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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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missionaries
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The *Jesuit order of the Roman Catholic church sent vigorous missions around the world from the mid-16C, but Protestants were slower to proselytize. Britain's oldest missionary societies date from the late 17C – the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) was formed in 1698, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in 1701 – but they were mainly concerned with the spiritual welfare of British people living in remote parts of the infant empire.
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With these organizations in place Britain was poised to send out a steady stream of men and women, setting off around the world with considerable courage and unassailable certainty (doubts about imposing one's beliefs and customs on others are a modern phenomenon). Intrepid British missionaries were soon arriving in the Far East, the South Sea Islands and Africa, with some medicine and a plentiful supply of Bibles, to set up hospitals and schools; David *Livingstone was only the most famous among thousands. The same energy and enthusiasm was later applied to the heathen recently discovered in Britain's own backyard slums, most notably in the efforts of the *Salvation Army.
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It was the evangelical fervour of the *Methodists which gave a new impetus in the late 18C, crystallized in William Carey's Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (1792). Carey formed in 1792 the Baptist Missionary Society, which was soon followed by the London Missionary Society (interdenominational 1795), the Church Missionary Society (Anglican 1799) and the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (1813).
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