SAMS in the Archives

Collections of materials relating to SAMS Ireland and SAMS generally are held in two main libraries, the Representative Church Body Library, Dublin, and the Crowther Library, Oxford. Some materials under the CMS archive are also held in the Cadbury Research Library, Birmingham. For more details, please see below.

The Representative Church Body (RCB) Library is the Church of Ireland’s principal repository for records and archives – managing and making available the records from 1,250 parishes, chapels of ease and chaplaincies, 30 of the historical dioceses, 20 cathedrals, and some 1,187 collections of ecclesiastical manuscripts and the non-current records of the General Synod and the RCB.

The Library also houses and makes available for loan a collection of over 70,000 books and other printed resources supporting the lending needs of those in ministerial training at CITI and a diverse lay membership.

Detailed catalogues are available online on this link Catalogues – Church of Ireland – A Member of the Anglican Communion include MS 639 being a collection of minutes and related papers of the Irish branch of the South American Missionary Society (SAMS) founded in 1844 to collect funds and to further the aims of its parent body in London, for the period 1898-2001.

Contact details: https://www.churchofireland.org/about/rcb-library/location-contact-details

After the organizations merged in 2010, the SAMS archive came to be part of the Church Mission Society (CMS) archive, which is stored, in the Crowther Library at CMS house in Oxford and the Cadbury Research Library (CRL) in Birmingham.

The archive tells the story of SAMS from the very beginning. It includes diaries and letters of Captain Allen Gardiner, the founder of SAMS, most notably his final diary found by his body in Tierra del Fuego in 1852. The archive also includes photographs, films, minute books, diaries, maps, letters, as well as many other records form the entirety of SAMS History.

Some of the earliest records of SAMS are Available  online for a monthly fee:

https://britishonlinearchives.com/collections/17/south-american-missionaries-records-1844-1919/volumes . This includes most of the material up to 1919, including the journals of Allen Gardiner, Edward Bernau and Adolfo Henriksen, and General Committee Minutes from 1844.

There is a full set of the Society’s magazine (also known as Sent and Share) from 1867 to 2010, at CMS house and the CRL. For researchers who have institutional affiliations, online access to SAMS magazines is available online through Adam Mathews but must be requested and is not available on an individual basis: https://www.churchmissionarysociety.amdigital.co.uk/Introduction

Take a dip into the archive with Maddy Peston:

Please contact the Archivist Maddy Peston for more information, maddy.peston@churchmissionsociety.org

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