George Aveline

George Aveline was sent out from the church at Maidstone as a BMS missionary to Grahamstown (in what was then known as the Cape Colony) South Africa, in 1838. He opened a new chapel there in Bathurst Street on 14 March 1843 (an account of the service appeared in the Missionary Herald [August 1843]: 436-438). He returned to England later that year, however, ending his work as a missionary. During his time at Grahamstown, Aveline established two schools, educating some 150 scholars by the time he left. The Grahamstown church, though an anomaly for the BMS at that time, was nevertheless supportive of the work of the Society, contributing a sum of  £417 to the BMS Jubilee Fund in 1843. Letters from Aveline to friends in London concerning his Jubilee fundraising efforts appeared in the Missionary Herald (December 1842, 687-688, and February 1843, 124-125). Writing to William Groser on 24 June 1842 (the letter appeared in the Missionary Herald in October 1842, 560), Aveline reminded his correspondent that he had always been supported by his congregation at Grahamstown or other private means, noting that “since I left England, I have never drawn sixpence form the Society’s funds, and I have now the animating hope of annually contributing to their increase.”  He added, “I seem to have led a sad idle life in England compared with my now constant and multiplied engagements.” See F. A. Cox, History of the Baptist Missionary Society, from 1792 to 1842, 2 vols. (London: T. Ward, and G. and J. Dyer, 1842), 2:395, 400; Baptist Magazine 33 (1841), 73; Missionary Herald  (March 1843), 180; Sydney Hudson-Reed, By Taking Heed: The History of Baptists in Southern Africa 1820-1977 (Roodepoort, South Africa: Baptist Publishing House, 1983), 15-17; and Brian Stanley, The History of the Baptist Missionary Society 1792–1992 (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1992), 215.