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Introduction
This article highlights the role of the Achill Missionary Herald and Western Witness in early circulation of news about missionary activities in South America. It provides some discussion on the potential early networks of information linked to the PMS/SAMS in Ireland and sets wider context of Gardiner’s activities against which the Achill publication appeared.
Nangle and the Achill Missionary Herald and Western Witness
The first announcements of a new mission to the people of Patagonia emanated from Achill Island at the hands of Rev. Edward Nangle and through the Achill Missionary Herald and Western Witness in 1844,
“MISSION TO THE PATAGONIAN INDIANS
We are authorised to state that a Missionary Association has been formed at Brighton, for the express purpose of establishing a Mission in the Straits of Magelhaen. Great and almost insuperable difficulties have hindered the attempts which have hitherto been made to introduce the gospel among the Aborigines of that that quarter of the world; but there now appears to be reasonable hope of entering upon the work with great prospect of success.
The Patagonian Indians have consented to the settlement of a Teacher among them, and as they have invariably been found to be friendly in their intercourse with foreigners, and are in communication with other tribes further in the interior, it is purposed, by the blessing of God, to follow up this providential opening, by forming a Mission among them […] if any further argument were necessary to mark its importance, it will surely be recognised by all true Christians in the simple fact, that with the solitary exception of the Mission in British Guiana […] there is not at this moment a single Protestant Mission throughout the entire of South America!” (28 November 1844)
The Statesman and Dublin Christian Record and Kerry Evening Post would publish announcements about the Society the following year, on 25 February 1845 and the 1 March 1845 respectively.
The Achill Missionary Herald announcement came four months after the first committee meeting was held by the Society in Brighton (PMS Minutes, 4 July 1844), and only three months after the committee had decided to advertise for a clergyman and catechist to be sent to Patagonia with the information to appear three times in The Record, a prominent English weekly newspaper of evangelical Anglican leanings (PMS Minutes, 23 September 1844). A further 600 prints of the article were later circulated (PMS Minutes, 14 October 1844).
![[The Colony, Achill Island. Created between 1880-1900. Photographer Robert French, 1841-1917. The Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland (http://catalogue.nli.ie)]](https://livingarchive.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Achill-Colony.jpg)
There are indications in the general phrasing, and particularly toward the end of the article in the Achill Missionary Herald, that Nangle was presenting this same advertisement spoken of in the committee minutes. The announcement refers to,
“Capt. Gardiner, who has visited Patagonia, will be happy to give any further information either personally or by letter.”
Much as Gardiner was known to travel to any place and at any time, and was at that point undertaking speaking tours of England to raise funds, there is no indication that he was imminently due to, or ever did, visit Ireland.
Moreover, Nangle was accustomed to spending several months travelling and speaking around England each year, building the number of subscribers to his paper and seeking funding for his work, so it is possible that he either had access directly to these adverts or one of his contacts sent the information to him. The announcement includes all the details discussed in the committee meetings, stating,
“[…] the committee are desirous to engage the services of a Clergyman of the church of England, and a Catechist to act as his assistant in the Mission.
And it encourages the reader with the fact that already supporters in South America have made significant commitments for funding the work,
“So fully do our friends in South America, who from their position are doubtless the best judges, recognize the feasibility and the importance of the work we are engaged in, that the Rev. William Armstrong, the British Chaplain in Valparaíso, has very recently remitted in the name of himself and his congregation, no less a sum than £200; while the Rev. James Birch and the congregation at Montevideo, have signified their intention of collecting for the same object £35 annually, which sum has been liberally guaranteed by one of the principal merchants of that place.
It is then in order to second these noble efforts of our friends abroad, that we now solicit the prayers and the pecuniary aid of our fellow Christians at home.”
The two groups of supporters mentioned arose directly from Gardiner’s earlier efforts to establish a mission location in South America. During the his family’s time in Buenos Aires in 1838, after leaving Port Natal, William Armstrong was one of the key contacts providing Gardiner with information about potential opportunities south of the river Biobio and an indigenous tribe near Mendoza. Hence, he was instrumental in that journey westward and later encountered the Gardiner family again in Valparaíso before they left for the Falkland Islands. This time Gardiner left his family living in the Armstrong’s home while he travelled to Santiago and Quillota with Bibles.
