Thomas Birch Freeman: the Methodist missionary who built Cape Coast’s first chapel and went to Kumasi

Most of the Methodist missionaries sent to the Gold Coast in the 1830s died within months, many from malaria. Thomas Birch Freeman survived for more than fifty years. He arrived in January 1838, built the first Methodist chapel at Cape Coast and travelled to the Asante capital, Kumasi, laying foundations for what became the Methodist Church Ghana.

An African father

Freeman was born in 1809 in Twyford, Hampshire, England. His father was an African and his mother, Amy Birch, was English. He worked as a gardener and botanist before becoming a Methodist preacher. The Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society accepted him as a missionary in 1837. After his ordination, he sailed for the Gold Coast, arriving in January 1838. His wife died soon after their arrival, a tragedy that echoed the fate of many missionary families.

Cape Coast and Kumasi

Freeman built the first Methodist chapel at Cape Coast, which opened in June 1838. Cape Coast became the centre of Methodist work, and the church grew among the Fante.

Freeman travelled inland to Kumasi, the capital of the powerful Asante kingdom, and built a relationship with the Asantehene and other chiefs. He established a mission station there, a remarkable step at a time when relations between the British and Asante were tense.

Later missions

Freeman also travelled to other parts of West Africa, including Badagry and Abeokuta in what is now Nigeria, helping to spread Methodism along the coast. Financial difficulties and controversy over mission accounts led Freeman to retire from missionary work in 1857. He worked for the colonial government for a time. Freeman later returned to missionary service, working at Anomabo from 1873 and in Accra from 1879. He continued preaching into old age.

Thomas Birch Freeman died in Accra on 12 August 1890. He had spent most of his adult life in West Africa.

Legacy

The Methodist Church Ghana remembers Freeman as one of its founding missionaries, and institutions in Ghana carry his name. His mixed heritage and long survival made him an unusual figure among nineteenth-century missionaries, and his papers, held in archives in London, are an important source for historians of Ghana. Many missionaries came to the Gold Coast and died. Freeman stayed, adapted and built, and the chapels he started are still full on Sunday mornings.