[2] In June 1887 Harry Guinness became leader of the East London Training Institute for Home and Foreign Missions, which his parents had established.

Harry was able to talk with Dr. Murdock, the leader of the American Baptist Missionary Union (ABMU), who had taken responsibility to the Livingstone Inland Mission (LIM) four years earlier.

Dr. Murdoch supported the plan, agreeing to release McKittrick and also to loan the former LIM steamer Henry Reed for a year.

[5] The first party of volunteers left England in April 1889 and reached Matadi in August 1889, from where they trekked upstream to Stanley Pool.

The society was given enough money to buy a side-paddle steamer named the Pioneer, which was shipped to the Congo, arriving in December 1889.

The Abir Congo Company of King Leopold II of Belgium was using brutal techniques to coerce the local population into producing rubber, the slave trade continued, and new epidemic diseases were causing considerable loss of life.

[11] The missionaries generally had a rigid view of right and wrong, condemning practices such as polygamy, immodest dress and lascivious dancing.