Henry Callaway

Henry Callaway
Bishop of St. John's
Church	Church of England
See	St. John's
In office	1873–1876
Predecessor	(none)
Successor	Bransby Lewis Key
Previous post(s)	Rector
Orders
Ordination	1855
Personal details
Born	January 17, 1817 either Lymington, Hampshire, or Somerset

Henry Callaway (January 17, 1817 in either Lymington, Hampshire, or Somerset – March 26, 1890) was a missionary for the Church of England and the Bishop of St John's, Kaffraria, in the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa).

Pre-missionary life

Henry Callaway was the son of a bootmaker. He was educated at Crediton Grammar School and became a teacher in 1835. His headmaster was a Quaker, and Callaway soon joined the Society of Friends.

Later, he was a chemist's assistant and a surgeon's assistant. He began to study surgery and in 1842 he was licensed by the Royal College of Surgeons. He was licensed by the Apothecaries' Society in 1844.

He married Ann Chalk in 1845. In 1852, when his health began to fail, he sold his practice and spent a year in France. By the next year he had graduated from King's College, University of Aberdeen, with plans to become a physician.

Missionary work

Soon after graduating, he became interested in missionary work. In 1854, he was ordained by Colenso as a deacon, having become a member of the Church of England two years earlier. Soon afterwards, he went as a missionary to Africa. Initially, he was stationed at Ekukanyeni (near Pietermaritzburg), but, after being ordained as a priest in 1855, he was made rector of St. Andrew's in Pietermaritzburg.

In 1858, he was granted land near the Umkomanzi River and settled at Insunguze, which he renamed Spring Vale. It was here that he began his study of the Zulu religious beliefs and other customs and obtained the information which enabled him to write his books Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus (published in 1868) and The Religious System of the Amazulu (published in 1870). He also translated the Book of Psalms and the Book of Common Prayer into Zulu.

In 1873, he was recalled to England so he could be consecrated as the first missionary bishop of St. John's, Kaffraria. He left England the following year. In 1876, he moved the seat of his diocese to Umtata, where he founded St. John's Theological College.

His health, however, began to fail, and he resigned his post in 1886. The next year he returned to England, making his home at Ottery Saint Mary, where he lived until his death in 1890.

His books

Besides The Religious System of the Amazulu and Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus, Callaway also wrote:

• Immediate Revelation, published in 1841,
• The Way to Christ, published in 1844,
• Memoir of James Parnell, published in 1846,
• The Good Tidings of Great Joy, published in 1854,
• The Last Word of "Modern Thought", published in 1866,
• Some Remarks on the Zulu Language, published in 1870,
• A Sermon on the Ordination of Two Natives, published in 1872,
• Kaffraria Church Mission, published in 1874,
• A Fragment on Comparative Religion, published in 1874,
• Missionary Sermons, published in 1875,
• On the Religious Sentiment Amongst the Tribes of South Africa, published in 1876,
• From Pondoland to Cape Town and Back, published in 1877,
• and A Brief Account of the Kaffraria Church Mission From 1874-1877, published in 1877.

External links

• Henry Callaway at The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge
• The Good Tidings of Great Joy, Which Shall Be to All People. A Sermon Preached in the Cathedral Church of Norwich, on Sunday, August 13, 1854, on the Occasion of Ordaining Henry Callaway, M.D. (Late A Member of the Society of Friends,) as a Missionary among the Heathen in the Diocese of Natal, By the Right Reverend John William Colenso, D.D., Lord Bishop of Natal (1854)