Baptist Church in Savannah-La-Mar
Born to Pellett and Harriet Kirkham at Hackney, London, England, on March 17, 1855, Augustus George Kirkham was designated a missionary to Jamaica by the General Baptist Missionary Society in England. He arrived in Jamaica in 1877 and was sent to the north coast to assist Rev. Mr. John Griffiths in St Ann’s Bay. Griffiths also had temporary charge of the Oracabessa and Mt Angus circuits. It did not take long before Griffiths assigned Kirkham to the Mt Angus circuit in St Mary.
On February 23, 1883, during the first year of his ministry in the Mt Angus circuit, Kirkham got married to Frances Henderson in the Mt Angus Baptist Church. Their union produced eight children – five daughters and three sons. During his pastorate at Mt Angus, one of his members, John T. Dillon, whose father was a deacon in the church, answered the call to the ministry, and what a great contribution he made in later years as a minister and leader of the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU)!
Kirkham’s primary locus of service in Jamaica was Savanna la Mar, where he served as pastor for more 50 years. He had charge over Savanna-la-Mar, Grace Hill, George’s Plain, Williamsfield, Sutcliffe Mountain and Mount Peto churches.
Besides his work in the pastorate, Kirkham was active in the ministry of the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU). Kirkham served as JBU Chairman for 1918-1919. However, his most significant contribution to wider Baptist witness in Jamaica was his service as Secretary of the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society (JBMS) – a position that he held for several years, including between 1913 and 1922. In this capacity, he played a vital role in the establishment of Baptist work in Cayman Islands. Kirkham encouraged and facilitated Henry Rutty when the latter introduced Baptist witness to Cayman in 1886. Hirst states:
[In the late 1880s] the Rev. E. J. Hewett, accompanied by
Rev. A. G. Kirkham, again visited the sphere, ordained Rev. Mr. Rutty permanently
to the work of these islands, and arranged further for the extension of the
work to “The West End” and the “East End” of Cayman Brac: also to the “South
Harbour,” which forms the inhabited portion of Little Cayman Island.[1]
In 1905, he was a member of the JBU delegation to the inaugural Baptist World Congress that took place in London, England.
Kirkham was active in the life of the communities where his churches were located. He served on the Westmoreland Parish School Board and was, for many years, a director of the Westmoreland Building Society, which was founded in January 1874 by Rev. Henry Clarke, the great grandfather of Oliver Clarke, the former Managing Director of The Gleaner.
Kirkham retired from the pastorate in 1932. A year later, on April 4, 1933, his wife, Frances, died in the Montego Bay Hospital. He survived her by four years and, on April 20, 1937, he passed away at his home in Grandvale, Westmoreland. In a tribute to him that appeared in The Gleaner newspaper, Kirkland was described as “an eloquent and inspiring preacher. He was scholarly, but simple in expression, and unaffected in manner. Memories of his evangelistic services and missionary discourses will live forever.”
Officiating ministers at Kirkham’s funeral were Revds. Victor Mornan, Glaister Knight, Sidney Helwig, Alfred Miller — all of whom were JBU ministers, and Canon H. W. Cope (Anglican). Revds. Alfred Miller and Glaister Knight paid tribute to the life of the departed minister. They described him, in turn, as one who led “the life of a great Baptist” and one who was “a blessing to humanity.”
M. P Rubie, in a letter to the Editor of The Gleaner, described Kirkham as a man who “maintained the dignity of the ministry, claimed and commanded the respect of the public, and preached with fearlessness and convincing assurance of the Gospel of full and free salvation through the shed blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
[1] George S. S. Hirst, ed., Handbook of the
Cayman Islands, 1908 (Kingston, Jamaica: Times Printery, 1907), 56.
Cf. Randall L. Von Kanel, Our Baptist
Story: From England to the Cayman Islands (Kingston, Jamaica: Caribbean
Christian Publication, 2018), 156-159.