Joseph Jackson Fuller
Encyclopedia
The Rev. Joseph Jackson Fuller (1825–1908), Baptist missionary
to the pre-colonial African Chiefdoms of the Cameroons
was one of the earliest slaves to be freed in Jamaica (initially under the partial freedoms of the 'apprenticeship act') who went on to become well-educated and travel internationally. He headed mission stations, teaching, preaching, brick-making, and translating books such as John Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress into Duala
. Retiring to England, he ended his days as a public speaker for Baptist and missionary audiences, sometimes before thousands of people.
, Jamaica
on 29 June 1825, son of Alexander McCloud Fuller, a slave. When he was eight years old, the 'apprenticeship act', giving immediate freedom to those six years of age and below, and an intermediate status for those of his age and older, was enacted. At this time a baptist mission house offered Joseph's mother reduced fees of 3d a week to enrol Joseph and his brother Samuel as pupils, helped by his grandmother who ran a small grocer's shop. The schoolmaster, Mr Kirby, found Joseph learnt quickly, and brough him to the attention of the Baptist minister at Spanish Town
, Mr Phillipo.
When in 1838, eight hundred thousand slaves in the West Indies were made free, the event became an abiding memory for Joseph Fuller. In speeches many years later in England he told of how the people went to the various chapels to share in the watchnight services. He went to the baptist chapel at Spanish Town
where his father was an active member, and found it overflowing with people in their thousands outside. A grave was dug and a coffin prepared, containing slave's handcuffs, chains and shackles. The people stayed all night, and at 6 o'clock in the morning a horn blew to summon the start of the working day, whereupon they lowered the coffin: they 'buried old slavery'.
, Thomas Burchell
, Samuel Oughton
and William Knibb
) proposed the establishment of a mission to West Africa. The English Baptist and abolitionist
William Knibb
, and two Jamaican Baptists, Henry Beckford and Edward Barrett took the matter up directly during their visit to Britain in 1840 to attend the world's first international anti-slavery convention
. As the mission scheme began, Joseph and his parents were given the opportunity to join the Baptist Missionary Society
project as pioneers, to evangelise, bring education and welfare to, and encourage and end to slavery amongst, some of the traditional Chiefdoms and Kingdoms of West Africa.
His parents travel was paid for to England, and then to the Spanish island of Fernando Po
off the Cameroon coast of West Africa, where, in 1844, Joseph's travel arrangements were also completed and accomnpanied by his brother Samuel he was able to join his parents. On Fernando Po, the Fuller family joined, or were soon joined by, others in this venture, including the Jamaican Joseph Merrick
and the Englishman Alfred Saker
. Once established, the Society's missionaries on Fernando Po
ventured to the mainland to negotiate land on which to set up missions on either side of the Wouri estuary
at Bimbia
and Douala
.
The Bimbia mission station and school, the first in mainland Cameroons, was founded in 1844/5 by the Fuller and Merrick
families, and was quickly followed by a second at Duala
founded by Alfred Saker
and his family with the Sierra Leonian
Thomas Horton Johnson. Surviving members of the founding families returned to Fernando Po
in the late 1840s, from where, after an interval, further missions were later established; most notably Alfred Saker's founding of Victoria on his return to the mainland with slaves liberated therefrom, in 1858.
Joseph Jackson Fuller's role in these founding missions became particularly significant after the early death of Joseph Merrick
, whereupon he took charge of the congregation at Bimbia. A genial, humorous preacher, his message to those in Bimbia was so convincing that, besides the local people, he attracted a village chief and a group of nobles to throw down their 'fetishes' and exclaim Now we will try yours !. In the 1850s Joseph Fuller led the Bethel congregation in Duala
.
