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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 September 2011
From 1908 to 1922, Oswin Boys Bull (1882–1971) had the primary responsibility for supervising the recruitment of African youth and students into the South African SCA and YMCA. Following the lead of overseas sojourners Luther Wishard and Donald Fraser in 1895 and John R. Mott and Ruth Rouse in 1906, Bull took his experience as a Jesus College, Cambridge classics and theology major and sportsperson into the challenging religious, racial and ethnic field of the Union of South Africa. Bringing a mix of strong spiritual roots and an unwavering commitment to the racially inclusive interpretation of Christianity, Bull blazed a trail that earned him the reputation of a pioneer ecumenist.
Ably assisted by illustrious Xhosa-speaking intellectual and seasoned Christian proselytizer John Knox Bokwe, Bull made inroads into areas previously ignored by his predecessors. With a reach extending as far as neighboring historic Basutoland, Bull's efforts resulted in the establishment of branch associations in a variety of rural and urban locations. In spite of local opposition and tremendous geographical, linguistic, social and political barriers, Bull applied himself to the task of providing a firm foundation for Black and Mixed Race SCA and YMCA members to find places in previously lily-white bodies.
Understanding both his limits as well as his capabilities, Bull's generosity allowed him to share the spotlight with other evangelists. His correspondence with YMCA leader John Mott demonstrates a humble willingness to see the task of ‘nonwhite’ inclusion in SCA and YMCA work to the end. By the time Max Yergan, the first permanent YMCA and SCA secretary arrived in South Africa early in 1922, Bull was able to delegate most of the duties that required a field secretary to him, satisfied that he could concentrate on the remainder of his managerial duties from the YMCA and SCA center, in Cape Town and Stellenbosch, respectively. Already fluent in Afrikaans, Bull's history of attempting to build bridges between competing and often hostile populations set the standard for the type of leadership that a complex, extremely ethnically and religiously particularistic society like South Africa would need to construct a broadly based national movement.
Although O.B. Bull is known only to readers of Alan Paton's Hofmeyr, and those involved in the institutions with which he was associated, most notably, St Edmunds School, Jesus College, Cambridge, the Scriptural Union and the South African SCA and YMCA, it may now be possible for later generations to revisit the times in which he lived and worked to regain a sense of the odds against which he struggled and the resolve he showed in striving first to dream of and then fight for a more inclusive Southern African YMCA.
While he was by no means perfect and was clearly himself a product of his place and time, his quests for something better within himself and his adopted country were noble.
David Anthony is an Associate Professor of History at University of California, Santa Cruz, USA.
2. The Classic North American text remains Howard Hopkins, C., History of the YMCA in North America (New York: Associated Press, 1951); Carlos E. Reig Romero, YMCA de la Habana: memorias deportivas (1905–1910) (Quito, Ecuador: Departamento de Comunicaciones, Consejo Lationamericano de Iglesias, 2003); M.D. David, The YMCA and the Making of Modern India: A Centenary History (New Delhi: National Council of YMCAs of India, 1992); Kimberley A. Risedorph, ‘Reformers, Athletes, and Students: The YMCA in China, 1895–1935’, Dissertation, University of California at San Diego, 1994; Jun Xing, Baptized in the Fire of Revolution: The American Social Gospel and the YMCA in China, 1919–1937 (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press; London and Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1996); Jon Thares Davidann, A World of Crisis and Progress: The American YMCA in Japan, 1890–1930 (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1998); David I. McLeod, Building Character in the American Boy: The Boy Scouts, YMCA, and their Forerunners, 1870–1920 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983); Nina Mjagkij and Margaret Spratt (eds.), Men and Women Adrift: The YMCA and the YWCA in the City (New York: New York University Press, 1997); Nina Mjagkij, Light in the Darkness: African Americans and the YMCA, 1852–1946 (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1994); Thomas Winter, Making Men, Making Class: The YMCA and Workingmen, 1877–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Jessica I. Elfenbein, The Making of a Modern City: Philanthropy, Civic Culture and the Baltimore YMCA (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2001). A similarly impressive range of scholarship exists for the YWCA among the best of which is Judith Weisenfeld, African American Women and Christian Activism: New York's Black YWCA, 1905–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).Google Scholar
