The library of SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London holds the largest collection of Christian missionary archives in the UK, as well as personal papers of many individual missionaries. These collections span the 18th to 20th centuries and include a wealth of primary source material, such as correspondence, reports, minutes, journals, photographs and films.

The Missionary Collections include many documents that relate to anti-leprosy work by missionary societies, including the China Inland Mission (CIM), Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF), Christian Aid, Conference of British Missionary Societies, Council for World Mission, London Missionary Society, the Mission to Lepers (later The Leprosy Mission), the Melanesian Mission, Methodist Missionary Society, Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, and Primitive Methodist Missionary Society.

There are documents relating to leprosy work in many regions, particularly in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and South America. Specific leprosaria mentioned in the archives include Lanchow Home (Borden Memorial Hospital) and Siaokan in China; Happy Mount Leprosy Colony, Taiwan; Chiang Mai, Thailand; Kawimbe and Luapula, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia); Mangarono and Manankavaly, Madagascar; Uzuakoli, Nigeria; Neyoor, Bankura, Almora, and Dichpalli (Victoria Leprosy Hospital) in India; and others.

Researchers interested in the history of leprosy should access the library’s catalogue of Archival Sources on Medicine and Health (PDF, 135 pages) as a starting point. The archives catalogue can also be searched at http://archives.soas.ac.uk/CalmView/.

Entry created February 2016