Calabar or Southern Nigeria as we now know it, became a British Protectorate in 1900.  European countries such as Britain and France were gradually creating more formalized systems in West Africa following a history of trade and colonization. This brought some benefits such as new roads, but many problems.

Consul Claud Macdonald who arrived in Calabar in 1891 planned to set up a new system of courts in the area as part of the Protectorate. He had heard about the work of Mary Slessor and asked her about the planned court system. In her usual forthright manner she said that external people trying to settle local disputes would be a disaster. She therefore found herself appointed as his vice-consul to Okoyong appointed by the Secretary of State. She then had to manage challenging situations where she was representing the local people and dealing with British government officials, all of this, while continuing her missionary work and raising her children.

This role did however, make her the first female magistrate in the British Empire.

One of the ways in which Mary tried to improve the lives of the villagers in the communities in which she lived and worked, was to encourage the tribes to trade with each other instead of fighting. Her skill in speaking  Efik, which was the main trading language, meant that she could converse easily with local leaders and discuss the benefits of trade.

She contacted King Eyo VII in Creek Town and asked him to invite a delegation of tribesmen from Okoyong to come and discuss the possibility of trading their palm oil and other produce. Considerable discussion was needed to persuade the Okoyong Chiefs to leave their weapons behind before embarking on the visit, which they eventually agreed to as long as Mary came along as well.

Chiefs became aware of the benefit of their people being able to speak  English to trade more widely  and so numbers in her classes increased to learn ‘Book’ as they called the Bible teaching. This was not necessarily to be able to learn the Bible, but to be able to negotiate with other traders from other countries in Calabar port.

Before she left Dundee, the congregation of the Wishart Church presented her with a gold watch.

On 5th August 1876 at the age of 28 she boarded the SS Ethiopia at Liverpool sailing to Duke Town in Calabar. The journey from Britain to West Africa in 1876 took roughly five weeks. Like most new missionaries at the time, she travelled, with set ideas about the work to be done and some misconceptions about the native people and their country. Many of these ideas were about to change.

This year, 2015, the centenary of the death of Mary Slessor, the asteroid has officially been named ‘Slessor 4793′ after a petition was established by a Belgian based twinning charity.

Only a few days before, a motion was discussed during a member’s debate in the Scottish Parliament discussing Mary Slessor and the Mary Slessor centenary events in light of this important day.

See this video of the debate…

http://www.scottishparliament.tv/category.aspx?sort=date&vid=0_ixaisymp

Sportman’s Club, 11 Queens Road, Aberdeen, AB15 4YL

Tickets cost £10 and includes a buffet, childcare is available.

Pre-booking is essential, for more information on how to do this, please visit

This December, the Mary Slessor Foundation celebrated the graduation of several students. We wish them good luck on their journey onwards.

As the dawn rises on 2015, Dundee emerges from its industrial past to a new era. Four Marys- Slessor, Brooksbank, Walker and Baxter, each helped shape the city in their different ways and they meet in a disused jute mill to discuss their roles in creating the Dundee that is spread out before them. The good, the bad and the ugly truth will be revealed in this new play developed for the Mary Slessor Centenary.

This play is supported by the University of Dundee. For more information contact a.c.day@dundee.ac.uk.

Guest Lecture at the Dundee and Angus College, Gardyne Campus as part of Dundee Women’s Festival.

A talk was delivered by chairman of the Mary Slessor Foundation, Doug Binnie, telling of the work of the Mary Slessor Foundation in Calabar, Nigeria, and the challenges it faces, and comparing it to the work of Mary Slessor, an extraodinary woman.

While undoubtedly she faced different and sometimes even greater dangers and difficulties than the Foundation does today, it is notable that some of these still exist. Poverty and hardship is still an every day burden, education is still limited and life expectancy is still short.

This event was free and open to the public.

Thanks to generous funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, an exhibition has been launched and will be the centriepiece of the centenary celebrations, running for 6 months.

The exhibition is at Verdant Works @ Scotland’s Jute Museum and is free to visit.

The main exhibition will run from 11 April – 1 November 2015

The upper gallery features a selection of entries from the centenary competitions which will be open from 11 April until 19 July 2015

For more details about Verdant Works please call 01382 309060

The centenary exhibition tells the story of Mary Slessor’s journey from Dundee mill girl to missionary and later magistrate in Calabar. It celebrates her work to improve the lives of the local tribes, in particular the women and children and her ongoing legacy.

This tempoaray exhibition includes personal objects which belonged to Mary Slessor from the collections of Dundee Art Gallery and Museums, along with contemporary images and quotes from her letters wrtten during her life in Calabar.

The story begins in Dundee, an expanding industrial city, struggling with poor housing, sanitation and poverty. It then follows Mary as she sets out for the then mysterious continent of Africa, encountering a whole new set of dangers and challenges.

Exhibition curated by: Catriona Baird, Freelance Curator

Designed by: GBDM Ltd. Dundee: Griff Boyle, Wendy Maltman and Emma Thompson.