James Hannington
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James Hannington (1847-1885) was an Anglican missionary, and a Christian saint and martyr.
Hannington was born at Hurstpierpoint in Sussex, England, on September 3, 1847. A poor scholar, he left school at fifteen to work in his father's Brighton counting house. At twenty-one, Hannington decided to pursue a clerical career, and entered university at St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, where he again proved to be a desultory student. In 1872, the death of his mother spurred a change in Hannington's life: he was awarded his B.A., and in 1873 was ordained as a deacon, and took charge of the small parish of Trentishoe in Devon.
Around 1882, Hannington heard of the murder of two missionaries on the shores of the Victoria Nyanza. This led to him offering himself to the Church Missionary Society, and he set sail for Zanzibar on May 17, 1882, as the head of a party of six missionaries. Crippled by fever and dysentery, Hannington was forced to return to England in 1883.
In June of 1884, having recovered, he was ordained bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, and in January 1885, Hannington again departed for Africa. After arriving at Freretown, near Mombasa, Kenya, he decided to focus on opening a new route to Uganda: together with his team, he safely reached a spot near Victoria Nyanza, but his arrival had not gone unnoticed, and under the orders of King Mwanga II of Buganda, the missionaries were imprisoned in Busoga by Basoga chiefs.
After eight days of captivity, by order from King Mwanga II, Hannington's men were killed, and on October 29, 1885, Hannington himself was speared in both sides. As he died, his alleged last words to the soldiers who killed him were: "Go, tell Mwanga I have purchased the road to Uganda with my blood." Joseph Mukasa, a Roman Catholic priest and an official at Mwanga's court, rebuked the king for the dead, and was beheaded for it. Hannington and his companions were among the first Martyrs of Uganda. Hannington's feast day in the Church of England is October 29.
