The April 19, 1944 issue of The Gleaner newspaper carried a report, claiming that “Rev. Thomas Powell of the Baptist Missionary Society, London, [was] slated to come to Jamaica next month [May 1944] with the object of implementing recommendations for the reorganisation of the Jamaica Baptist Union”[Emphasis added]. According to the report, Powell would remain in the country for about five years,” during which time he would “work in association with the Jamaica Baptist Union in heartening our churches which have suffered severe material damage in the recent cyclone, and in stimulating them in ways that will enable them to make a due contribution to the life of the Island in its day of new opportunity.”[i]
Powell, an Englishman, was an outstanding Baptist minister in Britain. A graduate of Regent’s Park College, London, he had served as President of many Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) Summer Schools and Chairman of the London Baptist Monthly Missionary Conference. For nine years, he administered the affairs of the Particular Baptist Fund. He was a member of the Council of the London Baptist Association and the author of A Popular History of the Baptist Building Fund.[ii] Powell also served as a member of the House and Finance Committee of Regent’s Park College.
Powell was no stranger to pastoral work, having served Baptist Churches in London at Forest Gate and Upton, Lambeth, and at Desborough in Northamptonshire. He also pastored Broadway Baptist Church, Chesham, Buckinghamshire. Powell was chair of the BMS Young People's Committee for three years and of the Medical Committee also for three years. Since 1936, he had been chairman of the Western Committee which oversaw BMS-Jamaica relations.
In connection with his role in the BMS Western Committee, Powell visited Jamaica more than once. When he and Seymour J. Price arrived in Jamaica in August 1937, he was an honorary life member of the Committee of the BMS, London. The two comprised the second BMS delegation that came to Jamaica to help settle the JBU-Ernest Price impasse. Powell returned to Jamaica in 1946, when Rev. Dr. Gurnos King was installed as President of Calabar College and Principal of Calabar High School. While in Jamaica, Powell travelled and preached extensively among the churches and his services were much appreciated by Jamaica Baptist congregations.
In addition to all of this, Powell had
been, for several years, a tutor, then Principal, of the United Training
College at Kimpese in the Belgian Congo. The college, which was opened in 1909
for the training of “native” preachers, evangelists and teachers, was a joint
project of BMS, American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society and the Swedish
Mission.
In the evening of Sunday, January 14, 1945, three BMS-sponsored Calabar-related persons worshipped at Christ Church, Jones Pen. These were Rev. A. S. Herbert, former President of Calabar and Chairman of the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU), Rev. Thomas Powell, new president of Calabar College and BMS Commissioner to the J.B.U, who had arrived in the country on January 13, 1945, and Rev. Ernest C. Askew, the new tutor of Calabar College.[iii]
Herbert’s leadership at Calabar had come to an end and Powell had been chosen to succeed him. For his part, Ernest Askew was selected to fulfil a tutorial appointment at Calabar College.
Powell threw himself into the life of the country. He was active in the YMCA. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Mico College. Meanwhile, Powell again toured the island extensively. For example, in May 1945, he was the Guest Preacher at the stone-laying ceremony for the Madras Baptist Church in the Gibraltar Circuit in St Ann.
Meanwhile, as BMS Commissioner, Powell paid visits to other Caribbean islands, such as Trinidad, to oversee Baptist work there and, on behalf of the BMS, to induct a new Deaconess.[iv]
It is noteworthy that, on the one hundredth anniversary of the passing of William Knibb, the great British Baptist historian and statesman, Ernest Payne, had a brief essay published in the Missionary Herald, entitled “The Knibb Anniversary and the Present Challenge.”[v] The article reflects Payne’s familiarity not only with the ministry and contribution of William Knibb, but also with the history of Jamaica and its Baptists.
“Knibb’s beloved Jamaica” Payne wrote “has been going through difficult days. Economic depression has been accompanied by special war-time difficulties, by natural disaster in the shape of a hurricane, and by the inevitable consequences of prolonged political neglect.” He continued:
For Baptists, these things have been the background of
other troubles of our own, of which we would fain say little, but the
consequences of which are writ large in a loss of numbers and of prestige.
There has come, however, a renewed determination, both in government circles
and among Baptists, to try to restore some of its brightness and prosperity to
Jamaica. Government plans in the field of education and social welfare are many
and various. All the churches realise that a new day of opportunity has come. The
B.M.S. has strengthened its forces in the island and has pledged itself to do
far more than of recent decades. The Rev. Thomas Powell has gone out as a
Special Commissioner. The Jamaica Baptist Union and the rank and file in the
churches have rallied to his leadership.
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