Cecil Silas MEAD

MEAD, CECIL SILAS (b. Adelaide, SA, 18 Oct 1866, d. Adelaide, SA, 17 June 1940). Baptist medical missionary in East Bengal, India.

Cecil was son of Silas Mead (q.v.) of Flinders Street Baptist Church, Adelaide, where he was converted and became organist and choir-master. He was educated at Prince Alfred College and the University of Adelaide, BA (1887), MB, BS (gold medallist, 1891).

Mead offered for service with the Furreedpore Mission conducted by the SA Baptist Union and went to India in 1893 serving as a medical missionary in Pabna and Faridpur. In 1896 he married Alice Pappin, one of the early Australian Baptist missionaries; they had two daughters and one son (who died in infancy). Fluent in Bengali, Mead was a tireless open-air preacher and wrote pamphlets and hymns in the vernacular. He was the driving force in Bengal for the federation of Australian Baptist mission work.

In 1906 an approach was made by the scheduled caste Nama Sudras, of Gopalganj Subdivision, Faridpur District, seeking the help of missionaries in social and economic development. Several Australian and Indian workers moved to Orakandi village, an important Nama Sudra centre, and in 1910 the Meads moved there too. With great difficulty Mead secured about five ha of land at Orakandi and the mission built schools, a dispensary and a widows' home, as well as a church and staff residences. Although the work never fulfilled the high hopes of the missionaries, at one stage Orakandi had the largest church membership of any of the Bengali churches where Australian Baptists worked. Mead was awarded the Kaiser-l-Hind medal for his work among the Nama Sudras.

Failing health forced retirement in 1921, and on settling in Adelaide Mead joined the staff of the medical school at the University of Adelaide. As SA secretary for Baptist missions Mead, a persuasive preacher and writer, continued to promote missionary interest.

W Barry, There Was A Man (Melbourne, nd)

GERARD B BALL