MISSIONARIES: SELECTED BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES
by Rosemary Dixon-Smith

WILLOUGHBY, Prof. Rev. William Charles F.R.G.S., F.R.A.I.
1857 - Born 16th March, Redruth, Cornwall
1882 - 1st May, ordained as a Congregationalist Minister. Appointed to the Central African Mission of the London Missionary Society. Sailed 17th May as joint leader of a pioneering caravan of 475 natives from Zanzibar to Unwamyezi, a district of Unyanyembe, south of Lake Victoria He worked as a missionary with the warrior chief Mirambo at Urambo.
1883 - returned to England after sufferic malaria. Various appointments with the Congregational Church including Perth and Brighton.
1892 - Resigned this pastorate on being appoined by the LMS on 20th December, to the district of Phalapye, Bechuanaland.
1893 - 15th February, Dedicated at Brighton, and then sailed for Cape Town with his wife and three children for the LMS, and became a missionary in Palapye, seat of the Bamangwato in Bechuanaland, and then the town of the famous Chrisian Chief Khama [Kgama] III, to work among the BaNgwato of Khama.
1895 - accompanied King Khama and chiefs Bethoen and Sebele to England for meetings with Joseph Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies) and Queen Victoria and successfully pleaded for Bechuanaland to remain a Protectorate to preserve their country from South African capitalist Cecil Rhodes. *
1904 - built and first principle of Central School for Bechuanaland on behalf of Kharma and the LMS, at Tiger Kloof, near Vryberg, now in Cape Province.
1914 - resigned through ill health, and served as missionary to the Bakena tribe of Molepolole.
1917 - departed South Africa on missionary cruise to Australasia and South Seas Island, arriving in England in December 1918.
1919 - resigned from LMS and appointed Prof. of Afrtican Missions, Kennedy School of Missions, Hartford, Connecticut.
1931 - retired and returned to England.
1938 - died 19th. June, Birmingham.
* details of this in the book
'King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen' by Neil Parsons 1995 Chicago Uni. Press

Portrait of W.C. while working in Hartford

Early photo of the Tiger Kloof complex

Painting of Tiger Kloof by Medora ['Dora] Willoughby (nee Woods) made while living with her future inlaws at Tiger Kloof, where she probably assisted in the school. She was born in Brighton and was married in Tiger Kloof in 1914 to W.C.'s son Godfrey who she had met while she was reading physics at Manchester Uni. in 1908.

WILSON, Alexander (1803-41)
Missionary of the first ABM party to SA leaving US in December 1834 and arriving 3 December 1835; travelled with his wife Mary who died before her husband reached Natal; on her deathbed she said: 'Tell my mother and sister and friends that I have never regretted coming to Africa.' Wilson was a physician by profession.

WITT, Otto
First missionary to represent the Church of Sweden Mission in SA, arriving 1876. For a time connected with Schreuder's mission. The Swedish Church purchased a farm near the border of Zululand and a mission was established there, named Oscarsberg in honour of the Swedish King. This is where Witt was stationed at the time of the Anglo-Zulu War 1879.

WOODWARD, RB and JDS
British-born brothers, after a period in America they became SPG missionaries to Natal circa 1871 to circa 1905; wrote the first study of ornithology in Natal, 'Natal Birds' (1899); travelled extensively in SA and collected bird specimens many of which they sent to the British Museum, as well as publishing articles in Ibis magazine.