Ann Shaw, Mother of Methodism in South Africa (1788-1854)
by Joy McAlpine-Black
Paperback (No longer our product)
(November 2025)
ISBN: 9780718898434
5.94 x 8.98 inches
Price: $36.00
In stock
With tenacious scholarship, Joy McAlpine-Black discovers the letters, her poetry, and the female threads of the lives that surrounded Ann Shaw (1788-1854), considered the Mother of Methodism in South Africa. McAlpine-Black weaves a family history into an international narrative.
Ann Shaw (1788-1854), the author’s ancestor, was hailed by both immigrant and indigenous South Africans as their spiritual mother, the ‘Mother of Methodism in South Africa’. However, all accounts of early South African history have erased her influence, including those written by her husband, Rev. William Shaw, the ‘Wesley of Africa’. Had something necessitated Ann’s removal from the records? With tenacious scholarship, McAlpine-Black discovers Ann’s letters, her poetry, and the female threads of the lives that surrounded her-and weaves a family history into an international narrative. Ann Shaw lived at a time when women were discouraged from taking part in church ministry. Despite this, Ann journeyed from the English fens to the African Cape, becoming the most significant female catalyst for Methodism and education in South Africa. Now Methodism is its largest denomination. In addition to the challenges of women’s diseases, miscarriage, childbirth, family life, and patriarchy in the early nineteenth century, Ann’s story unearths the female roots of Methodism, a fresh and compelling history of South Africa, and the high cost of motherhood.
Joy McAlpine-Black is a Cambridge-based writer and creative writing teacher with postgraduate degrees in Museum & Gallery Education and Creative Writing. Her first love was art, and she has responded to the pull of blank canvases and pages ever since. She has been a lecturer at the University of Cambridge as well as access and learning advisor for museums, libraries, and archives in the southeast of England. She now teaches ekphrasis and writes about women sidelined by gatekeepers of the past.
- By (author) Joy McAlpine-Black
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