Alright! From my last post you are aware that I was able to visit the London Missionary Society archives kept at SOAS in London and it was super cool. The box with the photos is a box of a few different sorts of things, so it also had a chunk of incoming letters about the SS Good News, my favorite missionary steamship. Since I didn’t have a whole lot of time to peruse each letter I just took photos of the ones that seemed like they would be interesting and now after long last I have transcribed them to the best of my ability (“best of my ability” because man I cannot read some of their handwriting). So in two parts I will show you what I found.

The first neat thing is the original contract for the SS Good News, signed by LMS Foreign Secretary R. Wardlaw Thompson and Forrestt and Son boatbuilders (photos at the top):

Memorandum of Agreement entered into this Fifteenth day of April one thousand eight hundred and eighty two between Messr. Forrestt and Son of Britannia Yard Millwall Shipbuilders hereinafter called the builders of the one part and R. Wardlaw Thompson of 15 Blomfield St. London Wall acting for and in behalf of the London Missionary Society hereinafter called the owners of the other part.

The said builders hereby agree to build for the said owners a steam launch in accordance with the terms of the specifications and drawings hereto attached and to deliver the said launch in parcels for shipment free alongside steamer in the river Thames for the sum of £1,600 (one thousand six hundred pounds).

It is further agreed by and between the said builders and the said owners that if the launch be so far completed as to be tried under steam on the river Thames a further sum of £150 (one hundred and fifty pounds) shall be paid for the additional labor and expense incurred thereby.

It is also further agreed by and between the said builders and the said owner that the purchase money for the launch does not include any of the following items of the outfit viz:-

• One complete set of spars
• One complete set of sails
• One complete set of blocks
• One large anchor
• One compass

And the said owner hereby agrees to pay the said builder the before mentioned purchase money in these equal instalments viz:-

• One third when the launch is in frame
• One third when the launch is plated and the deck laid
• And the remaining third when the launch is finished and delivered to the said owner.

As witness our hands this fifteenth day of April one thousand eight hundred and eighty two

R. Wardlaw Thompson – Foreign Secy London Missionary Soc

     J. Messtt Frm [?]

Witness to both signatures (Clerks to the London Missionary Society 14 Blomfield Street E.C.

     William Ford Brown

     Mm Ley Lerk [?]

After the contract the next neat thing is a letter from James Roxburgh to G.S. Goodwin, Esq. Mr. James Roxburgh was an engineer that went to Lake Tanganyika on behalf of the London Missionary Society to build the Good News. Looking back I should have written a biography of him in my Chronicle transcription. I didn’t because he’s not on the LMS list of missionaries because he wasn’t sent out as a missionary, but as a “practical engineer in the employment of the Society,” as the LMS put it (though they also referred to him at least once as “our missionary engineer”). I have a blog post on Building the SS Good News with excerpts from books by E.C. Hore and A.J. Swann, but it was Roxburgh that was the main man in charge of actually building the boat.

This letter came to the LMS archives when it was sent to them by Andrew Hamilton of A. Goodwin-Hamilton & Adamson Ltd, apparently a firm of naval architects (as I learned from their letterhead), some 40-odd years after it was originally sent to G.S. Goodwin, Esq. It is not clear to me from the letters or some subsequent googling why Mr. Roxburgh was writing to Mr. Goodwin. My guess is that Mr. Goodwin was the boss of a firm of engineers from whence Roxburgh was hired by the LMS. It’s a pretty chatty letter, starting with the story of launching the Good News and talking about parts still missing, but then at the end gets into the state of Roxburgh’s health. Unfortunately this is foreshadowing; James Roxburgh would die on Kavala Island on May 18, 1885, about three months after writing the below letter on the same day he launched the Good News.

The cover letter from A Goodwin-Hamilton & Adamson Ltd.:

A. Goodwin-Hamilton & Adamson Ltd.

Naval Architects, Consulting Engineers, Surveyors, &c.

Cunard Building, Liverpool, 27^th February 1931

Dear Mr. Chamberlin,

I came across the enclosed letter written by Mr. Jas. Roxburgh, dated 3^rd March 1885 from Lake Tanganyika at the time of the launch of the “Good News”.

This will I think be of interest and may deserve a place in the Society’s Museum & or History of the Tanganyika Mission.

With Kind Regards.

Yours truly,

Andrew Hamilton

And now the letter from Mr. Roxburgh:

Liendwe Central Africa

3^rd March 1885

To G.S. Goodwin Esq.,

Alexandra Buildings,

James Street,

Liverpool.

