Has anyone heard of Town Missionary as occupation? Have discovered this on my grandmother's birth certificate as occupation of her father. What exactly is a Town Missionary? Can anyone help? Many thanks, Anne

In message <99.5816b75a.2f426e7b@aol.com>, Chrysalisanne@aol.com writes >Has anyone heard of Town Missionary as occupation? Have discovered this on >my grandmother's birth certificate as occupation of her father. > >What exactly is a Town Missionary? Can anyone help? They were sort of lay preachers who went round houses or to charity buildings like soup kitchens and tried to bring the poor into the church. Most of them were in the big cities where a lot of people had fallen away from the church. I known that some lists (just names) of town missionaries exist. It was pretty wearing work, done with conscience , and some of them added helping social reformers locate and assist deserving poor families (Charles Booth went round with Town Missionaries when he was doing his reports on the state of the London poor). Some got worn out, and I do know that there seem to have been s few who retired to a kind of sheltered housing in Bucks - somewhere in the south east of the county, maybe Penn, or the Chalfonts, from memory. > -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society