If you were born before 1960, you had no pointers of the rest of the world appearing readily before your eyes. In 2024, you may easily see an Indian farmer in the Waikato, a Melanesian RSE worker in Hawkes Bay, an Asian fisherman in Nelson, a Somali schoolgirl in Manurewa, or many others. Earlier, you spotted nothing of them or their homelands locally, on TV, or other screens. As a child and often as an adult in a Christian context, you felt a thrill of extra understanding when you heard from your church’s missionaries and might delight in their stories of jungles, fevers, or wild animals or brigands and even more in learning that some had believed in the same God you worshipped. You would never meet them but might meet their ambassador, your missionary.
It is said that audiences “sat transfixed, imagining what it might be like to eat termites in Africa, or beg on the streets in India, or study the Bible in a refugee camp. The usually mundane Sunday service became exotic and exciting…the missionary on furlough was a major link between the world of…Christians and the rest of the globe.”[1]
The interest went in both directions—people in NZ were concerned about missions and missionaries, and those overseas were keen to hear from New Zealand. Their isolation was severe. Travel from landing in Calcutta to reaching Brahamanbaria in east Bengal took several changes of train and boat, and then a cycle or human-pulled rickshaw. There was no thought of returning for a parent’s funeral. They might not know about the death until six weeks had passed, and getting home would take two more months. Missionaries ached for news, and Baptist Women Missionary Union (BWMU) members kindly bundled up magazines like Women’s Weekly and The Listener and newspapers to send over.
The eagerness for news, both ways, applied to both men and women. However, here we feature the long and admirable history of Baptist women committed to supporting overseas missions, a few going and many joining their movement through a pattern of regular monthly meetings of BWMU. The meetings achieved more than prayer and became a training ground where women, still excluded from the running of churches, experienced organising gatherings, conducting formal meetings and raising money.
During the nineteenth century, there was a worldwide belief that men and women occupied different ‘spheres’. The division was so deep that many mission societies refused to accept women as missionaries. Women eventually formed separate missionary societies (zenana missions from the UK and several women’s societies from the USA) with their own prayer circles. Fortunately, New Zealand Baptists never had this separation. The influence of these overseas movements likely prompted some of our women’s organisations.
First BWMU Groups
The NZ Baptist Missionary Society’s first missionary, Rosalie Macgeorge, went to Bengal in 1886, followed by Annie Newcombe in 1887. Annie subsequently returned for health reasons and married mission and denominational leader Reverend H. H. Driver. From this position, Annie “initiated a Missionary Training Home and the New Zealand Baptist Women’s Missionary Union (BWMU).”[2]
BWMU groups became widespread and met in churches up and down New Zealand, singing and praying. Letters of the time mentioned how greatly the early missionaries, like “Miss Beckingsale and the Takles, enlightened the minds of their listeners, causing increased prayer and giving.”[3]
By 1906, there were 400 BWMU members in 28 branches. In 1916, there were 48 branches with a membership of 878 with total receipts of $1277.16 used for the Brahmanbaria Relief Fund and Chandpur House Fund. The same year, BWMU was entrusted with the itinerary plans for missionaries on furlough.[3]
An early annual meeting established a ‘Week of Prayer’ in May, encouraged by Rev Thomas Spurgeon the following year with the suggested name of ‘Self Denial Week.’ This was followed up in 1916 when BWMU obtained the cooperation of the Baptist Union for this and put out booklets accordingly.[3] At the annual Baptist Assembly, BWMU Day was a big deal. The men pushed for the chance to speak alongside the single or married women, so much was the BWMU prayer desired. Indeed, women missionaries were ‘honorary men’ when it came to speaking in church. In New Zealand, in contrast with Baptists in some other countries, women missionaries were welcome to speak in a Sunday service, which was certainly due to them as women were two-thirds of the missionaries during many of these years.
BWMU Activities
BWMU groups met first for prayer, keeping in touch with the New Zealand Baptist Mission Society members in considerable detail, and all with hand-written letters long before the Internet. Each BWMU group was allotted two or three missionaries to support by prayer and giving. Dozens of letters plied back and forth by sea and later by airmail with items for prayer—prayer for travel, for their work, for national workers (known by name), for the children, for health, for visas and safety, especially during the two world wars. The missionaries’ isolation was felt acutely for decades, and their writing efforts exemplify their need for contact and for news of home. They listened to crackly radios for the BBC news, letters took at least 6–8 weeks and even airmail in later decades was fast if it arrived in 7–10 days. Even as late as the 1970s, phone calls with India could hardly be heard for static and malfunction. Cablegrams told urgent news like births and deaths.
