29/11/1879 –04/12/1943
Of humble origins, became a missionary in Africa, died in an asylum and buried in Berkhamsted
Relatives
Research:
Rectory Lane plot 1075
Rev John William Stanlake
Died 4 December 1943, age 73
John Stanlake was a Wesleyan Methodist minister and missionary, and spent 25 years in what was then Rhodesia.
He married Martha Tomlinson in Bulawayo in 1899.
He seems to have no obvious connection with Berkhamsted, apart from living at an address at Hall Park just before he died in hospital.
John William Stanlake was born on 29 November 1870, on the Isle of Sheppey. When he was four months old, he was living with his parents on a naval hulk Aetna (An iron clad floating battery built for the Crimean War but never used. It burnt down a few years after John was born). This appears to have been housing Metropolitan Police Officers, who were responsible for policing the Royal Dockyard at Chatham and the surrounding area. His father, a Cornishman, was one of these police constables.
John was brought up on Sheppey, and later in his childhood the family lived in Minster, Sheppey, where his father had been promoted to Detective Sergeant. The family were members of the Wesleyan church.
He was educated at the Wesleyan School in Sheerness. After he left school, he worked as an apprentice coppersmith in the Chatham dockyard, staying there for six years. During that time he was an active member of the Wesleyan Church in Sheerness, where he was a local preacher and leader of the junior class.
He then left the dockyard and went to the Wesleyan Training college in Richmond for three years. He was ordained in 1895, and the same year set off to Africa.
He went to what was then called Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as a Wesleyan missionary. He arrived in the middle of the Matabele Rebellion, and for a while had to take refuge in the laager erected in Salisbury (Harare) for the safety of Europeans. He set up in Bulawayo, then a mining camp (now Zimbabwe’s second city), where he used the court house as a chapel. When the rebellion had been supressed, he went to Matabeleland. He learnt the local language to a degree, and built a house, church and school to establish a mission in Tegwani.
In 1904 when he returned on leave to Sheerness where he gave an interview to the local newspaper, in which he outlined his career to date. The article describes him as, “Having a handsome English countenance, darkened just a little by exposure to tropical suns. He gives one the impression of an eminently business-like and masterful person – one who has been called upon to rely largely on himself and to have others rely on him too. He also showed himself to be strongly interested in his work, and displayed a broad, and what might be called statesmanlike outlook upon affairs”. The journalist adds the comment that “questions, very much leading questions were required to get Rev Stanlake to speak about his own doings.” This reticence does not seem to have been usual for him – he gave lengthy talks and lectures to various Wesleyan groups about his work. He describes his experiences of arriving as an early missionary and colonialist to that part of the world, and discusses the prospects for the development of the country, and the missionaries’ approach, which was to rely heavily on education rather than conversion. At one time he encountered Cecil Rhodes, when he was his almoner when supplying destitute Dutch women and children. The article makes no reference to his wife who was presumably by his side.
After 17 years he returned to England and took up a ministry in Horsham, Sussex in 1912. However, he did not stay long and returned to Rhodesia in 1913 for another seven years. In 1916 he was appointed to the Mashonaland section of Rhodesia. In 1924 he was in charge of the European Church in Bulawayo, supervising 21 outstations, 2 native missions, 19 evangelist stations, with 900 church members and 1000 children in his school.
In 1927 he was settled back in England, and appointed to the Bodmin and Cornwall district of the Wesleyan Church. He did not seem to stay there long, as he returned again to the Horsham area, where he became the superintendent of the Dorking and Horsham Wesleyan circuit. In 1934 he retired on account of ill health. The Stanlakes moved to Seaford, Sussex, and lived in house called Tegwani in Headlands Avenue. He was not retired, as he took over the ministry of the Methodist church in Seaford in August 1935.
In 1941 he had a homily published in the Sussex Agricultural Express about harvest, reflecting on failure. In September 1943 he is reported by the Sheerness Times Guardian as attending a Golden Wedding Anniversary of very old friends in Sheerness with his wife (a rare reference), where he is described as a ‘supernumerary’ at Seaford, Sussex.
He died on 4 December 1943 at the Three Counties Hospital in Stotfold, near Biggleswade. He died of heart disease. His address was given as ‘Goldsthorne’ (sic), Hall Park Berkhamsted.
The puzzle is what was he doing in Berkhamsted? The Three Counties Hospital was a psychiatric hospital/asylum, but there is no sign of mental incapacity in his biography. He was visiting in Sheerness only a few months earlier, and living in Seaford, where his wife continued to live after his death. In 1939 there were three retired teachers living in Goldsthorne (one the daughter of a Wesleyan minister), so it is possible they were old friends and he was visiting when he became ill. It was wartime, so it might have been expedient to have had him buried on Berkhamsted rather than Seaford. The burial service was carried out by the Rev GH Kingswood, a Methodist minister, who lived in Hemel Hempstead.
When he died there was a short obituary in the Sheerness Times Guardian, saying he had passed away in Berkhamsted
The Wesleyan Missionary society records are kept at SOAS, and include photographs and biographies.
The Stanlakes do not appear to have any children (although if they lived their entire lives in Rhodesia, they would not appear in the records I could consult). There is one sign of their influence in Zimbabwe: Stanlake John William Thompson Samkange, (1922-88) was a Zimbabwean historian, educationalist, journalist and author, and African Nationalist who served in Joshua Nkomo’s government after the end of White rule. He was born in Mashonaland to a methodist minister, Rev Thompson Samkange. Presumably the older Samkange named his son after our Rev John William Stanlake. (Wikipedia). Joshua Nkomo was born in Matabeleland, and his father was a preacher and worked for the London Missionary Society (who Stanlake belonged to). Nkomo himself was a methodist lay preacher. So it is fair to think Rev Stanlake left his mark on modern Zimbabwe.
Jenny Thorburn 26 January 2024
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