Harry Hastings was a medical missionary in Nigeria with the United Free Church of Scotland. After military service in Germany during World War 1. Hastings studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He served his entire missionary career in Nigeria from 1924 to 1949, at Uburu Hospital. He is remembered for his skill as a surgeon, his development of Nigerian staff to the point where they could run the hospital by themselves and his leprosy work. He developed a network of clinics in the settlements that the Uburu people had already established for leprosy patients, and these led to the founding of the Southern Ogoja Leprosy Service in 1946. Hastings was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1945. He returned to Scotland for medical reasons in 1949.

Geoffrey Johnston

Bibliography

Geoffrey Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns: Presbyterianism in Nigeria, 1846-1966 (1988): M. Ross and N. Obini, Presbyterian Joint Hospital, Uhuru, 1913-1988 (1988).

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.