Royal Commonwealth Society : Second landing on the shores of Victoria

Allen, Annie Emma (1853-1942)

Royal Commonwealth Society

<p style='text-align: justify;'>In 1900 Annie Emma Allen (1853-1942) travelled to Uganda where she began her career as an honorary missionary with the Church Missionary Society. Allen documented her long and arduous journey by steamer, rail, bicycle, foot and sail in an album containing 66 atmospheric watercolours. They provide vivid impressions of the people and places she encountered. 1-8 portray the outward trip to Port Said; 9-19 show Sinai, the Red Sea and Aden; 20-25 were painted in Mombasa and Freretown; and 26-66 illustrate the trip to Lake Victoria. Allen would serve as a CMS missionary in Uganda for the next 25 years, teaching and working in hospitals and dispensaries, before retiring in 1926, at the age of 73.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The missionaries finally reached Uganda by sailing along the shores of Lake Victoria in an Arab dhow, because the steamship sent to meet them was wrecked upon the way. Allen’s caption reads, 'Showing fishing baskets (on principle of lobster pots) and canoes. Green awning (made from one of our tent ground sheets). Archie (Mrs Lloyd's boy bailing)'. Notes from a previous page describe the initial voyage, 'Groundsheet for awning, at first lay on bare boards with bed bags as bolsters, afterwards got our pillows, mattresses etc., got on board at midnight, rowed out to it in dugouts, on dhow seven English passengers, twelve boys.'</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>See Janus record <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0115%2FRCMS%20158'>here</a></p>