London Missionary Society
It was largely Reformed in outlook, with Congregational missions in Oceania, Africa, and the Americas, although there were also Presbyterians (notable for their work in China), Methodists, Baptists, and various other Protestants involved.
In 1793, Edward Williams, then minister at Carr's Lane, Birmingham, wrote a letter to the churches of the Midlands, expressing the need for interdenominational world evangelization and foreign missions.
[citation needed] Edward Williams continued his involvement and, in July 1796, gave the charge to the first missionaries sent out by the Society.
[2][5] The Society aimed to create a forum where evangelicals could work together, give overseas missions financial support and co-ordination.
[citation needed] After Ryland showed Carey's letter to Henry Overton Wills, an anti-slavery campaigner in Bristol, he quickly gained support.
Scottish ministers in the London area, David Bogue and James Steven, as well as other evangelicals such as John Hey, joined forces to organize a new society.
Bogue wrote an influential appeal in the Evangelical Magazine for September 1794:[6][7] Ye were once Pagans, living in cruel and abominable idolatry.
And ought ye not, as an equitable compensation for their kindness, to send messengers to the nations which are in like condition with yourselves of old, to entreat them that they turn from their dumb idol to the living God, and to wait for His Son from heaven?
From this start, a campaign developed to raise money for the proposed society, and its first meeting was organised at Baker's Coffee House on Change Alley in the City of London.
Eighteen supporters showed up and helped agree the aims of the proposed missionary society – to spread the knowledge of Christ among heathen and other unenlightened nations.
[citation needed] In the following year, 1795, Spa Fields Chapel was approached for permission to preach a sermon to the various ministers and others by now keenly associated with the plan to send missionaries abroad.
Hundreds of evangelicals attended, and the newly launched society quickly began receiving letters of financial support, and interest from prospective missionaries.
John Eyre of Hackney (editor of the Evangelical Magazine ) became the first Secretary to the Missionary Society—the latter appointment providing it with an effective 'newspaper' to promote its cause.
Seven months after the crew left port from the Woolwich docks in late 1796 they arrived in Tahiti, where seventeen missionaries departed.
The mission received the blessing of Alexander I of Russia, but was suppressed in 1840 under his successor Nicholas I. Alongside Stallybrass worked Cornelius Rahmn [Wikidata] of Sweden, William Swan and Robert Yuille of Scotland.
In 1822, John Philip was appointed superintendent of the London Missionary Society stations in South Africa where he fought for the rights of the indigenous people.
Upon meeting Malietoa at a large gathering in Sapapali'i, the LMS mission was accepted and grew rapidly throughout the Samoan Islands.
(Tala faasolopito o le Ekalesia Samoa) He was informed that men of their village have accepted the 'lotu' brought by Ioane Viliamu in Savai'i; not knowing John Williams now stood before them.
A monument stands before the large Siona Chapel – now CCCAS in Leone, American Samoa – in honor of John Williams.
His widow is buried with their son, Samuel Tamatoa Williams, at the old Cedar Circle in London's Abney Park Cemetery, the name of her husband and the record of his death described first on the stone.
In 1840, the medical missionary and explorer David Livingstone (1813–1873) departed for South Africa, arriving in 1841, and serving with the LMS until 1857.
Samuel James Whitmee arrived at Arorae (Gilbert Islands, now Kiribati), and later that month he visited Tamana, Onoatoa and Beru.
