The Congo Institute
The Congo Institute in Colwyn Bay was founded in 1889 by Rev. William Hughes. He had been a Baptist missionary in the Congo from 1882 to 1885. Ill health forced Rev. Hughes to return to Wales, but he still wanted to continue his work. Rev. Hughes did not come back alone. He had with him two Congolese boys, Kinkasa and Nkasa.
The idea behind the Congo House Training Institute (right, from Scandal at Congo House by Christopher Draper and John Lawson-Reay) and was to train native Africans to become missionaries, then return home to spread the word of God. Europeans often succumbed to the climate and diseases of the Tropics. Africans would not. Rev. Hughes had raised the money and opened the Institute in 1890.
It was not only religious education that was offered at the Congo Institute. Practical subjects such as handicrafts, medicine and law were taught. The trainees at the Institute were supposed to support their communities practically when they returned to Africa.
Students would come not only from the Congo, but also Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Cameroon and Liberia. In all over 100 would study at the Institute.
This photograph shows Rev. William Hughes and his wife with the students and staff of the Congo Institute. (Colwyn Bay Heritage Society)
The Institute began with the best of intentions - but was destroyed by a very modern style media campaign.
In 1911 a local girl had the child of one of the African students. Local outage was jumped on by the popular magazine John Bull and its proprietor Horatio Bottomley. Bottomley, who later became a Member of Parliament, was known for backing populist, especially pro-Empire causes.
In 1912 Rev. Hughes, sued for libel. The vast costs led to financial problems and bankrupted Rev. Hughes and the Institute. The student left and Rev. Hughes dies in 1924 in the workhouse - two years after Horatio Bottomley had been jailed for fraud.
There was, however, a long term significance to the work of the Congo Institute. One of the students was DDT (Davidson Don Tengo) Jabavu (1885 - 1959) from Eastern Cape, South Africa. He went on to earn a BA in English from the University of London.
Jabuvu (right, copyright BBC) would go on to become Professor of African Languages at the University of Fort Hare - the major Black African college in South Africa.
In 1936 he became the first President of the All African Convention, opposing the abolition of the native African vote, pre-Apartheid.
His greatest legacy, however, may be one of his students, one who looked on DDT Jabuvu as a mentor and the man who was important in his political education.
That student was Nelson Mandela, first Black President of South Africa.
