Paul James-Griffiths of Christian Heritage Edinburgh, writes, “I’m resuming our articles with a series on Scottish missionaries to Africa in the 19th century. They had a huge impact on this sub-Saharan continent. The first is Robert Moffat from Ormiston, who pioneered so much among the populous Batswana people of southern Africa, and became an inspiration for David Livingstone.“

One of the first missionaries to be sent out to Africa from Scotland was Robert Moffat (1795-1883). He was born in the village of Ormiston, not far from Edinburgh, and of humble parentage. As a boy he would have grown up with the stories of the reformers and Covenanters, and would perhaps have played close to the ruins of Ormiston Hall where George Wishart had been arrested during the Reformation. Earlier that day Wishart had stood in Haddington with the newly converted John Knox, who wanted to accompany his friend, but Wishart said, “Nay, return to your bairns [pupils], and God bless you. One is sufficient for one sacrifice.”After leaving Knox, Wishart walked with other friends to Ormiston Hall where he was captured before midnight and later was burnt at the stake for his faith at St Andrews in 1546. Besides this, the Covenanters had met in secret during the Killing Time under the ancient yew tree where Wishart had preached. Such courageous history was an inspiration to Moffat, as was his godly mother when she read him stories about early Protestant missionaries.

In 1816 Moffat was commissioned at the Congregational church at Surrey Hall, in London, to serve in South Africa with the London Missionary Society, arriving in South Africa in January, 1817. His wife, Mary Smith, joined him in Cape Town three years later, where their daughter Mary was born, who would eventually marry the famous missionary, David Livingstone. Robert and Mary also had nine other children, two of whom died as infants. Mary herself was wonderfully used by God to teach the women and children how to read and write in their own language, using the Bible as their handbook. Their grandson, Howard Unwin Moffat, became Prime Minister in 1927 of what was then called Southern Rhodesia.

Moffat’s young family settled among the Batswana people of Kuruman, where they lived for many years, often in extreme poverty, as they laboured hard amongst the people. He translated the entire Bible (by 1857) and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress into the major language Setswana, which were widely used across southern Africa. From their work sprouted a native church, armed with education and practical skills, such as carpentry, agriculture, a medical clinic, a printing press, and a blacksmith’s workshop. It was Moffat who stirred David Livingstone one day whilst on deputation in Scotland when he spoke of Botswana’s huge plains where he had seen “the smoke of a thousand villages, where no missionary had ever been”.

Besides this, Moffat wrote the first Christian hymn in Setswana and was a competent violin-player. He became a peacemaker for two warring tribes, which earned him the respect of many local people. In gratitude for his 54 years of labour among the Batswana people, a later government of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) issued a postage stamp of him in 1972.

He retired from missionary work in 1870 and lived in England. His wife died a year later and was buried in Brixton, London. For the remaining years of his life he became an inspirational speaker, calling for missionaries to sacrifice their lives for the love of Christ and the African people. In 1873 the remains of his son-in-law, David Livingstone, were brought to England and he was required to identify them. He attended the funeral of David Livingstone in Westminster Abbey and was also requested to lay his son-in-law’s memorial stone at the Livingstone Memorial Medical Institution next to Magdalen Chapel in Edinburgh’s Cowgate. Moffat was given an honorary doctorate for his pioneering work by the University of Edinburgh. He died in 1883 at Leigh, near Tunbridge Wells, and was buried in the West Norwood Cemetery in London.