BWMU had hard-working voluntary Dominion Secretaries; one was Mrs Fursdon, another was Miss Hazel Drew, andlater Mrs Smith, a Tripura missionary. A major task each month was to collate missionary news as a well-laid-out newsletter, cyclostyled and sent out to all the BWMU groups in the churches to enable relevant prayer. This was not ‘women for women’, but ‘women for missionaries’. The male missionaries kept in touch, too, and urgently asked to speak at BWMU groups. Indeed, their wives and children often stayed at an NZ base while the men travelled and talked to churches and BWMU groups. They might be on ‘furlough’ after five years overseas and a lengthy voyage home, so they stayed in New Zealand for over a year. The wife of each Baptist Minister was traditionally the President of each local BWMU and thus able to raise the status of BWMU.
Next, BWMU met for finance. The groups ran two funds. One focused on the non-budgeted needs of the missionaries, such as for additional travel, overseas study, etc, and the other on medical needs. There were collections at every meeting. Whatever a woman with no disposable income could give or buy could be offered on the monthly sales table—knitted dolls, jam, pot plants, sheaves of silver beet, baby clothes, home-made chutney, aprons, biscuits, runner beans, cakes, second handbooks, anything saleable that others might buy. Sales tables ran for decades to provide extra finance to pass on in the missionary endeavour.
Other giving came through direct gifts, envelope system, missionary boxes to take home for the year, garden parties, trading, needlework orders, coin trails, cookery books and coupon saving.[4]
BWMU groups also met for action. There were food parcels to pack and send by sea long before Christmas with goodies like Marmite, soup packets, freeze-dried items, tinned fish, honey, milk, cheese, sweets and then books and magazines in English (much appreciated by the missionaries’ children). Packages of clothing to give away also took some of the women’s efforts. Some knitted or crocheted peggy squares for blankets to send to hospitals and some knitted clothes for newborn babies. Later, when Cindy Meyer was setting up Gems School in Dhaka, women sent a container of equipment—toys, books and learning materials.
BWMU groups met formally. In each place, a President was appointed, a Secretary, a Treasurer, and perhaps a convenor of hospitality. Monthly, the President, the women to order, called out a roll of members and read out the minutes of the last meeting and the financial update. Each local Annual General Meeting had nominations and votes for the officers. Incidentally, women learned Westminster meeting rules and could quickly join board meetings when later admitted to churches’ deacons and elders’ committees. Missionary women spoke, and other women gained experience giving devotional or gospel messages.
The groups were not blind to their exclusion from so much of the life of Baptist churches. There is a revealing passage in the booklet by Vera McLennan.
In November 1905, the Conference was in Christchurch, and for the first time in the history of the Baptist Missionary Society, two women spoke to the adoption of the Report. Mrs Driver managed to get a word in on behalf of the now famous BWMU. One ungallant delegate suggested that the mystic initials meant Baptist Working Man Undone. But with all a woman’s winsome witchery, it is reported, the BWMU lady closed her speech by exclaiming defiantly, ‘...and in spite of all the prejudice against women speakers, we mean to go on and on.’ Whereupon the BMS President (Rev J J North) announced that ‘...for the further confusion of those who object to women speakers, Mrs Buckingham will say a few words.’ And she did. The Secretary of the BWMU seconded the clause which her President had so militantly championed.
Widened experience
Something else was going on, too. The fact that women had a whole movement supporting missions, a core task of NZ Baptists, gave them weight. Who could say ‘Nay’ when they wanted to attend as recognised delegates at the NZBMS annual meeting and the Baptist Assembly? In 1908, the Assembly gave women recognition ‘equally with men’ as delegates from churches to the meetings of the Baptist Union.[2]
Reports of BWMU gatherings were supplied to The Baptist newspaper. A random choice of year found 212 mentions of BWMU in 1966—an average of 19 per month. They told of a letter from an Indian church member in Jampui, Tripura, describing a camp where several languages were used—Bengali, English, Lushai (Mizo), Garo and Darlong, etc, where Miss Joy Smith was the speaker, and Mrs Eade and Miss Kemp were ill and could not attend.
One entry shared how BWMU Central Districts met for an AGM in Fielding with 56 women present from 11 branches. There were reports, debates and prayers for urgent needs on the field, all using formal addresses and frequently the woman’s husband’s name instead of her personal name, in keeping with the times.
The local BWMU branch served lunch, then “Mrs Hugh Nees of Gisborne gave a stirring message on the need for sacrifice in the truly Christian life and then presided over the Lord’s Table. All felt it was a day of spiritual uplift and rededication.”[5]
The same issue of the Baptist mentioned BWMU gatherings as widely scattered as Greendale, Manurewa, Otorohanga, Pt Chevalier, Rotorua, Sandringham, Timaru and Waihi.
Ropeholders and Shareholders
Alongside BWMU, two further organisations ran. Ropeholders started in 1924 and was led by former missionary Miss Beckingsale as Superintendent until 1948. This programme was for children, led by mission enthusiasts in each church, and provided with regular information. Once a month, children would leave halfway through the church service to participate in activities that aroused early mission interest in a number who later served overseas or bolstered the praying people of BWMU. In 1937, there were 39 bands of Ropeholders with 597 members (soon 54 bands), and three former members were on the mission field—Mrs Royston Brown, Misses N Hughes and J. Thompson.[6]
Activities for Ropeholders included:
- Singing (including a song written by Joy Smith when she was 10 years old).
