South Africa General Mission

Miss Clara S. Harris and her friend, Miss Needham, taught at a school in Weston, which they both enjoyed. However, Clara felt called in 1888 to go to “Welcome” in the East End of London. Here she would have known others devoted to ‘Jesus’, which was to change her path forever.

In 1892 Clara Harris travelled from London, to commence missionary work in southern Africa. She was one of a dedicated band of missionaries, who had voluntarily trained to live and work in southern Africa, and to devote her life to the aims of The South Africa General Mission, an undenominational Christian Mission. After working in Cape Town she lived in Pretoria for a year. Here she met Mohanda K. Gandhi, who in 1893 was working on a legal case in Pretoria. He later described Clara as ‘an elderly maiden lady’.

From Pretoria she arrived in Swaziland - see the Link below: 'Mrs Head Correspondence'. After nearly six years in Swaziland she returned home on furlough during 1898, arriving back in Swaziland on 6^th May 1899. With the outbreak of the South Africa War in October 1899, she worked at Ntabamhlope, Natal, where she lived and worked with Miss Thomson, returning to Swaziland in 1902.

These were “… adventurous days of pioneer work, but God owned and blessed, and as the years went on Mr. and Mrs. Wehmeyer, Miss Ellis, Miss. Peake Brown, Miss. Thomson, Miss Glass and Miss M.D.C.C. Brown*, were added to the staff of workers.”

Clara Harris

The town and capital of Swazieland, Mbabane, had been destroyed during the South African War. By 1905 and with its population growing, the South African General Mission's Executive and Miss C. Harris (then on furlough) pledged to start work there, encouraged by the number of Swazis then ‘crowding into town'.

Clara Harris was interested in Prison work and during her last year she visited the prisoners, including those who had been condemned to death. She was much over worked, and although she had enjoyed the companionship of Miss Wade, it was felt that she should have a rest as she was so very tired.

On the 11^th August 1910, she left Mbabane with a fellow missionary, Frances Taylor, to travel to Bethany, also in Swaziland, for some rest. Frances Taylor later wrote the following:²

‘As we only had one horse; I was going to walk beside her. The horse was walking quite quietly when we met three wagons with long teams of mules, the native drivers shouting to them as they do in this country. I had passed on a little in front, to walk over the foot bridge, which spanned a stream we had to cross when I heard a cry from Miss Harris. Her horse had become frightened with the noise and was backing into the mules; it got dragged in, and down and in a moment dear Miss Harris was falling under the wheel of the wagon, which passed over her before they could stop it. She had so often said she would like to die suddenly. It was indeed “sudden Glory” for her; but so sad for us who are left.’

She was 63 when she died and had planned to retire the following Spring to be with her Sister in Enfield; she is buried in Swaziland. According to Jones³ she was a fundamental evangelical Christian, and in 1897 wrote that the difficulty with the indigenous “is to make them realise they are sinners”. She was buried in Swazieland, the place where she laboured in her declining years. She founded the mission stations at Ezulweni and later Mbabane and began to bring a new foundation, to free the people from the pagan rituals of the Swazis, and to teach the women.⁴

Note
* There is much confusion regarding the name ‘Brown’ in Swazieland articles. This is not helped by reports in the South Africa Pioneer, which in the same report, refer to a ‘Miss Mary Peake Brown’ and in a few paragraphs record a ‘Miss Brown’. In March 1911 a Miss Margaret Brown went to work for six months at Mbabane, '... till she felt God was calling her to Johannesburg.' (The South African Pioner August - September 1912, p.124). Moreover, H. M., Jones, on page 50 of A Biographical Register of Swaziland to 1902, published in 1993, notes:

“One Miss. Brown started the South Africa General Mission (S.A.G.M.) station with Miss C. Harris at Zulwini [Ezulwini] in December 1897. She may have been Miss. Mary Peake Brown who was with Miss. Harris at the Hope mission station of the S.A.G.M. on the north coast of Natal in 1901. They worked among the Indian community having been evacuated from Swaziland during the second Anglo Boer War [South African War]. In July 1904, Miss. Mary Peake Brown was one of the missionaries at Bethany mission station, in Swaziland, with another Miss. Brown; she was still there, aged about 70 in 1937 … and made M.B.E. in 1935 and left Swaziland in 1942.”

Ann and I noted in our 'Mrs. Head' article, first published in 2010: "During December 1897 Clara Harris with Miss. Mary Peake-Brown founded the Ezulwini mission ..." Nevertheless, problems still abound in identifying some of those who spent years working in southern Africa, for the Cape General Mission and the South African General Mission.

Jones does not mention a Miss. M.D.C.C. Brown, or a Miss. C.C. Brown. There was a 'worker' Miss Rose Brown at Durban in 1899. Therefore, more research is necessary. All too often contemporary journals such as The South African Pioneer and other publications, only used the surname if the person’s title is Miss. Moreover, once they were married, they were often given their husbands forename (Christian name) i.e. Mrs. Albert Head, and not Mrs. Caroline Head.

References
1 Higson, A., Stone, A., and Woolgar, J., (2016), ‘A further "Mrs. Head" Cover’, The Transvaal Philatelist, Vol.51, No.1 (193), March 2016, pp.25-26.

2 The South African Pioneer, October, 1910, November, 1910 and August / September, 1912.

3 Jones, H. M., (1993), A Biographical Register of Swaziland to 1902, Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, p.270.

4 - see also The "Mrs. Head" Correspondence on this website.