Reverend James Friedrich Schon

  General Notes:

probate granted 17th May 1889 to James Edward Schon and Emily Cooke Schon. effects £1280 5s 1d
James Frederick Schon (b c.1802) of Ober Weiler, Baden, Germany attended the Basel Seminary and, in 1831, the Church Missionary Society College. He was ordained a deacon in 1831 and priest in 1832 when he went to Sierra Leone. He accompanied the first Niger Expedition in 1841. His connection with the CMS ceased in 1853 after 20 years' service. He was renowned for his African linguistic work, particularly in Hausa, and he continued to be engaged in this work after ceasing to be a missionary. He was the author of numerous works including Journal of the Niger Expedition (1842); Vocabulary and Elements of Grammar of the Haussa Language (1843); Translations of Genesis, Exodus, the Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles into the Hausa Language (1857-1861); Grammar of the Haussa Language (1862); Dictionary of the Hausa Language (1876). In 1848 he became chaplain to the Melville Hospital, Chatham. In 1877 he was awarded the Volney Prize for his linguistic work and in 1884 received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University. He died at Chatham 30 March 1889. Schon married Anne Elizabeth Nylander in 1835: she died in Sierra Leone 5 Nov 1837. In 1839 he married Cordelia Irving who died the following year. On 5 February 1841 he married Catherine White (nee Drake), the widow of James White, a CMS missionary. Catherine survived her husband, dying 26 Oct 1892. One daughter, Annie Catherine married Edward Thomas Higgens, CMS missionary in Ceylon, in 1858.
Reference: Register of missionaries (clerical, lay & female) and native clergy from 1804 to 1904, Church Missionary Society, 1905).

  Noted events in his life were:

• Occupation: retired Missionary, 1864.

James married Anne Elizabeth Nylander in 1835 in Sierra Leone, Africa. (Anne Elizabeth Nylander was born in 1804, christened on 20 Jun 1804 in TORNIO, LAPPI, FINLAND and died on 5 Nov 1837 in Sierra Leone, Africa.)

James next married Cordelia Jackson Irwine on 1 Sep 1839 in St James, Clerkenwell. (Cordelia Jackson Irwine died in 1840.)

James next married Elizabeth Catherine Drake, daughter of Robert Drake and Harriet Dixon, on 5 Feb 1841. (Elizabeth Catherine Drake was born about 1815 in Chatham, Kent, England, Great Britain and died on 26 Nov 1892 in Chatham, Kent, England, Great Britain.)