The Reverend 'Henry Hare Dugmore' (1810-1896), a
South African missionary, writer and translator, was born in
England, son of Isaac and Maria Dugmore. The family emigrated when his father was financially ruined after being forced to pay the debts of a relative for whom he had stood surety. The Dugmore family sailed to South Africa on the vessel ''Sir George Osborn'' in
1820 as part of the Gardner party of
1820 Settlers.

Rev. Henry Hare Dugmore c1890
Conversion and missionary work
In 1830 Dugmore became a committed member of the
Wesleyan Methodist church, and began to study for ordination. In the late 1830s he was appointed as the successor to the missionary William Boyce, who ran a Wesleyan mission station in the rural
Eastern Cape at Mount Coke, near
King William's Town. Dugmore quickly became fluent in the
Xhosa language, and spent the next twenty years undertaking missionary work. He was jointly responsible for the first translation of the
Bible and
Psalms into the Xhosa language, and composed a large number of Xhosa hymns, some of which are still sung today.
Later life
In
1860 Dugmore moved to the town of
Queenstown where he spent the rest of his life. He continued to write, and became involved in a large number of clubs and societies. In addition, he became the focus of many visits by missionaries from
Europe and
North America, and was noted for his oratory and public speaking on sacred and secular subjects - in both English and Xhosa.
See also
★
Xhosa
References
★ Mitford-Barberton, I., 1968. ''Some Frontier Families'', Cape Town: Human & Rousseau.
★ Dugmore, H. H., 1990. ''Reminiscences of an Albany Settler'', Scottsville: Grant Christison. (Facsimile of original, published Grahamstown: Richards, Glanville and Co., 1871)
External links
★
List of descendants of H. H. Dugmore
★
1820 Settlers' National Monument