John West (missionary)

Henry Budd and in 1818 at the Church of St Michael the Archangel in Aldershot in Hampshire but West did not receive his first permanent office until early 1820 when he was appointed Rector at Chettle in Dorset.

The first Protestant missionary to visit that area, West travelled without his pregnant wife and small children, intending to fetch them once a mission was set up.

[4] At the Red River Settlement West located his mission three miles north of Fort Douglas; here he constructed a chapel, a school and residences for himself and his Indian pupils.

In 1820 the CMS provided financial assistance to West for the education of local Native American children, including James Settee[5] and a youth called Sakachuwescam of the Cree nation.

[8] In addition, the Hudson's Bay Company director Nicholas Garry wrote that "West is not a good Preacher; he unfortunately attempts to preach extempore from Notes, for which he has not the Capacity, his discourses being unconnected and ill-delivered.

[4] In June 1823 West sailed for England on what was intended as a temporary visit, returning to Aldershot where he assisted in services and ceremonies, but his contract as a missionary was cancelled by the Church Missionary Society early in 1824 owing in part to his lack of flexibility over his use of Anglican liturgy in Rupert's Land, by the reluctance of the Hudson's Bay Company to finance permanent missions, and because he had failed to win the support of the new Governor, George Simpson, who believed that West was spending too much time catering to the needs of the Indians to the neglect of the needs of the Hudson's Bay Company retirees, who also began to view him in disfavour.

West's book The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America; and Frequent Excursions Among the North-West American Indians, in the years 1820, 1821, 1822, 1823 (London, 1824) detailed his experiences as a missionary.

The second edition of 1827 included an account of West's trip in 1825–26 to New York, Boston, and the Kennebecasis River in New Brunswick among other locations on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society and the New England Company.

This trip revealed the committed Roman Catholic faith of the Indians he encountered and in 1826 led the two societies to cancel their operations in the areas visited by him.