Sam Higginbottom
Samuel "Sam" Higginbottom (October 27, 1874 – June 11, 1958) was an English-born Christian missionary in Allahabad, India, where he founded the Allahabad Agricultural Institute.
Early life
Higginbottom was born in Manchester, England.[1] He grew up in poverty, leaving school early and working at different times as a butcher's boy, cab driver, and milk deliverer.[1] However, he had a strong youthful interest in the Christian gospel, and resolved to become a preacher or missionary.[1]
An introduction to evangelist Dwight L. Moody led to Higginbottom's attending Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts, which was founded by Moody, from 1894 to 1899.[1][2] Higginbottom continued his education at Amherst College and Princeton University in the United States, receiving a bachelor's degree from Princeton in 1903.[1][3][4]
Work in India
On the recommendation of Henry Formam, Higginbottom arrived in India in 1903 as part of the North India Mission of the Presbyterian Church.[5] From then until 1909 he taught economics and science in Allahabad Christian College (now Ewing Christian College).[3][5] In 1904 he married Jane Ethelind Cody, of Cleveland, Ohio, who joined him in his work.[4] They had five children together.[3]
In 1909, he returned to the United States and spent three years studying agriculture at Ohio State University, after which he went back to Allahabad to teach scientific methods of farming.[3][4] His educational programs grew into the founding of Allahabad Agricultural Institute in 1919.[2] In 2009, Allahabad Agricultural Institute was rechristened as Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHIATS) in honour of the founder.[6]
Higginbottom wrote two books: a book about his work published in 1921 and an autobiography published in 1949.[2][4] While being in India, he developed close friendship with Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru[3]
Higginbottom retired in Florida in 1945.[2]
Higginbottom died in Port Washington, Long Island at the home of his daughter, Mrs Charles Coates.[7]
Bibliography
- Sam Higginbottom. The Gospel and the Plow, Or, The Old Gospel and Modern Farming in Ancient India. 1921. London: Central Board of Missions and Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Republished in 2006: ISBN 1-4254-8665-7
- Sam Higginbottom. Sam Higginbottom, Farmer: An Autobiography. 1949. Republished in 2007: ISBN 978-0-548-44200-5
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 History, Allahabad Agricultural Institute website
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Charles W. Forman, Higginbottom, Sam, in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions (Gerald H. Anderson, editor), pages 292-293
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Rees, David Benjamin (2002). Vehicles of Grace and Hope: Welsh Missionaries in India 1800-1970. William Carey Library. p. 59.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Padre Sahib, Time magazine, September 19, 1949
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Dr. Sam Higginbottom (1874-1958), Allahabad Agricultural Institute website.
- ↑ http://www.shiats.edu.in/notice_chName.asp
- ↑ http://boards.ancestry.co.uk/surnames.higginbotham/1071/mb.ashx
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