Hunter, James, 1817-1882 : The Venerable Dr. James Hunter (1817-1882) was born at Barnstaple, Devon, on 25 April 1817. Educated at the Blue Coat Charity School, Barnstaple, he was articled to a local solicitor, Charles Roberts, but released from his indentures to become an assistant schoolmaster at the Church School, Tavistock. In 1840, he enrolled at the Church Missionary Society's training college in Islington, and was ordained by the Bishop of London (deacon on 11 June 1843, priest on 3 March 1844) for missionary service in the colonies. On 9 April 1844, he married his first wife, Anne (29 December 1815 - 20 November 1847) and in May of that year the couple was commissioned by the Church Missionary Society as missionaries to the Society's new Indian mission at Cumberland Station (Christ Church, The Pas, also known as the Devon Mission) near Cumberland House in the Hudson's Bay Company's territory. The Hunters sailed from England in a Hudson Bay Company ship on 1 June 1844, arrived at York Factory on 13 August 1844, and then, travelling by York boat, reached the Cumberland Station on 26 September 1844. Mrs. Hunter died on 20 November 1847, leaving one surviving child, the 2 -year-old James Henry Hunter.
On 10 July 1848, James Hunter married his second wife, Jean (26 July 1822 - [17 February 1910]), eldest daughter of Donald Ross, the Hudson Bay Company's chief factor at Norway House. Having spoken Cree since childhood, Jean Ross Hunter was able to give her husband invaluable assistance in the work of translating the Bible and "Book of Common Prayer" into Cree. In 1853, Hunter was made Archdeacon of Cumberland, and in the same year his Cree translation of St. Matthew's gospel was published. While on furlough in England in 1854-1855, Hunter (on whom the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred a Lambeth Master of Arts, 15 November 1854) and his wife saw several more of their Cree translations through the press, including the gospels of Mark and John, Jean Hunter's 1st Epistle of John, the "Book of Common Prayer", "The Faith and Duty of a Christian", and "Watts' First Catechism". When they returned to Manitoba in 1855, Hunter was stationed at St. Andrew's, Red River, and appointed corresponding secretary to the Church Missionary Society. In 1858-1859 Hunter travelled with the Hudson Bay Company brigade to Fort Simpson in the North West Territories to investigate the feasibility of establishing the Mackenzie River mission which, on his recommendation, was opened in 1859 by the Reverend William Kirkby. In the winter of 1862-1863, Hunter investigated (on behalf of Bishop Anderson) a scandal relating to a popular medical missionary, the Reverend Griffith Owen Corbett of the Colonial and Continental Church Society. Hunter concluded that Corbett was guilty as charged of an attempted abortion on a 16-year-old servant girl in his house, and the unpleasantness connected with this incident was probably responsible for Hunter's being passed over in favour of Robert Machray as 2nd Bishop of Rupert's Land when Anderson retired in 1864.
The Hunters returned to England in 1865. For a while, Hunter was employed in deputation work for the Church Missionary Society, but on 27 August 1867 he was instituted as vicar of St. Matthew's, Bayswater, in London, where he remained, as an extremely popular preacher, until his death on 12 February 1882. In 1875, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge published Hunter's "A Lecture on the Grammatical Construction of the Cree Language", and on 4 August 1876 Hunter received a Lambeth Doctor of Divinity from the Archbishop of Canterbury. [After Hunter's death, his widow appears to have lived in the north of England with their youngest son, the Reverend Charles B.R. Hunter (1860 - [ca.1930]) and to have died in West Hartlepool, Durham County, on 17 February 1910]. James and Jean Hunter were buried in Highgate Cemetery, London, and their tomb bears the tribute: "By their joint labours they gave the Bible and the Prayer Book in their native tongue to the Cree Indians of North-west America." It should be noted that although, for practical reasons, many of the Hunters' Cree translations were later published in the syllabic characters developed by the missionaries for their native language publications, Hunter himself preferred the greater precision of the Roman alphabet, which he and his wife used in all their translation work.
