- In full:
- Samuel Ajayi Crowther
- Ajayi also spelled:
- Adjai or Ajai
- Born:
- c. 1809, Oshogun, Yoruba region [Nigeria]
- Died:
- December 31, 1891, Lagos, Southern Nigeria
Samuel Crowther
Samuel Crowther (born c. 1809, Oshogun, Yoruba region [Nigeria]—died December 31, 1891, Lagos, Southern Nigeria) was the first Black African to be ordained as an Anglican bishop. He was consecrated by the Church Missionary Society in 1864 and was influential in the establishment of the Anglican faith in Nigeria, a country that would, by the 21st century, have more Anglicans than any other nation. See also Church of Nigeria.
Sold into slavery at the age of 12, Crowther was rescued in mid-passage by a British cruiser and landed at Sierra Leone, where he was educated in a mission school and baptized. In 1842 he went to the Church Missionary College in London, and he received holy orders as an Anglican priest.
The first formal Anglican missionary effort in Nigeria dates to 1842, when Crowther and British reverend Henry Townsend arrived in Badagry, Nigeria. Back in the Yoruba country, Crowther worked among his people as a missionary from 1843 to 1851, and he and Townsend originated both the Yoruba Mission and the Niger Mission, two bases of operation for Anglicans in Nigeria. In 1864 Crowther was ordained as bishop of the Niger territory by the Church Missionary Society, making him the first Anglican bishop of African descent. After accompanying several additional missionary expeditions, he devoted the rest of his life to administrative and evangelistic duties in his newly created diocese. In 1893 Crowther was succeeded by European missionary Joseph Sydney Hill, a shift that effectively ended the Black leadership model until the mid-20th century.
