Records relating to the dispute between the Church of the Province of South Africa and the Church of England in South Africa.

The collection contains the papers of Rev. Reginal Jeffcoat, a priest in the Anglican Church. They consist of newspaper clips, poems, cards and drawings. Rev. Jeffcoat immigrated to South Africa from England and lived in Cape Town.

Included are diary extracts, correspondence, personal and family documents, notes and miscellaneous papers, press clippings and printed works.

The papers are predominantly of family interest but there are occasional comments of a social or political nature, pertaining to South Africa, and a some concern the Anglican Church in South Africa, including the controversies which nearly split the church asunder such as the Gray - Colenso and Meaman - Williams disputes and the Third Proviso Agitation, all of which played their part in determining the relationship between the Church of the Province of South Africa and the Church of England.

There are a number of interesting documents relating to Badnall's ecclesiastical offices, containing the seals of Bishops Gray and West Jones of Cape Town.

Consist mainly of notebooks embodying his researches in various fields, mainly history and theology and include 9 notebooks containing extracts from the House of Commons Debates for 1621. There are also letters of Bishop Talbot to his son, probably used by Brabant in the compilation of "N. S. Talbot 1879-1943: a memoir",published in 1949. The papers were donated by the Rev. Brabant just prior to his leaving Africa for retirement in England.

This collection contains the records of Binyon, Deaconess Dorothy Clarke and Miss Imray, who reported on initiation rite for girls, including correspondence, notes and memoranda on the proposal to substitute a Christian circumcision school for the African tribal rites.

The Provincial Missionary Conference of 1938 set up the following committee to consider this question which included Father Amor, the Ven. Archdeacon Christelou, the Ven. Archdeacon Stainton, the Ven. Archdeacon Jenkin, the Rev. V.A. Hoddinott and the Rev. Father Rumsey, S.S.J.E. At Provincial Synod of 1939 the matter was discussed and it was decided to consider the question further. On the 18 December 1941 the committee produced a report on the initiation schools, which was to be submitted to the next Provincial Missionary Conference in 1943.

All the combined records relating to the Provincial Missionary Conferencecomprise 540 items covering the years 1892-1971 and are made up of minutes, correspondence, notes and memoranda. They give an interesting picture of the educational and missionary work done by the Anglican Church in South Africa and also illustrate the attitude of the church to the question of race relations and the emergent African nationalism.

Provincial missionary conferences were appointed by Provincial Synod, the organising body of the Anglican Church in South Africa, and the first such conference met in Queenstown in 1892. Succeeding conferences were held at Maritzburg in 1895, Johannesburg in 1906, Bloemfontein in 1909, Johannesburg in 1913, Grahamstown in 1923, Johannesburg in 1928, Port Elizabeth in 1933, Pretoria in 1935, Cape Town in 1936 and Bloemfontein in 1938. A Provincial Board of Missions was founded in 1898 to correlate and unify the various diocesan missions in methods of working, discipline, translations etc., Worked in close conjunction with the Provincial Missionary Conference and from 1939 appears to have taken over their functions. A further provincial body was set up in 1963 called the Provincial Commission for Administering the U.S.P.G. Grant Loan with the task of administering the R460,000 voted to the C.P.S.A. by the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, for the building of African and coloured churches in areas affected by the Group Areas Act.

First papers added in 1974; addition in 1990.

Note books and Registers.