Joseph was ordained on 4 April 1859 by Alfred Saker
and continued in Baptist work in Cameroon for more than thirty years. In about 1850 Joseph married Elizabeth Johnson, a Jamaican school teacher at Fernando Po
, and they had three children before her death nine years later. In 1861 he remarried, becoming husband to Charlotte Diboll, daughter of Joseph Diboll, and English missionary. In 1869 Joseph and his family travelled to England for the first time, visiting his in-law's native Norfolk
, where his orarory style and first-hand account about the end of slavery in Jamaica, impressed audiences. Joseph then travelled to Jamaica, visiting his mother, and speaking in chapels to gather further funds for mission work in Africa. On returning to England, Joseph found one of his sons an apprenticeship at an engineering company in Norwich. Back in the Cameroons, Joseph became head of the mission until Germany took over the country and the baptist missionaries had to move away to the Congo. Joseph Fuller oversaw the transfer, working in Bethel and Victoria in 1887 and 1888, and then left for England, shortly after his wife. His son by his second wife was taken to England by the Jamaican missionary John Pinnock.
from where he attended Hackney's Devonshire Road baptist chapel, Joseph's powers of oratory stood him in good stead. In one engagement - at Birmingham Town Hall in October 1889 - four thousand people came to listen to him. Thomas Lewis, a fellow Baptist missionary, writing in his book 'These Seventy Years', recalled Joseph Jackson's popularity as a public speaker:
In 1892 he was photographed as part of the group who presided over the centenary of the Baptist Missionary Society, and at least one of his sons continued this work.
Joseph Fuller died on 11 December 1908, and was buried at Abney Park Cemetery
in Stoke Newington
, London; the resting place of two English missionaries to Jamaica whom he had known in his youth, Thomas Burchell
and Samuel Oughton
. His address to the Baptist Union in cambridge was recently reproduced in Black Voices, a compendium of black Christian writing introduced by the Rt Revd John Sentamu
, Archbishop of York.
Baptist Missionary Society
rightBMS World Mission is a Christian missionary society founded by Baptists from England in 1792. It was originally called the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen, but for most of its life was known as the Baptist Missionary Society...
to the pre-colonial African Chiefdoms of the Cameroons
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
was one of the earliest slaves to be freed in Jamaica (initially under the partial freedoms of the 'apprenticeship act') who went on to become well-educated and travel internationally. He headed mission stations, teaching, preaching, brick-making, and translating books such as John Bunyan's
John Bunyan
John Bunyan was an English Christian writer and preacher, famous for writing The Pilgrim's Progress. Though he was a Reformed Baptist, in the Church of England he is remembered with a Lesser Festival on 30 August, and on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church on 29 August.-Life:In 1628,...
Pilgrim's Progress into Duala
Duala language
Duala is the language spoken by the Duala people of Cameroon. The language belonges to the Bantu language family, and a subgroup of it called the Duala languages...
. Retiring to England, he ended his days as a public speaker for Baptist and missionary audiences, sometimes before thousands of people.
Early life in Jamaica
Joseph Jackson Fuller was born in Spanish TownSpanish Town
Spanish Town is the capital and the largest town in the parish of St. Catherine in the county of Middlesex, Jamaica. It was the former Spanish and English capital of Jamaica from the 16th to the 19th century...
, Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
on 29 June 1825, son of Alexander McCloud Fuller, a slave. When he was eight years old, the 'apprenticeship act', giving immediate freedom to those six years of age and below, and an intermediate status for those of his age and older, was enacted. At this time a baptist mission house offered Joseph's mother reduced fees of 3d a week to enrol Joseph and his brother Samuel as pupils, helped by his grandmother who ran a small grocer's shop. The schoolmaster, Mr Kirby, found Joseph learnt quickly, and brough him to the attention of the Baptist minister at Spanish Town
Spanish Town
Spanish Town is the capital and the largest town in the parish of St. Catherine in the county of Middlesex, Jamaica. It was the former Spanish and English capital of Jamaica from the 16th to the 19th century...
, Mr Phillipo.
