THE very existence of this book is testimony to one of its central themes — the transforming nature of deep friendship. Composed of nine pieces of writing selected and introduced by his close friends, David Jasper and Ann Loades (Loades, sadly, died in December 2022), this book provides an introduction to the life and thinking of Daniel O’Connor — priest, scholar, missionary, and teacher.

At the heart of the book lies O’Connor’s deep love of India, where he and his wife, Juliet, spent a decade at St Stephen’s College, Delhi. Within the five chapters that focus on India, it is reflections on two of the most remarkable missionaries of the 20th century — Charley (C. F.) Andrews (1871-1940) and Verrier Elwin (1902-64) — that are the most valuable. Other chapters consider aspects of missionary history and, importantly, O’Connor’s early work on John Cosin’s Collection of Private Devotions (1627): a deeply sacramental Anglican theology permeates the lives and thinking of both O’Connor and the two “rebel”, anti-imperialist, missionaries.

Active supporters of India’s independence, Andrews and Elwin were deeply revolted by the pervasive nature of British racism. Indeed, of the latter, O’Connor writes: “His ‘whole life’ was a ‘protest’ against the kind of life lived by the British in India.” In line with this, Elwin, an accomplished ethnographer, lived for 25 years with one of the most marginalised rural groups in the country, while Andrews almost single-handedly brought the system of indentured labour to an end across the British Empire.

It is in a lecture on inter-religious solidarity, where O’Conner’s reflections on the thought and actions, the theological and practical commitments, of these two individuals is most instructive. Here, he provides an account of two quite different approaches: one of intense religious engagement with Hinduism (Andrews), and the other a more experiential immersion alongside those who are “victims of centuries of ‘caste terror’” (Elwin).

To grasp fully the radical character of “the most committed and effective anti-colonialists that the modern missionary movement has seen”, the book also includes a fascinating account of the Revd John Marks (1832-1915), missionary and teacher in Burma (Myanmar). Highly political, Marks was supremely confident that the military expansion of the British Empire was providential: it was God’s vehicle for the spreading of the gospel.

This book provides access to a thoughtful and nuanced perspective on missionary history at exactly the time when the British Empire and its legacies are being debated with fresh vigour.

The Revd Dr Duncan Dormor is the General Secretary of the USPG.

India and the End of Empire: Selected writings of Daniel O’Connor
Daniel O’Connor
Ann Loades and David Jasper, editors
Sacristy Press £19.99
(978-1-78959-322-8)
Church Times Bookshop £17.99