parsons like himself were “pioneers and supporters of civilisation, trying to make men’s lives in colonies such as ours less of an exile, more of an England over the sea”;1 and colonial clergy set themselves to establish the best English parochial forms and traditions (with some adaptations) in raw frontier towns. These aspirations were not entirely out of keeping with the circum- stances of the diocese. The largest settler group within it was that of the white community of (Southern) Rhodesia, a colony which was founded (the British government legitimized the ambitions of Cecil Rhodes) in order to increase Imperial infl uence in the region. This white community was built up between 1890 and 1925 by selective immigration, mainly from Britain and South Africa. By 1921, 95.8% of the settlers were, technically at least, of British nationality.2 They formed a community with its own marked characteristics. Flux (movement in and out of the country, as well as within it) was 1 ‘Letter from Archdeacon Upcher. Wreningham, Wymondham, January 8th, 1896’, MQP XV (Feb 1896), 12. 2 Barry M. Schutz, ‘European Population Patterns, Cultural Persistence, and Political Change in Rhodesia’, Canadian Journal of African Studies VII:1 (1923), 9. models, adaptation and ‘religion on the veld’ 195 one of them, for real ‘settlement’ only began to take place towards the end of the period. This was also a predominantly male society even into the 1920s and so its composition was considerably affected by the shifts in occupation of the men which have been considered in earlier chapters. There was also, fairly early in its history, a rough division of the com- munity into two classes: the respectable (mainly, though not exclusively, town-dwellers) and the rowdy (represented by small-workers, traders, early farmers and transport-riders) and there was a marked contrast, even among the respectable, between the society of the fi rst decade or so, which was made up largely of young Englishmen, most of them ‘gentlemen’ and that which succeeded it. The settler population of 1911 was less wealthy and well-educated than that of 1904,3 for instance and although immigration requirements were subsequently tightened, there were few English public school accents to be heard among the men of the 1920s.4 Less is known about the origins or social mix of the settler women but anecdotal evidence indicates that women from English- speaking communities in South Africa as well as the ‘home-born’ were to be found at all points on the colonial social spectrum. There were also distinctive minorities among the settlers: a Jewish community, which produced two early mayors; a small Roman Catholic community, with Irish, French and German religious, who were held in unusually high regard for a British colony; a tiny Greek community, with its own Archimandrite, with whom the Anglicans were on the most cordial of terms;5 and several considerable communities of ‘Dutch’ farmers.6 This was therefore a society which differed in many respects from the community of ultimate origin, from Britain. A majority of the settlers throughout the period, however, were always, nominally at least, members of the English Church.7 3 Report of the Director of Census, regarding the Census taken on 7th May, 1911 (Salisbury: Government Printer, 1912), 9. 4 Tawse Jollie, The Real Rhodesia (1924) (Facsimile reproduction: Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 1971), 5–6. And see below, p. 219. 5 There were 39,174 white settlers in 1926, 1,546 (3.9%) of whom were Jewish; 7.7%, Roman Catholic; and 1%, Greek: Report of the Director of Census for 1926 (Salis- bury: The Government Printer, 1927), Part II, 18–19. 6 The proportion of (South African) ‘Dutch’ was at its highest in 1921, at 20% of the white settler population and then began to decline: R.S. Roberts, ‘The Settlers’, Rhodesiana 39 (September 1978), 57. 7 English Church members were estimated at 60–80% of the settler population in the early 1890s but reliable fi gures are only available from 1904: membership grew from 42% in 1904, to 45% (or 55.6% of the non-Dutch settler population) in 1926. .
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