Description
Ann Shaw (1788-1854), the author’s ancestor, was hailed by both immigrant and indigenous South Africans as their spiritual mother, the ‘Mother of Methodism in South Africa’. However, all accounts of early South African history have erased her influence, including those written by her husband, Rev. William Shaw, the ‘Wesley of Africa’. Had something necessitated Ann’s removal from the records? With tenacious scholarship, McAlpine-Black discovers Ann’s letters, her poetry, and the female threads of the lives that surrounded her—and weaves a family history into an international narrative. Ann Shaw lived at a time when women were discouraged from taking part in church ministry. Despite this, Ann journeyed from the English fens to the African Cape, becoming the most significant female catalyst for Methodism and education in South Africa. Now Methodism is its largest denomination. In addition to the challenges of women’s diseases, miscarriage, childbirth, family life, and patriarchy in the early nineteenth century, Ann’s story unearths the female roots of Methodism, a fresh and compelling history of South Africa, and the high cost of motherhood.
About the Author
Joy McAlpine-Black is a Cambridge-based writer and creative writing teacher with postgraduate degrees in Museum & Gallery Education and Creative Writing.
Her first love was art, and she has responded to the pull of blank canvases and pages ever since. She has been a lecturer at the University of Cambridge as well as access and learning advisor for museums, libraries, and archives in the southeast of England. She now teaches ekphrasis and writes about women sidelined by gatekeepers of the past.
Contents
1. Between the Lines
2. Silent Faith
3. Untold Passion
4. Sewing Meeting
5. Farewell
6. Death of a Mother
7. Ann’s Letter from Salem
8. Wesleyville
9. Ann’s Pluck
10. Women’s Words
11. Wise Woman
12. Mrs Shaw’s School
13. Displaced Children
14. Grahamstown 1829
15. Must-Have Books
16. Not Home
17. Secret Powers
18. Other People’s Children
19. Sons of Thunder
20. Leaving
21. Burying Ann
22. Remains
23. Resurrection
Endorsements and Reviews
What a triumph! In this painstakingly researched and beautifully written biography, Joy McAlpine-Black is rightly outraged at the way that such a significant figure as Ann Shaw has been written out of history. This is a compassionate account of a vocation most of us can’t imagine today, but which is told with wit and energy. This biography will be indispensable to future researchers and has succeeded in restoring Shaw to her rightful place in the history of Methodism.Dr Midge Gillies, author of Atlantic Furies and Amy Johnson
This ground-breaking work on Ann Shaw means that the history of early Methodist mission in southern Africa has to be recalibrated. Joy McAlpine-Black’s meticulous research and accessible writing [have] brought into vivid focus the remarkable life of a woman who has been systematically marginalised by previous authors. The book is vital reading for all those interested in women’s contributions within societies and Christian environments in which what they achieved was seminal but often sidelined. Dr Ian Randall, Senior Research Associate, Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide
I very much enjoyed reading this biography. It is well written, and McAlpine-Black has done a splendid job in giving life and vigour to the marginalised Ann Shaw. I greatly admire her tenacious research and scholarship in recovering Ann’s life and rescuing Ann from the condescension of 19th-century men and some recent historians who foolishly overlooked the role of women. I also warm to McAlpine-Black’s sensibility in giving primacy to African voices.Professor David Killingray, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
