Mary Ruth Anstey papers

Archive & Special Collections MMS/17/02/06/27 Open

Date(s) of creation: 1950s-2007
Level: Sub-series
Format: Archive           
Main author: Anstey; Mary Ruth (1921-2014); educational missionary; mission secretary

collection SOAS Archive
id MMS.17.02.06.27
recordtype archive
scb_item_location Archive & Special Collections
item_location Archive & Special Collections
scb_loan_type Reference only
callnumber MMS/17/02/06/27
callnumber_txt MMS/17/02/06/27
callnumber-sort MMS/17/02/06/27
prefix_number 27
title Mary Ruth Anstey papers
scb_date_creation 1950s-2007
scb_level Sub-series
level_sort 7/Collection/Sub-Collection/Sub-Sub-Collection/Sub-Sub-Sub-Collection/Series/Sub-Series/Sub-Sub-Series/File
scb_extent 4 boxes and one oversize file
author Anstey; Mary Ruth (1921-2014); educational missionary; mission secretary
author_facet Anstey; Mary Ruth (1921-2014); educational missionary; mission secretary
authorStr Anstey; Mary Ruth (1921-2014); educational missionary; mission secretary
author_letter Anstey; Mary Ruth (1921-2014); educational missionary; mission secretary
format Archive
scb_admin_history Mary Ruth Anstey was born into a Methodist family in Devon on 20 October 1921. After a degree from Bedford College, London, she undertook a postgraduate Certificate in Education and worked for two years teaching in the UK. She applied to the Methodist Missionary Society and was accepted and assigned to their Trichinopoly District in 1945 but limits on passage by ship to India meant she did not set sail from England, aboard the SS Drottningholm, until January 1946. Her first appointment was to teach English in the Woriur Girls' High School (a day and boarding school) which a year after her arrival became part of the Diocese of Trichinopoly (later Tiruchirappalli) within the newly formed Church of South India. Upon returning from furlough In 1949 Ruth Anstey was appointed to the new CSI Women's Teacher Training Institution in Trichinopoly [Tiruchirappalli] to train teachers to teach English as well as teaching English in the Girls' Middle School. After another furlough she was appointed in 1956 to manage the Girls' Boarding School in Dharapuram for a year and then the following year appointed as temporary head of the Boys' Boarding and Middle School as well as teaching at the Men's Teacher Training School. She remained involved with these two institutions until 1962 when she returned to England. In September 1962 Anstey took up the post of Asia Secretary for Women's Work in the Methodist Missionary Society. Three years later she was seconded to the World Division of the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church (USA) to be involved in 'long-range planning'. In 1966 she returned to London to continue working for Women's Work in the Methodist Missionary Society as secretary for the Church of South India, then India and then once again Asia. In 1968 she was the Methodist delegate to the World Council of Churches assembly in Uppsala, Sweden. She was seconded again in 1974, this time to the Conference of British Missionary Societies (later the Conference for World Mission), as Asia Secretary until 1982 when she retired. During her retirement she was an active member of the 'Friends of the Church in India', 'Friends of the Church in China' and also within her local Methodist communities. Anstey died on 1 October 2014 in Shirley, Surrey. Further reading: Anstey, Ruth, 'The Indian Sojourn: The Agony and the Ecstasy' (Indo-British Review Journal of History, Volume XIV, No 1).
scb_acquisition Accepted as a deposit, on behalf of the Methodist Church, from Ruth Anstey between 2004 and 2011
scb_arrangement The collection has been weeded for duplicate material and ephemera. Arranged as follows: Ecumenism & support for Christianity overseas; Support for Christianity in India; Support for Christianity in China; Missionaries; Diaries and notebooks; Visual material; P & O brochures
scb_related_name_code GB/SOASNAF/P1868
GB/SOASNAF/P1880
scb_place_code 2635167
7729883
1814991
7729894
1819730
1269750
7729895
6269133
1210997
1227603
1168579
scb_access_status Open
scb_copyright Various copyrights
scb_use_restrictions For permission to publish, please contact Archives & Special Collections, SOAS Library in the first instance
language English
language_search English
scb_scripts_material Latin
scb_related_material Any extant correspondence for the start of Ruth Anstey's career will be in the Women's Work Trichinopoly District correspondence (MMS/Women’s Work/Correspondence/India/FBN 24-25). A brief overview of her career is also available (MMS/Special Series/Celebrate Together/Box 1207) as well as a summary of an interview with her (MMS/Special Series/Sounds Interesting/Box 1212). Furthermore, some of the reports Anstey wrote whilst seconded to the Conference of British Missionary Societies are available within that collection (CBMS 1971-1977 Boxes 8 & 29A).
hierarchy_top_id_raw MMS
hierarchy_sequence MMS.0017.0002.0006.0027

Similar items