3. See, e.g., Garrett, Shirley S., Social Reformers in Urban China: The Chinese YMCA 1895–1926 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970); Mayer N. Zald, Organizational Change: The Political Economy of the YMCA (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); Eugene E. Barnett, My Life in China 1910–1936 (ed. Jessie Gregory Lutz; Asian Studies Center Monograph 10 Fall 1990; East Lansing: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. Hodder Williams, J.E., The Life of Sir George Williams: Founder of the Young Men's Christian Association (Cincinnati: Jennings & Graham; New York: Eaton & Mains, 1906).Google Scholar
5. There is no general history of either the South African Student Christian Association or Young Men's Christian Association. African involvement in these organizations is discussed in David H. Anthony, ‘Toward a History of “Black Work” in the South African YMCA’, submitted; Anthony, , ‘Max Yergan Encounters South Africa: Theological Perspectives on Race’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 34.3 (2004), pp. 235–265; and ‘ “The Men of Me”: Max Yergan and the Origins of the “Bantu Section” of the South African YMCA’, in Ntongela Masilela (ed.), Black Modernity: Discourses between the United States and South Africa (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, in press). It is also treated in Anthony's Max Yergan: Race Man, Internationalist, Cold Warrior (New York: New York University Press, 2006). See also Alan Gregor Cobley, The Rules of the Game: Struggles in Black Recreation and Social Welfare in South Africa (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997); Cobley, Class and Consciousness: The Black Petty Bourgeoisie in South Africa, 1924–1950 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990) and Tim Couzens, ‘Moralizing Leisure Time: The Transatlantic Connection and Black Johannesburg, 1918–1936’, in Shula Marks and Richard Rathbone (eds.), Industrialisation and Social Change in South Africa: African Class Formation, Culture and Consciousness, 1870–1930 (London: Longman, 1982), pp. 314–37. Memoirs and capsule histories include: The YMCA and the Non-Europeans, South African Outlook, 1 March 1951, pp. 39–40; T.R. Ponsford, The War Record of the Union Defence Force Institutes (YMCA – Toc H) 1939–1946 (Cape Town, 1946) and his ‘The Influence of the YMCA Is Felt in 66 Countries’, Outspan 40. 1029 (15 November 1946); Clifford P. Dent, ‘The Bantu S.C.A.’, in Youth for Christ – S.C.A. 1896–1946 [Die Jeug vir Christus – C.S.V. 1896–1946] (The Students’ Christian Association of South Africa, 1946). In-house unpublished histories include the following: George Edmund Haynes, ‘The History, Aims and Policies of the Student Christian Associations Among Bantu’, in History of the Young Men's Christian Association in Africa (New York: n.p., 1930); Henry-Louis Henriod, ‘The Student Christian Associations in Native Institutions’, World Student Christian Federation Papers, Yale Divinity School; Ray Phillips, ‘History of the South African YMCA’, in J.D. Rheinallt Jones Papers, South African Institute of Race Relations Collection, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. By contrast the YWCA has been chronicled in Gregor Cuthbertson and David P. Whitelaw, God Youth and Women: The YWCAs of Southern Africa, 1886–1996 (Johannesburg: The YWCAs, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. Vusi Kaunda to author, 22 July 2004. This article is the product of extensive archival research and an academic year in Lesotho (1987–88) and three field visits to South Africa (2000, 2001 and 2002). It would not have been possible without aid from Allison Sampson-Anthony, Bob Edgar and Vusi Kaunda. Others who helped considerably include Frances H. Willmoth, Jock Asbury-Bailey, Stan Fish, Sharon Viljoen, Stephen Gill, Craig J. Hincks, Martha Lund Smalley, Dan Sheldon, Michael Hews and the staffs of the former YMCA Bowne Historical Library in New York, the YMCA of the USA Archives, the John R. Mott and WSCF Collections at Yale Divinity School Library and Sterling Libraries, the WSCF Collection at the World Council of Churches Archives in Geneva, Switzerland, and myriad YMCA and SCA contacts.Google Scholar
