Arthur Shearly Cripps

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Arthur Shearly Cripps (1869-1952) was an English Anglican priest who spent most of his life in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), a short story writer, and a poet.

He was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and was educated at Charterhouse School and Trinity College, Oxford, where he read history. He then trained at Cuddeston Theological College, taking holy orders, and from 1894 had the parish Ford End in Essex.

He became a missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, intending to work in Mashonaland, after reading criticism of the methods of Cecil Rhodes. From 1902 he had a parish near Enkeldoorn (now know as Chivhu) in what was then Southern Rhodesia.

He was in conflict with the British South Africa Company over land distribution, taking the side of the African population. He was given the Shona name Mpandi, or 'the man who walks like thunder'. After more than 20 years he returned to England for a time after a quarrel with the British administration; but went back shortly for the rest of his life, having in 1927 published Africa for Africans, on the land issue.

He is chiefly known for his short stories, which continue to be taught and read in South Africa.

His great-great-nephew is the Welsh poet, Owen Sheers, who has written about him in the award-winning, Dust Diaries (2004).

[edit] Works

Titania and Other Poems (1900)
Primavera: Poems by Four Authors (1900)
Jonathan: A Song of David (1902)
The Black Christ (1902) poems
Magic Casements (1905)
Lyra Evangelistica: Missionary Verses of Mashonaland (1909)
Faerylands Forlorn: African Tales (1910)
The Two of Them Together: A Tale About Africa To-Day (1910)
The Brooding Earth (1911) novel
Pilgrimage of Grace, Verses on a Mission (1912)
Bay-Tree Country (1913) novel
Pilgrim's Joy Verses (1916)
Lake and War: African Land and Water Verses (1917)
Cinderella in the South: South African Tales (1918)
An Africa for Africans: A Plea on Behalf of Territorial Segregation Areas and Their Freedom in a Southern African Colony (1927)
Africa: Verses (1939)