Wives Incorporated

Wives Incorporated

While the early SPG was an organisation made up of male Church of England clergy, committee members, and subscribers, there is evidence that women had a voice that was recognised by its administrative structures. Many early missionaries were married, and the existence of wives (whether they accompanied their husbands to the colonies or not) often dictated the location and nature of their husbands’ work. Certain locations were deemed to be too dangerous or unhealthy for clergy to take their wives and families to, and letter-writers occasionally turned down postings because their wives or mothers had not consented to their going.

The SPG had a duty of care to missionaries’ wives and families, and this was particularly true after an individual’s death, when calls were made for financial assistance for widows. The Society also listened to and apparently responded favourably to the petitions of the wives of living clergy, like the letters of Mary Keith, living in England while her husband was in Maryland, who wrote to request a portion of her husband’s salary, which, using the formal language of petition, she claimed was necessary to enable her to feed her children. In this way missionary wives had a degree of influence over the work of their husbands and the way their salaries were paid, and by extension, contributed to the shaping of the work and structures of the society itself.

AH/T003197/1: Pastoral Care, Literary Cure and Religious Dissent: Zones of Freedom in the British Atlantic (c. 1630-1720)