When in 1838, eight hundred thousand slaves in the West Indies were made free, the event became an abiding memory for Joseph Fuller. In speeches many years later in England he told of how the people went to the various chapels to share in the watchnight services. He went to the baptist chapel at Spanish Town
Spanish Town
Spanish Town is the capital and the largest town in the parish of St. Catherine in the county of Middlesex, Jamaica. It was the former Spanish and English capital of Jamaica from the 16th to the 19th century...
where his father was an active member, and found it overflowing with people in their thousands outside. A grave was dug and a coffin prepared, containing slave's handcuffs, chains and shackles. The people stayed all night, and at 6 o'clock in the morning a horn blew to summon the start of the working day, whereupon they lowered the coffin: they 'buried old slavery'.
Baptist Mission to Africa
Beginning in 1839, Jamaican baptists and English missionary baptists to Jamaica (such as James PhillippoJames Phillippo
James Phillippo was a Baptist missionary who campaigned for the abolition of slavery.-Early years as a missionary:...
, Thomas Burchell
Thomas Burchell
Thomas Burchell was a leading Baptist missionary and slavery abolitionist in Jamaica in the early nineteenth century. It is not uncommon for Jamaican parents to name their children 'Burchell'; indeed it is almost as popular a Christian name as Manley.Burchell, along with James Phillippo , William...
, Samuel Oughton
Samuel Oughton
The Rev. Samuel Oughton , Baptist missionary to Jamaica 1836-1866, and colleague of William Knibb was an ardent slavery abolitionist who became an outspoken advocate of black labour rights in Jamaica during the gradual abolition of slavery in the late 1830s and thereafter. He was briefly...
and William Knibb
William Knibb
William Knibb , English Baptist minister and missionary to Jamaica, is chiefly known for his work to free slaves.-Missionary in Jamaica:...
) proposed the establishment of a mission to West Africa. The English Baptist and abolitionist
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
William Knibb
William Knibb
William Knibb , English Baptist minister and missionary to Jamaica, is chiefly known for his work to free slaves.-Missionary in Jamaica:...
, and two Jamaican Baptists, Henry Beckford and Edward Barrett took the matter up directly during their visit to Britain in 1840 to attend the world's first international anti-slavery convention
Anti-Slavery International
Anti-Slavery International is an international nongovernmental organization, charity and a lobby group, based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1839, it is the world's oldest international human rights organization, and the only charity in the United Kingdom to work exclusively against slavery and...
. As the mission scheme began, Joseph and his parents were given the opportunity to join the Baptist Missionary Society
Baptist Missionary Society
rightBMS World Mission is a Christian missionary society founded by Baptists from England in 1792. It was originally called the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen, but for most of its life was known as the Baptist Missionary Society...
project as pioneers, to evangelise, bring education and welfare to, and encourage and end to slavery amongst, some of the traditional Chiefdoms and Kingdoms of West Africa.
His parents travel was paid for to England, and then to the Spanish island of Fernando Po
Bioko
Bioko is an island 32 km off the west coast of Africa, specifically Cameroon, in the Gulf of Guinea. It is the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea with a population of 124,000 and an area of . It is volcanic with its highest peak the Pico Basile at .-Geography:Bioko has a total area of...
off the Cameroon coast of West Africa, where, in 1844, Joseph's travel arrangements were also completed and accomnpanied by his brother Samuel he was able to join his parents. On Fernando Po, the Fuller family joined, or were soon joined by, others in this venture, including the Jamaican Joseph Merrick
Joseph Merrick (missionary)
Joseph Merrick was a Jamaican Baptist missionary who, assisted by Joseph Jackson Fuller, established the first successful mission on the Cameroon coast of Africa. Merrick began preaching in 1837 in Jamaica and was ordained a full missionary in 1838. In 1842, Reverend John Clarke and Dr. G. K...
and the Englishman Alfred Saker
Alfred Saker
Alfred Saker was a British missionary who founded the Cameroon city of Victoria, now Limbé , in 1858.He translated the Bible into Duala between 1862 and 1872....
