MOFFAT

Robert (son of a custom house officer). b. Or mist on, East Lothian 21 Dec. 1795; apprenticed to a gardener 1809–12; under-gardener at Mr. Leigh’s, High Leigh, Cheshire Dec. 1813 to Dec. 1815; a mi ionary under the London mi ionary soc. from 1816, arrived at Cape Town 13 Jany. 1817, travelled in Nam aqua land 1817–8; superintendent at Lattakoo 1820–5, at Kuruman 1825–70; visited England 1839–43; persuaded Living stone to undertake the Bakwana mi ion 1840; was the pioneer of South African mi ionary work; left Africa for England 10 June 1870; D.D. Edinb. April 1872; presented with upwards of £5,000 by his friends 1873; presented with freedom and livery of the Turners’ company 20 Dec. 1877; entertained at the mansion house, London 7 May 1881; ( m. at St. George’s church, Cape Town 27 Dec. 1819 Mary only dau. of James Smith of Dukinfield near Manchester nursery gardener, she was b. at New Windsor, now part of Salford, 1795 and d. Brinton, London 9 Jany 1871 after being for 50 years one of the pioneers of South African mi ion work); author of Translation of the gospel of St. Luke into Sechwana 1830, Mi ionary labours and scenes in Southern Africa 1842 and 9 other books. d. Leigh near Tun bridge 10 Aug. 1883. bur. Norwood cemet. 16 Aug., memorial monument at Or mist on. J. S. Moffatt’s The lives of Robert and Mary Moffatt (1886), portraits of Mr. & Mrs. Moffatt ; A. Manning’s Heroes of the desert (1885), portrait ; J. Campbell’s Farewell services of R. Moffatt (1843); I.L.N. lx 452 (1872), portrait ; Graphic xxviii 192 (1883), portrait .