Dear Mr. Goodwin,

This has perhaps been the greatest day that Central Africa has yet seen, and the Natives here have been privileged to see a work accomplished that has been a very great puzzle to them for a long time past. As they could not conceive how it would be possible for us to carry such a big heavy boat as the “Good News” into the water. I am glad to inform you that the “Good News” was successfully launched today at 10/30 a.m., everything went well. We had not a hitch of any kind.

She now lies at Anchor opposite our camp here on the Lofu river and I am sure if you were here to have a look at her as she is on the river at present I think you would say she is a good clean tidy job and a credit to all who have had an important part of her to do, especially to the designer of her. I got on board as soon as possible after the launch and made a complete examination of her all along and I am glad to say I did not find a single leak. I do not think there will be much work for the bilge pump in our little steamer as no part of her is depending on putty nor paint.

Our Motto here has been, that whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. I may say I laid the ways for Launching on the same principle as is carried out at home, but it was a very big job getting and making the ways out here with very poor tools, etc. We had to go to the forest and cut down no less than 42 trees, giving us a total length of 380 feet, as the boat was built a long way back from the river on account of the great floods that often come sweeping down here in great force during the rainy season. She had a clear fun of 105 ft on her ways before the stern touched the water, that length of a run as you know is much longer than usual.

However that part of it is all over now and I am very thankful it is a very great load off my mind to know she is safely afloat on the water.

Though the boat is launched there is still a great amount of work to do at her yet, but I cannot give you any opinion in regard to the time she will be finished, as I don’t know how long it may be yet before I get the fittings. I still want all the cabin combing plates yet, also 2 bulkhead plates and boiler seat plate, then I have got nothing of the boiler here yet but the smoke box and 2 pieces of the funnel.

I have written to the African Lakes Co. about the boiler and engine time after time but as yet my writing has had very little effect. However I have just received a note from one of the Company’s Agents informing me that he was about to try and form a very large Caravan to bring up our boiler fittings etc. from the North end of Lake Nyassa, if he succeeds in getting the men he says he expects to be at Tanganyika by the later end of April or early in May, that itself is very good news, but we shall be at a complete stand long before that time. My patience has been very much tried on account of these long weary waits from time to time. I can enjoy a good week’s holiday at home, but it is not so here with me, for as soon as I am idle for a few days here I get laid down with fever. I think the very best medicine a white man can have for the good of his health in Central Africa is a moderate amount of work to do every day, this has at least been my experience since I came here.

I hope you received my last letter dated January 1885, with the list of boiler fittings I want replaced and sent out as soon as possible, I believe there are more boiler fittings awanting yet but I cannot find out what they are till the boxes arrive here. I know for certain that there is a box lost that contained 60 boiler tubes, but as there is a complete spare set I have never re-ordered them yet.

Now for fear my last letter to you of January 1885 may not have arrived your length, I shall here below repeat the list of lost fittings that I want replaced and sent out here as soon as possible.

• 2 test cocks.
• 1 5/8 water gauge cock for the bottom end of glass.
• 1 ½ steam jet and
• 12 fire or flue box screws or stays
• 1 spring for safety valve

I hope nothing else belonging to the boiler may be amissing, so that if the boiler plates etc. arrive here in April, I may be able to get it finished right off and put under steam.

I may here say that Capt Hore has not up till the present time seen much of the “Good News” yet, as he left here just 9 months ago to go and meet his Wife and child at Qillimani [Quelimane] and it happened rather unfortunately for him that the late native war down on the lower Shire river was going on and the river was blocked up for all traffic. However after some delay he got to Quillimane to meet his wife there, but on account of the native war he decided not to come via Nyassa with his Wife so he took steamer for Zanzibar and came up the Old Route, they arrived at Tanganyika on the 7^th of January but he has never got this length yet, as I believe he is busy building a house at the other end of the Lake for his Wife and family, as it is a much healthier place than this is. After he gets this finished he informs me he is coming down to see the “Good News”. At the time he left here she was only in frame and she is now lying at anchor out in the Lufo River.

I am sorry to inform you that I have not been in very good health for a long time and if it does not improve very soon I am afraid I must come home. However I sincerely trust that I may soon get stronger again if it is the Lord’s Will, for it will be very grievous to me if I have to part with the “Good News” before she is under steam and has had run round the Lake.

I have been down for over 4 weeks with a severe attack of jaundice and although I seemed to get over it all right, so far I don’t seem to have regained my usual strength since I have been up and moving about for nearly 3 weeks now, but I am so weakly yet that I can only work two or three hours per day, after which I have to turn in to my bed again, in other words, I have to lay in my bed the best half of the day, nearly every day. However I feel pretty well about the body and my appetite is fairly good. My weakness is all in my legs. I send with this Mail a letter to our Secretary in London.

Hoping this may find you and your family all in good health, and may God Bless and Guide you in all you do.

I remain,

Yours faithfully,

James Roxburgh