For more than a hundred years until now, it has always been assumed that the first Caribbean Christadelphians were Mary Blenman, her son John and her daughter Viola. They were Barbadians from a distinguished lineage in that island, and were baptised in London, England, in May, 1884. John returned to the Caribbean, where six or more members of Mary’s extended family were baptised in Barbados and Guyana in the 1890’s.
The first Christadelphian baptisms of residents carried out in the Caribbean took place in 1889 and 1891. Isaac Barnes was baptised in Kingston, Jamaica, on July 15, 1889. He became one of the most dynamic preachers in the history of the brotherhood and, along with Bro. Harry Clements of London, pioneered a successful Bible mission to Liberia in West Africa. E. A. Thomas was baptised in October, 1889, in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Sam Husbands, a relative of Mary Blenman and a converted Baptist evangelist, was baptised in Bridgetown, Barbados, very early in 1891, followed in March, 1891, in Georgetown by Amy Phillips, the first Guyanese Christadelphian to be baptised.
Until 1994, it was believed that Isaac Barnes was the first Jamaican Christadelphian. In that year, the Caribbean Pioneer learned that Jamaicans Joseph Isaiah Gooding and wife Catherine were baptised at the Sydney Central Ecclesia in Australia in September, 1884, only four months after the Blenman family in London. There are descendants of the Goodings today in ecclesias in Australia and England.
Now we have learned that the Blenmans were not the first Caribbean Christadelphians and the Goodings were not the first Jamaicans. In 1878, Agnes Rose of Jamaica was baptised by a friend of John Thomas somewhere in “western Canada.”
We know that:
- Agnes was an avid Bible student from an early age, and “determined to find out the truth.”
- She emigrated from Jamaica to New York, probably in 1877.
- It is possible that she met Christadelphians in New York.
- In 1878 she moved to “western Canada” where she was baptised by a brother Ryckmeyer, who had been a friend of John Thomas and a member of the Cooper Institute ecclesia in New York.
- In 1882, she moved to Toronto and attended one of the ecclesias in that city.
- In 1883, elder brother Ross and others in Toronto persuaded her that she had “become better informed on some points” since her baptism five years before, and so “to make her calling sure” Agnes was re-immersed on April 8. [In those days, this was a relatively frequent practice. For example, Robert Roberts was baptised in Aberdeen following a good confession, and re-immersed years afterwards in Edinburgh to satisfy the scruples of his future father-in-law].
- Agnes was unmarried in 1883.
These are the only facts known to us. Can any North American brother or sister provide more details to fill out the story of Agnes Rose, the very first
Caribbean Christadelphian?
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One