Angus Duckett: Missionary, Pastor, Educator & Translator

 

Hayes Baptist Church Building Being Restored

Angus Duckett was a member of the Falmouth (now William Knibb Memorial) Baptist Church. He grew up in a church where the pastor advocated strongly for Baptists in Jamaica to take seriously what he regarded as their responsibility to take the Gospel back to their continent of origin. Duckett was among those who responded favourably to William Knibb’s urging and joined BMS missionary John Clark when, in 1843, he led a group of 42 Jamaicans on a journey to evangelize and contribute to the development of the people of Africa.

Another person who was among those who decided to throw in their lot for the cause of the development and Christianisation of Africa was Miss Ann Cooper from the Brown’s Town Baptist Church. She was a teacher and she joined the team to Africa with a plan to continue her ministry as a teacher there. Duckett and Cooper met in Cameroon and they got married there on July 17, 1844.

Duckett discovered his gift of language acquisition. He developed some mastery of Isubu, a Bantu language spoken in Cameroon, and he went to serve in Bimbia, in the southwest of the country with Joseph Merrick.

In 1843, Merrick, after giving up the pastorate in the Jericho Circuit to travel, with his wife, on the BMS/JBMS sponsored mission to Africa, departed for the continent. In 1844, with permission from King William of the Isubu people, Merrick planted a church and established a school in Bimbia.  Over the next few years, Merrick also established a brick-making machine and a printing press. He used this press to publish his translation of the New Testament into Isubu. Duckett provided valuable assistance to Merrick in his translation work. Merrick and his assistants also translated the New Testament into Duala, a major language spoken in Cameroon.

Unfortunately, the Jamaicans serving in Cameroon experienced severe health challenges. From as early as 1837, John Clarke, who had led the team of missionaries to Africa stated, in a letter to BMS:

The last year has been one of peculiar trial to our brethren in Africa. Two of their number, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Sturgeon, have been removed by death. Four of the teachers from Jamaica have returned, and the health of all our friends has suffered very seriously from the climate. Indeed, it is feared that some of them may be compelled to leave Africa, either permanently or at least for a season. If this fear be fulfilled, two missionaries and two teachers will be all the foreign labourers engaged in this field…. Surely this is a cry of distress, which will arouse the churches to think of our state.

 

Duckett was among those who faced ill health in Cameroon. Unfortunately, in 1847, acute bronchitis forced his return to Jamaica, where he was to continue the ministry to which God had called him. In 1853, he was admitted to Calabar College, where he completed two years of ministerial training.

To read the account of the oral examination that the students had to endure before twelve outstanding BMS missionaries, including Phillippo, Dendy, John Henderson, John Clark, William Teal, Edward Hewitt and Ellis Fray, and in which Duckett participated at Calabar is to recognize the enormous giftedness of the men who were admitted to Calabar in its earliest years.

As a first-year student, Duckett was required to present a paper on "Christian Watchfulness," which was followed by an examination of the several methods of Scripture exegesis, analysis of scripture, scripture geography, and Jewish antiquities.

 

After completing his time at Calabar, followed by his ordination, Duckett served, with his wife, at The Cross (now Palmer’s Cross) in Clarendon and at Hayes in the parish of Vere as a devoted and zealous pastor.  At Cross, Duckett established a school. In December 1872, a reporter in The Gleaner wrote about Duckett’s zeal “in forwarding the work of education among the people of his district” and the progress exhibited among the pupils [at the school] as being “astonishing as well as gratifying.”

Duckett, “assisted by his son George Duckett, Esq.” was among the featured speakers at the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society annual meeting that took place at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Spanish Town on January 17, 1886.

The Hayes Baptist Church where Duckett served is still ministering today, but the Cross church passed into the hands of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Some information on this church can be gleaned from Sharon Grant’s Rebaptism Calmly Considered: Christian Initiation and Resistance in the Early A.M.E. Church in Jamaica (Eugene, OR; Pickwick Publications, 2019).

On May 30, 1859, Mrs Ann Duckett died leaving for her two children a wonderful testimony of a life devoted to Jesus Christ and spent in the service of the kingdom of God. In June 1860, Duckett remarried. He found another great partner in the Gospel in Miss Monroe from St Mary who had been a teacher in Lucea.