Church Missionary Society : The Church Missionary Society (CMS), originally known as the Society for Missions in Africa and the East by Evangelical clergy of the Church of England, was founded, 12 April 1799, by 25 members of the so-called Clapham Sect under the chairmanship of the Reverend John Venn (1759-1813), Rector of Clapham in south London. Its work was extended to what is now Canada in 1822, when it responded to the request of the Reverend John West (1778-1845), a member of the Society who had been appointed chaplain to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1819 and arrived in Manitoba in 1820.
Since its main interest was in the conversion of the heathen rather than in the sort of ministry to British settlers abroad on which societies such as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Colonial and Continental Church Society (see MG 17, B 1 and MG 17, B 4) concentrated, the Church Missionary Society worked chiefly among the Indians and Inuit of the Hudson's Bay Company Territory. The main stations of its North-West America (Rupert's Land) Mission were established at the Red River Settlement (Winnipeg), 1822; The Pas, 1840; Lac La Ronge (Stanley Mission), 1852; York Factory, 1854; and Fort Simpson, 1858.
In 1856, Captain James Charles Prevost, R.N., urged the extension of the Society's work to the Pacific. The first C.M.S missionary to the Tsimshian Indians, William Duncan (1832-1918) (see MG 29, D 55 and MG 40, F 11), reached that coast in 1857. The main stations in the Society's North Pacific (British Columbia) Mission were established at Metlakatla, 1862; Kincolith, 1866; Masset, 1876; Alert Bay, 1878; Hazelton, 1880; Giat Wangak, 1882; Aiyansh, 1883; Kitkatla, 1887; and Tahl Tan, 1898. The decision to turn the Society's Canadian missions over to the local Church was taken, and the gradual reduction of its annual grants begun, in 1903. Its work among the Inuit in the Arctic was turned over to the Canadian Church in 1907, and its final hand-over to the Missionary Society of the Canadian Church was completed in 1920.
Hunter, Jean, 1822-ca.1910 : Jean (Jane) Ross Hunter (26 July 1822 - [17 February 1910]) was the eldest daughter and second child of Donald Ross, the Hudson's Bay Company's chief factor at Norway House, and his wife Mary, daughter of Alexander McBeth, a member of the Selkirk settler party of 1815. At about the age of 14 she was sent to England for three years to a finishing school for young ladies at Camberwell, from which she returned to Norway House in 1840 at the age of 17. On 10 July 1848, she married, as his second wife, the Reverend James Hunter (1817-1882), the missionary at the Church Missionary Society's Cumberland Station (Christ Church, The Pas, also known as the Devon Mission), near Cumberland House. Born in Rupert's Land of a mother who knew several native languages and who may have been of mixed European and Indian blood, Jean Hunter had been familiar with the Cree language from childhood, and was therefore able to give her husband invaluable assistance in the work of translating the Bible and Book of Common Prayer, etc., into Cree. In 1854-1855, while on furlough in England with her husband, Jean Hunter was able to see through the press her translation of the First Epistle General of John, "Nistum Oo Mamowe Mussinahumakawin", which was published in 1855 by the British and Foreign Bible Society, bound with her husband's Gospel according to St. John, "Oo Meyo Achimoowin St. John". From 1855 to 1865, James Hunter, who had been Archdeacon of Cumberland since 1853, was stationed at St. Andrew's, Red River, and the last three of Jean Hunter's four surviving children were born there. In 1865, the Hunters returned to England where, in 1867, James Hunter became the very popular vicar of St. Matthew's Bayswater, in London. After her husband's death in 1882, Jean Hunter appears to have lived in the north of England with her youngest son, the Reverend Charles Barnard Roderick Hunter (1860- [ca. 1930]), and to have died in West Hartlepool, Durham County, [on 17 February 1910]. She was buried with her husband in Highgate Cemetery, London, where their tomb bears the tribute: "By their joint labours they gave the Bible and the Prayer Book in their native tongue to the Cree Indians of North-west America."
