James Peggs

James Peggs (January 7, 1793 to January 5, 1850) was the first missionary to be sent out by the English General Baptists Missionary Society in 1821. Peggs and William Bampton served in Cuttack, Orissa (present Odisha) in India.

Peggs was an English Baptist missionary and pamphleteer active in British India who played an influential role in the spread of Christianity on the subcontinent. Along with fellow General Baptist William Bampton, Peggs spent the majority of his career in India, preaching in Cuttack, Orissa to evangelize the local population. In his pamphlets, Peggs publicised the practise of Sati- then widespread in Bengal to gather support for further evangelical missionary work among the "pagan" Indian public. Peggs also circulated the Pilgrim tax levied on Idolaters going on pilgrimages.

Biography

James Peggs, a student of G.B. Academy at Wisbeach, offered himself to the General Baptist Missionary Society, for missionary service in 1820. With delay in prior designed plans to travel India for missionary service along with William Ward, one of the Serampore Trio, he moved to London in 1820 and obtained acquaintance with British system of education along with Mrs. Bampton, while Bampton studied medicine. He was ordained on 15 May 1821 at Loughborough along with Bampton, attended by William Ward too in the service, and sailed to India on 29 May 1821 along with Ward, Bampton, fellow-missionary, and their wives.

Peggs, soon after arrival at the mission station at Cuttack made an excursion to the surrounding areas of Cuttack for a few days to become acquainted with area. While travelling, they distributed books, tracts and scriptures. He made journeys to the surrounding areas of Cuttack along with fellow missionaries to establish four village schools, within a vicinity of 50 miles of the mission station. They initially endeavoured to establish schools under the charge of masters, until Christian teachers could be obtained through conversion or baptism.

The evangelical movement in Britain, by the end of 1700, argued that one's commitment to Christ should be reflected in action, primarily to proselytize or seek converts among heathen and abolish slavery in the British Empire. Initially, English East India Company had prohibited Christian missionaries from living within their territories and seeking Indian converts in order to prevent unrest or opposition to the Company's trade and political control. In 1813, when the British parliament was considering the renewal of the charter that authorized Company's trade and political control in India, Members of Parliament who were evangelical Christians, especially Methodists and Baptists, induced [forced] the Company to permit missionaries to settle in their territory. Once in India, Protestant missionaries [denominations and groups], namely, General Baptists Mission Society; American Free Will Baptists; Particular Baptist Missionary Society; Evangelical Missionary Society; and German Evangelical Lutheran Missionaries; and alike, criticized native religious practices such as idolatry, and social customs such as early marriage and sati, especially in Bengal and Orissa, as superstitious and barbaric.

The first activities of the missionary, like starting a chapel at Cuttack, evoked little response and appreciation from the Hindus. Among the important contributions of the Christian missionaries in Orissa was the spread of modern education. The missionaries, in fact, laid the foundation and were the pioneers of present modern education in Orissa. Missionaries considered education "as auxiliary to preaching". Their aim was to evangelize the entire country and they believed that by the spread of education, superstitions, beliefs, blind faiths, and idolatry could be erased from the native mind and thereof the circulation of sacred scriptures would be feasible. The missionaries saw education as a tool for the gradual destruction of Hinduism and its replacement with the Christian religion.

Ministry in England

Peggs held ministerial posts at Borne, Ilkeston (1841-1846) and Burton on Trent before his death in March 1850.

Works Suttees' Cry to Britain (1828). The Present state of East India slavery, chiefly derived from the Parliamentary Papers on the subject (1828) Capital Punishment: The importance of its abolition