In 1925, parishioners in Badsey and Wickhamford made contributions to four Foreign Missions. The details of these payments were found on a sheet of paper passed to the Badsey Society by Pauline Monks in 2025.
There were four missions receiving the contributions and the total amount donated in 1925 was £38 seven shillings and sixpence halfpenny. This was the equivalent value of about £2,000 in 2025. The details of the contributions can be seen below.
The Foreign Missions receiving funding:
- ‘Lebombo’ – This was an Anglican Diocese of what was Portuguese East Africa in 1925 and is now Mozambique. In November 1911, an invited speaker at Badsey Church was Rev’d H. Gibbons, the Principal of St Christopher’s College, Namahashe, in the Diocese of Lebombo. The Mission was established in 1893
- ‘B.C. and Yukon’ – This was the British Columbia and Yukon Church Aid Society, formed in 1910 in Canada. It grew out of the earlier New Westminster and Kootenay Missionary Association, informally founded in 1879 by the Rt. Rev. A.W. Sillitoe, first Bishop of New Westminster.
- ‘S.P.G.’ – This stood for The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and had been founded by Rev’d Dr Thomas Bray in 1701. It was a residential school system, funded by the Anglican Theological College. It sent Anglican clergymen and religious literature to Britain's colonies, supported schoolmasters and the establishment of new churches, and lobbied for a more expansive place for the Church of England in the British Empire. It is now known as the United Society Partners in the Gospel (USPG).
- ‘St Matthew’s’ – This Mission’s details have not yet been traced.
Parish Magazines
The Rev’d William Carmont Allsebrook was Vicar of Badsey and of Wickhamford, in plurality, from 1903 until 1945. In the Parish Magazine of November 1904, mention is made of contributions to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. In the December 1911 edition, mention is made of offerings divided between the S.P.G. and the Diocese of Lebombo. The same two are mentioned in the November 1913 edition. The Parish Magazines seem to have been discontinued after 1919 as the Rev’d Allsebrook neglected many of his duties.
Earlier, in the November 1898 edition for example, Rev’d William Henry Price refers to Foreign Missions and a speaker coming to Badsey from a mission in Rangoon.
The Parish Magazine re-started after the Second World War, when Rev’d Wilfred Broadhurst Chapman was Vicar. The January 1949 edition, in a paragraph on ‘Church Overseas’, reported on contributions in Badsey in 1948 amounting to about £30, with S.P.G. getting ca £27, Lebombo Mission ca £1 and ‘S.P.C.K’ ca £2. The latter is the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, founded in 1648 by Thomas Bray, who also founded the S.P.G. mentioned above. The Missions collection in 1948 was the equivalent value of about £950 in 2025.
Tom Locke, September 2025