Shades

In 1857 the Governor of the Cape, Sir George Grey, decided to bring missionaries into the Eastern Cape as a means of turning the amaXhosa into Black Englishmen. He used the Anglican Church for this purpose.

After about 1848, the church in the Eastern Cape was ruled from its cathedral in Grahamstown. Indeed, Grahamstown was the cultural heart of the region, and would remain so until after the 1st World War.

Keiskamma Hoek did not receive a missionary immediately. It would have to wait until about 1858 for that to happen.

In 1857 the Anglican pastor for the White community at East London (Reverend Joseph Willson) was murdered. His place was taken by Reverend William Greenstock who had a special calling to serve the amaXhosa. Greenstock, however, fell foul of the military authorities and of his Bishop.

While ministering to some Xhosa prisoners at the East London prison, he came across the three men who had supposedly murdered Rev. Willson. He converted them to Christianity, heard their confessions and baptised them.

In doing so, he prevented the authorities from extracting a confession from them, because it was still not certain that all three had in fact committed the murder.

As a result, Greenstock was transferred to Keiskamma Hoek in disgrace, and there he founded the mission station of St Matthews.

An interesting point is that the church bell that Greenstock used for his mission, both at East London and St Matthews, came from the Lady Kennaway which was wrecked at East London in November 1857.

St Matthias Mission in Shades is based upon St Matthews Mission at Keiskamma Hoek - and a picture of Reverend Greenstock hangs in the Farborough house.