South American Mission Society
The society was founded at Brighton in 1844 as the Patagonian Missionary Society, sometime referred to as the Patagonian Mission. Captain Allen Gardiner, R.N., was the first secretary. The name was retained for twenty years, when South American Mission Society was adopted. The name of the organisation was changed after the death of Captain Gardiner, who died of starvation in 1851 on Picton Island in South America, waiting for a supply ship from England. Gardiner thought that the original mission should be expanded from southern South America (Patagonia) to all of South America. Charles Darwin is reported to have supported the society financially and rhetorically. The society's purpose was to recruit Mission (Christian), Christian missionaries, send them to and support them in, South America. There were nationally based SAMS organisations in Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States but during the 1990s those in Australia and New Zealand were merged w ...
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