Ashe, Robert Pickering

Rev. Robert Pickering Ashe was of the Church Missionary Society. He was educated at Rossall School and St. John’s College, Cambridge. He was ordained deacon in 1880, priest in 1881, and was accepted by CMS in 1882. From 1882 to 1888 and 1891 to 1893 he worked at Natete, Rubaga, and Mengo. He returned to England and resigned from CMS in 1894. He made the first translation of the Book of Common Prayer into Luganda. He is best known for his two commentary accounts of the events in Uganda: Two Kings of Uganda (London 1890) and Chronicles of Uganda (London 1894). From 1894 to 1922 and 1924 to 1925 he was chaplain at Smyrna, Turkey. In 1927 at the time of the CMS Uganda Jubilee he revisited the country, and was present when Alexander Morehead Mackay’s body was exhumed at Usambiro and reburied at Namirembe.

Louise Pirouet

This article, used by permission, was written by Louise Pirouet, as part of A Dictionary of Christianity in Uganda (Department of Religious Studies, Makerere University College, 1969), p. 17. Copies available at Africana Section, Makerere University Library (AF Q 276.761 MAK and AR/MAK/99/1); Bishop Tucker Library, Uganda Christian University and in UK at the University of Birmingham; Crowther Centre Library, CMS Oxford and Louise Pirouet Papers, Cambridge Centre of African Studies.