The Apostle of Igboland.

Taylor was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone of Igbo ex-slaves, an Isuama father and an Arochukwu mother. He studied at the Charlotte Primary School and at Fourah Bay Institution, Freetown. He served first as an Anglican catechist in the Temne mission. He was ordained a priest by the bishop of London in 1859. Thereafter, he pastored Bathurst Church, Freetown, and was a schoolmaster for 16 years. He pioneered in the Niger mission (1857 - 1860) at Akasa (present-day Ijaw). As an enduring legacy, he translated the Scriptures and the catechism into Igbo. A man of fiery temperament and missionary zeal, his career collapsed in the Samuel Crowther crisis in 1869. Thereafter, he trained missionaries at Fourah Bay Institution before retreating into obscurity.

Ogbu U. Kalu

Bibliography

John Taylor and Samuel Crowther, The Gospel on the Banks of the Niger (1859); see also CMS manuscripts, especially CA 3/37, Univ. of Birmingham, England.

This article is reproduced, with permission, from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, copyright © 1998, by Gerald H. Anderson, W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan. All rights reserved.