7. The date most cited is 24 August 1865. Manhood: Organ of the Cape Town Y.MCA 4.4 (August 1923), p. 65 and ‘From Old YMCA Records’, 8.4 (September 1927), pp. 29–30 stating, ‘On August 24, 1865, after three preliminary meetings … Cape Town YMCA was formed. Headquarters [contains] a complete set of minute books.’ I have been unable to ascertain the present whereabouts of such should they still be extant. Andrew Murray, founder of Cape Town's YMCA was also involved with England's Keswick Conventions.Google Scholar
8. Paton, Alan, Hofmeyr (London: Oxford, 1964).Google Scholar
9. Arthur Posonby Moore-Anderson, Sir Robert Anderson and Lady Agnes Anderson (1947), ch. 8, ‘The Life Partner and the Family’.Google Scholar
10. Obituary, Annual Report, Jesus College Cambridge Society (JCCS), 1972. Provided by Frances H. Willmoth, Archivist, Jesus College, Cambridge, enclosed within Willmoth to author, 28 May 2004.Google Scholar
11. Jock Asbury-Bailey to author, 30 May 2004. Asbury-Bailey wrote of St Edmunds that ‘It was a foundation for the fatherless sons of clergy of The Church of England and The Church in Wales, a foundation dating back to 1749. The school had moved to Canterbury in 1855, having previously been at two sites in London and prior to that the “foundationers”, as they were called, had been educated in Thirsk, Yorkshire.’ Asbury-Bailey took this to mean that it was likely that Bull's father had died, probably in 1888.Google Scholar
12. J. Asbury-Bailey to author, 30 May 2004. Asbury-Bailey wrote further that: ‘At various times at school he was the winner of the Under 16 Long Jump, 440 yards and 880 yards and was Victor Ludorum. He was later Senior Victor Ludorum, winning the Shot Putt, 880 yards, 100 yards, Mile and He played right back in the football team and was a batsman and wicket-keeper in the cricket team. He was President of the Debating Society.’Google Scholar
13. Obituary, Annual Report, JCCS (1972). Bull's exploits are explored at length in several numbers of the Jesus College magazine, the Chanticleer, especially those of Lent and Easter Term 1902, Michaelmas Term 1902, Easter and Michaelmas Term 1903 and Michaelmas Term 1904 (Francis H. Willmoth, archivist).Google Scholar
14. J. Asbury-Bailey to author, 30 May 2004. Asbury-Bailey's catalogue of Bull's sport achievements includes: ‘At Cambridge he took part in the Freshmen's football match and the Sports (3rd in the hurdles). He played football and cricket for Jesus and was in the Sports team against Trinity College, Oxford. He returned to St Edmund's at least twice to sing in School Concerts and to play for the Old Boys at football and cricket. He gained football colours for Jesus and played once for the University in 1903 before being injured. In 1904 he gained a BA Aegrotat degree, due to illness and was still up at Jesus in 1904–05 reading for the Theology Tripos Part II and was then Captain of the Jesus football team and captained one of the teams in the University Seniors’ match. He was a Committee member of the COS Society (St Edmund's Old Boys) in 1904–05.’Google Scholar
15. Bull arrived at a time when the Scripture Union was in existence as the SCCM. This has been discussed in Prest, Eddie, Gems for his Crown: The Story of the Scripture Union in South Africa, 1884–1984 (Cape Town: Scripture Union, 1988).Google Scholar
16. Hopkins, History of the YMCA in North America, see sections on ‘race’. Hopkins, , John R. Mott, 1865–1955, a Biography (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), passim; Basil Mathews, John R. Mott, World Citizen (New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1934), pp. 174–75.Google Scholar
17. Relations between black and mixed race or so-called colored branches are uncertain. Some of the latter such as the 44 Long Street site of the Athlone Boys Club edifice are well over half a century old (personal communication, Millard to Anthony). There are documents indicating that some of these are even older.Google Scholar
18. Rouse, Ruth, ‘God Is Working His Purpose Out’, Universitas, 8.3 (May 1928), pp. 11. Of Bull's effectiveness Rouse went on: ‘Their prayers have been answered in his work in South Africa, where through all these years he has been a missionary force and a reconciling influence between Dutch and English.’ This was from a local South African reprint of an article first published in The Student Movement in February 1928.Google Scholar