![[Calle Condell, Valparaíso, Chile. 1910. Photo Public Domain License]](https://livingarchive.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Valparaiso.jpg)
The contact with Birch was established in 1843 when Gardiner returned to South America with a view to travelling to Córdoba’ , Santiago del Estero, and Tucumán’ to see whether it was possible to successfully distribute the Bible in the interior among the Spanish-American population. This trip lasted from September 1843 to April 1844 and during his visit to Montevideo he met successfully with the merchant Samuel Lafone (Montevideo and Liverpool) and James Birch, the English chaplain, discussing with them the scheme for the projected mission. At this stage, Gardiner was still hopeful that the proposed mission would receive the backing of the CMS, receiving assurances from Birch and Lafone that associations could be formed in connection with CMS in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, and Valparaíso providing £100 a year if a Protestant mission were established in Patagonia. [See Marsh, A Memoir for more details] Lafone would continue to play an instrumental role in advising the PMS/SAMS as their plans developed.
![[Montevideo. View from the bell tower of Iglesia de Reducto. 1880-1905 (aprox.) Engraving by J. Lipsky (Biblioteca Nacional) Public Domain License]](https://livingarchive.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Montevideo.jpg)
Returning to Brighton in 1844, Gardiner was more certain than ever of the need to press on with his plans. In relation to the CMS link, the Achill Missionary Herald article demonstrates that the much-sought-after support was not forthcoming,
“The increasing demands upon the funds of the Church Missionary Society, have rendered it impossible for them to commence an entirely new Mission, so that but two courses remain for us – either altogether to neglect the present favourable opening, and thus abandon those poor heathens at a time when of all others there are greater facilities for discharging our duty as Christians to them; or plainly to state their moral destitution, and solicit the sympathy and the liberality of British Christians at large on their behalf.”
No doubt the experiences with Richard Matthews in Tierra del Fuego the 1830s were still in the minds of the CMS committee, in addition to the pressing demands they were confronting in other areas of their work.
Gardiner, determined to form a Society whose ‘sole objective should be the evangelisation of that continent, beginning at Patagonia’ [Marsh, A Memoir, p. 265], and for that reason it took the name Patagonian Missionary Society. Once the PMS was established, Gardiner was keen to move quickly to make the most of the Antarctic summer for travel to Patagonia with a companion, where he planned to work with Isaac as interpreter in communicating with Chief Wissale and the indigenous tribes he met in 1842. He felt a greater urgency also because of the potential impact of new settlement by the Chilean government in the Magellan Strait, at Fort Bulnes (PMS Minutes, 20 & 24 September 1844).
By the time the announcement with the call for a clergyman and catechist appeared in the pages of the Achill Missionary Herald, the Brighton committee had already appointed a catechist to travel with Gardiner; Robert Hunt, master of an endowed school in Kendal. Although the initial plan had been to offer a salary of £80 per annum for a catechist, with an outfit allowance of £50, in Hunt’s case a higher salary scale was allowed considering the situation he was relinquishing, his age (38 yrs) and ‘general acquirements’ (PMS Minutes, 11 November 1844). Hunt expressed a desire to receive Deacon’s orders before travelling, however, the Bishop of London, Charles James Blomfield (1786-1857), whilst supportive of the Society’s goals, felt that he should go out as an un-ordained catechist first. (PMS Minutes, 29 October & 19 December 1844). Gardiner and Hunt sailed on the Rosalie from Gravesend on the 12 December 1844.
Achill Island might not be the first place that comes to mind when considering the launch of a mission to South America but, Nangle’s newsletter, printed in Dugort, played a key role in disseminating information on the activities of the PMS/SAMS in the 1850s. Anyone unaware of the turbulent life of Edward Nangle and protestant colony on Achill Island during the Great Famine can find more detail in Patrica Byrne’s engaging work in the Select Bibliography below. No further publication relating to the PMS/SAMS appears in the Achill Missionary Herald until 1847, the same year that Nangle is asked to provide a reference for an applicant to the Society from Cartron West, Tubercurry, Co. Sligo. Ireland was on the brink of the devastating years of the Great Hunger and in 1845 we see evidence of what might be the first Irishman to offer as a missionary with the PMS/SAMS.
Click here for the next article on ‘A.F. Gardiner, Gen. Francis Burdett O’Connor, and the first Irish missionary applicant: 1845-46
Select Bibliography and Sources
Committee Minutes of the Patagonian Missionary Society: https://britishonlinearchives.com/collections/17/south-american-missionaries-records-1844-1919
‘Captain Allen F. Gardiner: A memoir written by his wife, written for his grandson’, Natalia, 4, (1974), 28-41
Marsh, John, A memoir of Allen F. Gardiner, Commander, R.N. (James Nisbet and Co., 1857)
Byrne, Patricia, ‘Weapons of his own Forging: Edward Nangle, Controversial in Life and in Death’, Irish History Online (2013)
——, The preacher and the prelate—the Achill Mission colony and the battle for souls in Famine Ireland (Merrion Press, 2018)
——, ‘Evangelical mission pivots to landlord in famine Achill’, History Ireland, 30.4 (2022)
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