. Once established, the Society's missionaries on Fernando Po
Bioko
Bioko is an island 32 km off the west coast of Africa, specifically Cameroon, in the Gulf of Guinea. It is the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea with a population of 124,000 and an area of . It is volcanic with its highest peak the Pico Basile at .-Geography:Bioko has a total area of...
ventured to the mainland to negotiate land on which to set up missions on either side of the Wouri estuary
Wouri estuary
The Wouri estuary, or Cameroon estuary is a large tidal estuary in Cameroon where several rivers come together, emptying into the Bight of Biafra. Douala, the largest city in Cameroon, is at the mouth of the Wouri River where it enters the estuary...
at Bimbia
Bimbia
Bimbia was an independent state of Isubu people of Cameroon, in 1884 annexed by the Germans and incorporated in the colony of Kamerun.It lies in Southwest Region, to the south of Mount Cameroon and to the west of the Wouri estuary.-Origins:...
and Douala
Douala
Douala is the largest city in Cameroon and the capital of Cameroon's Littoral Province. Home to Cameroon's largest port and its major international airport, Douala International Airport, it is the commercial capital of the country...
.
The Bimbia mission station and school, the first in mainland Cameroons, was founded in 1844/5 by the Fuller and Merrick
Joseph Merrick (missionary)
Joseph Merrick was a Jamaican Baptist missionary who, assisted by Joseph Jackson Fuller, established the first successful mission on the Cameroon coast of Africa. Merrick began preaching in 1837 in Jamaica and was ordained a full missionary in 1838. In 1842, Reverend John Clarke and Dr. G. K...
families, and was quickly followed by a second at Duala
Duala
Duala or Douala can refer to:* Duala people, an ethnic group in Cameroon* Duala language, part of the Bantu languages* Douala, the largest city in Cameroon, founded by the Duala people...
founded by Alfred Saker
Alfred Saker
Alfred Saker was a British missionary who founded the Cameroon city of Victoria, now Limbé , in 1858.He translated the Bible into Duala between 1862 and 1872....
and his family with the Sierra Leonian
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
Thomas Horton Johnson. Surviving members of the founding families returned to Fernando Po
Bioko
Bioko is an island 32 km off the west coast of Africa, specifically Cameroon, in the Gulf of Guinea. It is the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea with a population of 124,000 and an area of . It is volcanic with its highest peak the Pico Basile at .-Geography:Bioko has a total area of...
in the late 1840s, from where, after an interval, further missions were later established; most notably Alfred Saker's founding of Victoria on his return to the mainland with slaves liberated therefrom, in 1858.
Joseph Jackson Fuller's role in these founding missions became particularly significant after the early death of Joseph Merrick
Joseph Merrick (missionary)
Joseph Merrick was a Jamaican Baptist missionary who, assisted by Joseph Jackson Fuller, established the first successful mission on the Cameroon coast of Africa. Merrick began preaching in 1837 in Jamaica and was ordained a full missionary in 1838. In 1842, Reverend John Clarke and Dr. G. K...
, whereupon he took charge of the congregation at Bimbia. A genial, humorous preacher, his message to those in Bimbia was so convincing that, besides the local people, he attracted a village chief and a group of nobles to throw down their 'fetishes' and exclaim Now we will try yours !. In the 1850s Joseph Fuller led the Bethel congregation in Duala
Duala
Duala or Douala can refer to:* Duala people, an ethnic group in Cameroon* Duala language, part of the Bantu languages* Douala, the largest city in Cameroon, founded by the Duala people...
.