- Competition for three annual cups that included group and individual projects.
- Collecting used stamps for sale.
- Further activities towards church services.
- Helping at ‘Women’s Night’ at Baptist Assembly.
They had a monthly magazine for the children, a handbook for new bands, a Ropeholders’ Badge, and a poster listing Ropeholders’ aims and pledges alongside regular communication from the national organiser.
Fundraising was important. Over the years, they contributed $200 to the Brahmanbaria dispensary, supported the Eade family, and held annual Ropeholders’ conferences. Two standout group contributions were Palmerston North in 1968, which gave “an outstanding Tableau at Assembly, based on the badge and motto”. The other, in 1977, was from Glenfield, depicting the importance of the jute industry to the women of Chandpur.[6] (The group studied the cottage industries Rev Peter McNee started, and Elizabeth McNee passed on the information.) One year, the children in Whanganui collected ha’pennies (half pennies, the smallest denomination at the time), asking adults for all their spare ha’pennies. They obtained bagsful, and the local bank manager was troubled about having no ha’pennies available to his tellers.
The children also played games. One was called ‘Missionary Lotto’ and the other ‘Commission’, making the children more familiar with the missionaries’ names.
The other organisation was Shareholders, another whole version of BWMU timed in the evening to suit younger women who might be either at work or home with children during the day and could go out in the evening when their husbands were at home for the children. It commenced in several churches around 1909 as ‘Y’ Branches (Youth), and in 1938, the name became Shareholders. By 1943, 20 groups had increased their missionary knowledge. Some churches thus had two BWMUs. They filled a need for some years and were absorbed into BWMU in 1962.
Denominational impact
The women took the season of ‘prayer and self-denial’ very seriously each year, and many led their church, standing in the choir stalls in hats and gloves to lead their church in prayer and sacrifice. In different churches, they added further activities such as, on Mother’s Day, arranging for a nosegay of white flowers at the door for every mother in the church, and at the end of the year, a sit-down meal at one of the homes for all the members.
The women kept the vision of mission work in front of whole congregations, aided by some denominational leaders. One example was the influence of Hayes Lloyd and BWMU on Mt Albert Baptist Church, which had such a strong missionary interest. About 20 young men and women went into missionary work, some with NZBMS and some with other missions. BWMU was led in that church for two decades by Marjorie Turner, with Rae Edgar as the Secretary.
The urgent drive to support overseas missions and missionaries carried the organisation through 100 years with energy and honour. The women of Baptist churches had a part to play, and they played it with all their heart.
But then numbers decreased. Was there less spirituality? Was it due to societal change? Several factors weighed hard on the organisation. The fact that so many women were now working made it hard to bring the numbers in the daytime and even affected the evening. Numbers shrank, and impetus dwindled.
Efforts were made to change. BWMU became the Baptist Missionary Fellowship (BMF), which included men. BWMU day at the Baptist Assembly became Missionary Day, which BMF and NZBMS/Tranzsend planned. Eventually, BMF National ceased in 2019 with its last national AGM. Tranzsend designated a staff member to support continuing prayer groups within the churches and maintain the BMF funds for missionary support.
The arrival of Arotahi, growing out of Tranzsend, is a fresh and innovative thrust along with their planned initiative of Whiria Kids. May they be hugely beneficial in rebuilding Baptist zeal for missions in New Zealand and missions elsewhere.
Endnotes
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/religion-and-american-culture/article/abs/influence-of-american-missionary-women-on-the-world-back-home1/67173970DBF444B4C26D8576B12A0055 accessed 18.3.2024 (This was said of a non-NZ audience, but I recall the same myself in the 1950s in NZ.)
[2] https://nzhistory.govt.nz/women-together/baptist-women-new-zealand accessed 18.3.2024
[3] These Seventy Five Years, McLennan, p. 11
[4] These Seventy Five Years, McLennan, p. 13
[5] NZ Baptist, 1966
[6] These Seventy Five Years, McLennan, p. 15
Sources:
The NZ Baptist, copies during 1966
These Seventy Five Years: The Amazing Contribution which has been made in support of the N.Z.B.M.S., A Short History of the New Zealand Baptist Women’s Missionary Union, Compiled Vera L. McLennan, 1978, Published by The National Executive of the N.Z. Baptist Women’s Missionary Union
Olwyn Dickson, interviewed, 2023, 2024. (Olwyn was associated with the national BWMU for over 60 years, 1960 to 2023).
Rae Edgar, interviewed 2024 (Rae was associated with local BWMU starting in the early 1960s.)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/religion-and-american-culture/article/abs/influence-of-american-missionary-women-on-the-world-back-home1/67173970DBF444B4C26D8576B12A0055 (accessed 18.3.2024)
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/women-together/baptist-women-new-zealand (accessed 18.3.2024)
Photo: Supplied by Beulah Wood. Obtained from Rae Edgar, 92, Mt Albert.
