File 1 - Early Missionary Effort in South Africa

File relating to an abortive attempt to establish an Irish Capuchin missionary presence in the Cape Colony, South Africa. In 1903, Bishop Hugh McSherry (1852-1940), Vicar Apostolic of the Cape of Good Hope (Eastern District), invited the Irish Capuchins to establish missionary foundations in his Vicariate. The large missionary area offered to the friars comprised the civil divisions of Albert, Aliwal North, Herschel and Barclay East collectively known as the Gariep (later Aliwal) territory. The file includes:
• Ecclesiastical return of the numbers of missions and Catholics in the Eastern Vicariate. 30 June 1903.
• Correspondence between Bishop Hugh McSherry and Fr. Peter Bowe OSFC, Provincial Minister.
• Draft report of Fr. Peter Bowe OSFC on his visit to Port Elizabeth to view the proposed territory in March 1904.
• Draft letters to the Capuchin Minister General re the proposed mission.
• Draft memoranda of agreement for the proposed mission stations and properties to be held by the Irish Capuchins in the Vicariate.
• Colour trace map of the Eastern Vicariate showing the locations of the proposed Capuchin mission stations.
Other correspondents include: W.H. Butler, J. Commins, Fr. Lewis B. Gately, Fr. J.J. O’Reilly, St. Mary’s, Cape Town, and Fr. Bernard Christen of Andermatt OSFC, Minister General of the Capuchin Franciscans. On 13 July 1903, Bishop McSherry wrote: ‘I fear it would be practically impossible for me in a letter to convey to you any fair idea of the state of things in this country. Everything here is quite different to what it is at home – climate, season, habits and customs of the people, conditions of travelling, the ways of the natives – everything’. Later, the Bishop explained that the ‘mission district is 175 miles in its greatest length and 75 miles in its greatest width. It contains the important towns of Ailwal and Burghersdorp and the following smaller ones, Jamestown and Barclay East. … There are no Catholic schools in the district. The climate is about the best in South Africa or in the world’. (4 Jan. 1904).