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Incoming correspondence to the London Missionary Society Headquarters from the Greek Mission, which was aimed at people in the British-ruled island of Malta and people in the British-ruled Ionian Islands.
The royal navy captured Zante [Zakynthos, or Zakinthos] and other islands to the West of the Greek mainland in 1809 and Britain governed them until 1864. From 1815 Britain also ruled Corfu [Kérkyra]. That meant missionaries were free to enter islands such as Zante and Corfu and had a friendly administration to deal with there. The LMS didn’t attempt to go into the territories ruled by the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire before Greek independence in the early 1830s. There are brief references in the letters to Lord Byron’s involvement in the struggle for Greek independence which led to his death there in 1824.
The earliest correspondent in Malta is John Wiesinger, who arrived in 1808 to learn Greek and Italian, with a view to founding the mission. His letters end in 1810 when he left the Society. Correspondents then include Bezaleel Blomfield (1811-1813), who briefly succeeded Wiesinger, Isaac Lowndes (1816-1819) who worked in Malta before moving to Zante in 1819 (and to Corfu in 1822), and Samuel Wilson (1819-1835), who worked in Valetta until the closure of the Malta mission in 1834.
Letters from the Greek Mission are initially sent from Zante, where Isaac Lowndes is the principal correspondent (1819-1822), and then from Corfu, where Lowndes stayed until 1844 when he joined the staff of the Bible Society. [N.B. Detailed listing of letters from the Greek Mission, 1822-1846, has yet to be completed].
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