19. Bull to Mott, Stellenbosch, Cape Colony, 6 February 1908, WSCF Collection # 46, Box 253, Folder 2119, Correspondence, Bull to Mott, 1906–1909.Google Scholar
20. The classic study of the period remains Marks, Shula, Reluctant Rebellion An Assessment of the 1906–08 Disturbances in Natal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970).Google Scholar
21. Hincks, Craig W., Quest for Peace: An Ecumenical History of the Church in Lesotho (Morija, Lesotho: Christian Council of Lesotho, 2009), ch. 13 (courtesy of the author). Much of this was drawn from the Morija periodical Leselinyana la Lesotho, 23 April 1910. Stephen J. Mokoena's first article from Bongalla, Hermon appeared in Leselinyana, 23 October 1909. I wish to thank Stephen Gill of the Morija Museum and Archives for passing this key reference along to me. I am also grateful to Craig Hincks for allowing me permission to quote from his monograph.Google Scholar
22. Bull, O.B., Studies in the Life and Teaching of the Apostle Paul (Stellenbosch: Student Christian Association of South Africa, 1914). Some useful letters survive between Bull and John Mott at Yale.Google Scholar
23. J.K. Bokwe tends to be known almost exclusively within the context of his Lovedale education and his prowess as an interpreter of Xhosa religious melodies, principally the songs of Ntsikana or Sicana Gaba, four of which continue to be performed by choral groups to the present day in isiXhosa and English. For more about the milieu in which he functioned, see Austin C. Okigbo, ‘Musical Inculturation, Theological Transformation, and the Construction of Black Nationalism in Early South African Choral Music Tradition’, Africa Today 57(2), pp. 44–65; Olwage, Grant, ‘John Knox Bokwe, Colonial Composer: Tales about Race and Music’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 131.1 (2006), pp. 1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24. Bull to Mott, 29 May 1916. World Student Christian Federation Manuscript Collection #46, Box 253 Folder 2120 Correspondence Mott-Bull, 1910–1925. John R. Mott Room Divinity School Library, Yale.Google Scholar
25. Bull to Mott, Cape Town, 18 November, 1916. WSCF #46, Correspondence Bull to Mott, 1910–1925.Google Scholar
26. Bull to Mott, Dolton, North Devon, England, 14 November 1917. WSCF#46. Correspondence Bull to Mott, 1910–1925.Google Scholar
27. Bull to Mott, 18 February 1919. WSCF #46, Correspondence Bull to Mott, 1910–1925.Google Scholar
28. Bull to Mott, 18 February 1919.Google Scholar
29. Bull to Mott, 18 February 1919.Google Scholar
30. Bull to Mott, Cape Town, 23 July 1919. WSCF#46 Correspondence Bull to Mott, 1910–1925.Google Scholar
31. Bull to Mott, 23 July 1919.Google Scholar
32. Mott to Bull, 19 September 1919. WSCF#46. Correspondence Bull to Mott, 1910–1925.Google Scholar
33. Anthony, Max Yergan: Race Man, Internationalist, Cold Warrior; ‘Yergan, Max, Marxism and Mission during the Interwar Era in South Africa’, Social Sciences and Missions, 22.2 (2009), pp. 257–291; ‘Unwritten History: African Work in the YMCA of South Africa’, History in Africa: A Journal of Method 32 (2005), pp. 435–44; ‘Max Yergan Encounters South Africa: Theological Perspectives on Race’, Journal of Religion in Africa 34.3 (2004), pp. 235–65; ‘Max Yergan in South Africa: A Transatlantic Interaction’, in Sidney J. Lemelle and Robin D.G. Kelley (eds.), Imaging Home: Class Culture and Nationalism in the African Diaspora (London and New York: Verso, 1994); ‘Max Yergan in South Africa: From Evangelical Pan Africanist to Revolutionary Socialist’, African Studies Review 34 (1991), pp. 27–55.Google Scholar
34. Bull, , ‘White and Black’, The Student Volunteer Movement Quarterly Bulletin, IV.1 (January 1923), p. 6.Google Scholar
35. Bull, ‘White and Black’, p. 6.Google Scholar
36. ‘Overdue’, Universitas 8.4 (June 1928), pp. 21–22. This unsigned article was clearly authored by Bull.Google Scholar
37. Personal communication, Millard to author.Google Scholar
38. Mott was made aware of this phenomenon in the Annual Reports and correspondence generated by Max Yergan. See Anthony, Max Yergan: Race Man, Internationalist, Cold Warrior, passim.Google Scholar
39. Bull, , Training Africans for Trades: A Report on a visit to the United States of America and Canada under the Auspices of the Carnegie Corporaton Visitors’ Grants Committee (Pretoria, South Africa: Carnegie Visitors Grants Committee, 1935).Google Scholar