Joseph was ordained on 4 April 1859 by Alfred Saker
Alfred Saker
Alfred Saker was a British missionary who founded the Cameroon city of Victoria, now Limbé , in 1858.He translated the Bible into Duala between 1862 and 1872....
and continued in Baptist work in Cameroon for more than thirty years. In about 1850 Joseph married Elizabeth Johnson, a Jamaican school teacher at Fernando Po
Bioko
Bioko is an island 32 km off the west coast of Africa, specifically Cameroon, in the Gulf of Guinea. It is the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea with a population of 124,000 and an area of . It is volcanic with its highest peak the Pico Basile at .-Geography:Bioko has a total area of...
, and they had three children before her death nine years later. In 1861 he remarried, becoming husband to Charlotte Diboll, daughter of Joseph Diboll, and English missionary. In 1869 Joseph and his family travelled to England for the first time, visiting his in-law's native Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
, where his orarory style and first-hand account about the end of slavery in Jamaica, impressed audiences. Joseph then travelled to Jamaica, visiting his mother, and speaking in chapels to gather further funds for mission work in Africa. On returning to England, Joseph found one of his sons an apprenticeship at an engineering company in Norwich. Back in the Cameroons, Joseph became head of the mission until Germany took over the country and the baptist missionaries had to move away to the Congo. Joseph Fuller oversaw the transfer, working in Bethel and Victoria in 1887 and 1888, and then left for England, shortly after his wife. His son by his second wife was taken to England by the Jamaican missionary John Pinnock.
Final Years in England
Settling in London, first at Barnes, and then at Sydner Road in Stoke NewingtonStoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
from where he attended Hackney's Devonshire Road baptist chapel, Joseph's powers of oratory stood him in good stead. In one engagement - at Birmingham Town Hall in October 1889 - four thousand people came to listen to him. Thomas Lewis, a fellow Baptist missionary, writing in his book 'These Seventy Years', recalled Joseph Jackson's popularity as a public speaker:
In 1892 he was photographed as part of the group who presided over the centenary of the Baptist Missionary Society, and at least one of his sons continued this work.
Joseph Fuller died on 11 December 1908, and was buried at Abney Park Cemetery
Abney Park Cemetery
Abney Park in Stoke Newington, in the London Borough of Hackney, is a historic parkland originally laid out in the early 18th century by Lady Mary Abney and Dr. Isaac Watts, and the neighbouring Hartopp family. In 1840 it became a non-denominational garden cemetery, semi-public park arboretum, and...
in Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
, London; the resting place of two English missionaries to Jamaica whom he had known in his youth, Thomas Burchell
Thomas Burchell
Thomas Burchell was a leading Baptist missionary and slavery abolitionist in Jamaica in the early nineteenth century. It is not uncommon for Jamaican parents to name their children 'Burchell'; indeed it is almost as popular a Christian name as Manley.Burchell, along with James Phillippo , William...
and Samuel Oughton
Samuel Oughton
The Rev. Samuel Oughton , Baptist missionary to Jamaica 1836-1866, and colleague of William Knibb was an ardent slavery abolitionist who became an outspoken advocate of black labour rights in Jamaica during the gradual abolition of slavery in the late 1830s and thereafter. He was briefly...
. His address to the Baptist Union in cambridge was recently reproduced in Black Voices, a compendium of black Christian writing introduced by the Rt Revd John Sentamu
John Sentamu
John Tucker Mugabi Sentamu is the 97th Archbishop of York, Metropolitan of the province of York, and Primate of England. He is the second most senior cleric in the Church of England, after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.-Life and career:...
, Archbishop of York.
Sources
- Ardener, Edwin (1996) Kingdom on Mount Cameroon
- Glennie, Robert (1933) Joseph Jackson Fuller: an African Christian Missionary
- Green, Jeffrey (1998) Black Edwardians: Black People in Britain 1901-1914
- Lewis, Thomas (1930) These Seventy Years
- Killingray & Edwards; forward by John Sentamu (2009) Black Voices: the shaping of our Christian experience
- Sundkler, B. & Steed, C. (1993) A History of the Christian Church in Africa
- Weber, Charles W. (1993)International Influences and Baptist Mission in West Cameroon