Rebecca Wakefield (19 August 1844 – 16 July 1873) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

Methodist missionary wife who worked and died in what is now Kenya.

Life

Wakefield was born in 1844 in the Leicestershire village of

Mountsorrel Mountsorrel is a village in Leicestershire on the River Soar, just south of Loughborough with a population in 2001 of 6,662 inhabitants, increasing to 8,223 at the 2011 census. Geography The village is in the borough of Charnwood, surrounding ...

. Her parents were Rebecca (born Wale) and Simeon Brewin (d. 1857). Her father was a Methodist preacher and a hosier and draper. Her mother was a baker's daughter who was involved with temperance and

Methodism Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

in their well-to-do community. She was the youngest child and she had three elder brothers. She had accepted a proposal of marriage from an old school friend who was a missionary in Ceylon but before the marriage could be arranged he died. left, Rev Thomas Wakefield In May 1869 she attended the United Methodist Free Churches Missionary Society annual meeting where she met Thomas Wakefield who had outlived other missionaries to lead a mission at Ribe in East Africa. This was north of

Mombasa Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital status in 1907. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...

in what is now Kenya. By the end of the year they were married and on 24 February 1870 they set out for East Africa. She was pregnant and for nearly 100 days she was on board a small boat sailing to Zanzibar. At Zanzibar Nellie Wakefield was born on 16 October 1870 and they made their new home in a stone built two room house. Graves_of_Rebecca_Wakefield_et_al

She wrote letters home where she complained about the local wildlife. Leopards would take their foal and goats and the ants and rats would eat away at woodwork including the loss of the mission's piano. However she was able to dispense medicine, teach and preach. She taught children how to sew and to sing praises until she was 29. On 8 June 1873 their son Bertie was born but the two of them never recovered. Both she and her son were buried in the mission's graveyard in July. The same graveyard also accepted Reverend Charles New, who had climbed to

Kilimanjaro Mount Kilimanjaro () is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world, at above sea level and above its plateau base. It is also the highest volcano i ...

's snow line, when he died in 1879 and Reverend Edmund Butterworth who had arrived with woodworking tools that were first used to create his coffin.

Death and legacy

Wakefield died in

East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...

in 1873. Her brother Robert wrote her biography, ''Memoirs of Rebecca Wakefield, wife of the Rev. T. Wakefield, United Methodist Free Churches missionary in eastern Africa'', which was published in 1876. Thomas Wakefield married again to Elizabeth Sommers in 1882. He was to return to England where he was asked to be a Fellow of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

in 1889. He died in 1901.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wakefield, Rebecca 1844 births 1873 deaths People from Leicestershire Methodist missionaries in Africa