1826 INDIA MISSIONARY. Archive of Pioneer Missionary F. R. Valling Correspondence.

A wonderful little archive of correspondence by missionary, Frederick Ross Vallings and his family. The grouping includes over 120 pages of letters by F.R., and another 30-40 pages of letters by other family members. All with quality content, many extensive, including a 20pp example!

Born in 1826, he Graduated Trinity, Cambridge and was called to the Bar in 1853. He thereafter began to sense a call not to the legal profession, but to the ministry of Christ, first as minister at Salisbury, and then to the groaning masses of Calcutta, India. Arriving in India c.1860, he served first at Calcutta and then at Chota-Nagpur from 1872 until his untimely death in 1877.

Eyre Chatterton, later Bishop of Nagpur, said his failure of health was due to his indefatigable labors, intense earnestness, and zeal for souls. Under his failing health, he was to return to England, but died en route and was buried at sea. John Ebenezer Marks, in his Forty Years in Burma, called Vallings one of the kindest-hearted men he had ever met. 

The F. R. Vallings grouping includes:

*8pp 1873 letter addressed to Liz, his sister. An important letter involving his travels in 1873, their difficulty, encounters with Indian bandicotes, torrential rains, accounts of ministry in various small villages, his ease at walking days on end, encounter with a large snake [8 foot long], deaths among natives from snake bites, the oppression of the police in villages, Christians being oppressed hindu and moslem landlords, etc., 

*8pp 1873 letter to his mother regarding his missionary travels, discusses the white ants, attacks by wasps, wild elephants, on his manner of teaching, strictly adhering to the Gospels and Epistles, on the use of hymns and psalms, on American clergy in the area, etc.

*4pp undated letter regarding preaching village to village, discussing dress of remote tribes with axes, bows, arrows, and spears; describes a pig hunt by the natives, evil omens, native dances, a series of services he ran for Hindu inquirers, etc. 

*4pp undated letter regarding a dying seaman, a surgery performed [apparently on board the ship], the CMS College at Lahore, native Christians, Dr. Kayal of Bishop's College, etc.

Plus a 3pp ALS, an 8pp ALS [1866], a 20pp ALS [1869a] board the Ship Carlisle Castle by his wife, 12pp 1861 ALS when just arrived in Calcutta; 1853 6pp ALS from Trinity College, 16pp 1860 ALS en route to India; 1861 4pp ALS from Calcutta; 16pp 1873 ALS from "Camp NW of Lohardaga, 2pp 1873 ALS from Roro, 16pp 1861 ALS on arrival in Calcutta, 5pp 1863 ALS, etc. 

Plus another 30-40pp of letters by Isabel Vallings, Adophus Vallings, Gertrude Vallings, etc., many with very good content. The most significant of which are from Adolphus Vallings [1838-1918], F. R.'s brother, a soldier in Bengal. 

*See Mission Field. Monthly Proceedings of the S.P.G. [1877]; John Ebenezer Marks. Forty Years in Burma [1917]. Eyre Chatterton. A History of the Church of England in India, etc.