| Notes |
- PRIVATE
- He was a medical doctor and worked as a missionary doctor in South Africa. (On the death notice of Marguerite Christie Langford, signed by him, he states that she is the "wife of Medical Missionary") Dysseldorp was a mission station of the London Missionary Society, near Oudtshoorn. He arrived there in August, 1879, according to the letters he wrote to the missionary organization, the East London Institute for Home and Foreign Misison (later the Regions Beyond Missionary Union), an organization based in London and under the patronage of the grandson of the founder of the Guiness brewing company, Henry Grattan Guiness and his wife Fanny.
Henry Grattan Guinness was the nephew of Arthur Guinness, founder of the famous brewing empire, but his life took a different path. Following a spiritual conversion in 1853 he toured Britain, Europe and America, preaching to thousands at a time and helping to swell the Great Revival of 1857-1859. He married Fanny Fitzgerald in Bath in 1860 (their son Harry was born in Toronto in 1861 perhaps during one of their tours). He started a school for Missionaries at Harley House in the East End of London. Richard Langford appears to have studied there before setting out for South Africa, where he was born.
In an index to the archive of the Regions Beyond Missionary Union, there is a reprint of an article "One Hundred Years of Regions Beyond" published in the Autumn 1990 edition of «i»Horizons«/i», the RBMU journal. The following extracts referring to 1903, give some flavour of the RBMU training some 25 years after Richard Langford was trained::
"Our Training Institutions
Harley College training is evangelical, practical and thorough, as far as we can possibly secure, and the tone is deeply spiritual and earnest…. The length of training varies according to the individual need, in the cases of those who became medical missionaries, it occupies five or six years. The ordinary course, however, lasts three or four, the final year in many cases being devoted to the special medical training given at Livingstone College, which affords valuable aid to men in the Foreign Field but in no sense entitles them to the name 'medical missionary' , which ought only to be applied to fully qualified men. (Harley College was the main college run by the RBMU).
Since the commencement of work in 1873 , 887 men and 281 women have passed through the College of the Union, making in all 1,168. "
The article notes that of this total 215 went to Africa (96 to the Congo).
He trained at Harley House, London, the training establishment of the East London Institute. "Some are Fallen Asleep", the story of "our sixth year at the East London Institute" edited by Fanny Guinness has this to say:
"Mr R. S. Langford was a native of South Africa, where also he was converted. He had worked in Basutoland and among the Hottentots, and spoke Dutch and Zulu as well as English. He came to us with a view of qualifying himself for more efficient ministry of the word; but our cold and variable climate did not suit his health, and his lungs began to suffer. He was advised not to risk another winter in England; and an opening occurring at the time in the Cape Colony for Mission and pastoral work among the Hottentots at Oudtshoorn, he resolved to accept it, and sailed with Mr. Anderson last spring for Mossel Bay, South Africa."
He married Marguerite Couper on January 12, 1880, in George.
Het Zuid Afrikaansche Tijdschrift of August 1882 contains a story by C.F. Muller ("Reisverhale aangaande Egypte en Palestina" - a serialization of his book by the same name) which recounts the story of "Noor", a young girl sold into slavery in her homeland of Abyssinia, rescued by a Swiss living in Cairo, then sent to England from where she accompanied "Miss C" (Marguerite Couper) to South Africa where she married Dr Langford. The child later returned to England and then to Cairo where she was reunited with her Swiss benefactor. C.F.J. Muller states that he married Richard Langford and Marguerite Couper - this is confirmed by his signature on the marriage certificate of Richard Langford and Marguerite Couper
At around the time of the birth of his first child, he was called to provide medical help to a group of Oudtshoorn Burghers on their way to fight in a frontier war in the transkei. This was reported in the Oudtshoorn Courant as follows
"«b»With the Oudtshoorn Burghers
Transkei
Ibeka, Dec. 19«sup»th«/sup», 1880
De Rust
«/b»Captain Swemmer remaining to see to Redelinghuis, who was taken ill, and placed under the hospitable roof of the Widow Meiring. «b»Mr Langford«/b» was sent for and reported a severe attack of inflammation of the lungs.
(These men were on their way on a military campaign ( a frontier war) and at De Rust (35km from Oudtshoorn) Mr Langford, working at Dysselsdorp, halfway between Oudtshoorn and De Rust, was called in for medical advice.)"
By 1885 he was no longer the missionary at Dysselsdorp, a Mr Lamage had succeeded him. He practised medicine in Calitzdorp.
Shortly before he died, on «b»Monday, January 21, 1895, the Oudtshoorn Courant reported that "«/b»We regret to hear that Mr R.S. Langford, who was formally missionary at Dysselsdorp and later on in medical practice at Carlitzdorp, is seriously ill at Calitzdorp and very little hope is entertained of his recovery."
According to his Death Certificate, cause of death was consumption, from which he had been suffering for 9 months.
Richard Langford's death notice gives his place of birth as Natal and his age as 47 years 9 months, at his death on 26 January 1895. This would give his birthdate as April 1847, a very early date for a birth in Natal. Secondly, in the letters he wrote to Mr and Mrs Guinness, he writes of his arrival in Cape Town "I cannot describe to you my feelings when, still some seven or eight miles out, I looked upon the house, at Sea Point, where I was born" On his marriage licence in 1880 he gives his place of birth as Cape Town. This leads to the conclusion that the place of birth in the Death Notice is probably incorrectly reported.
In the same letters (to Mr and Mrs Guinness), he speaks of a brother in Natal - perhaps this lead to the confusion in the death notice about his birth place.
One of the children was known as "Daisy", probably Marguerite.
Another child was named Hercules Rowley Langford. It is interesting to note that there was a member of the Irish peerage named Hercules Langford Rowley, 2nd Baron Langford. The connection to his family is unknown at this time.
There remain many inconsistencies to be resolved, especially where the various children were born.
Percival (1881), who died as an infant, was born in Dysseldorp, according to the inscription on his grave in Calitzdorp.
Mary Marguerite (1882) - no information
Cyril George Archibald (1883) - London England according to his Death Notice
Lilian Gertrude (1885) - no information
Hercules Rowley - Calitzdorp, according to his death notice
|
1847 - 1895 (47 years)
[1, 2] 
