Jonathon Sandaya

Jonathon Douglas Sangaya (31 October 1907 – 22 July 1979) was a Malawian leader of the church in Blantyre in Malawi. He was the first African to be the Synod's General Secretary.

Life Sangaya was born in 1907 in Blantyre near the mission.

He was educated at the Henry Henderson Institute in Blantyre. This was a facility named after a European missionary and run by the mission beside the church that Henry Henderson designed and built in Blantyre. By 1929 Sangaya had qualified as a teacher. In 1930 the Nyasaland department of education awarded him a first class teacher's certificate. He was the first local to be qualified to teach secondary students and for over twenty years he taught at the Blantyre mission.

In 1962 he was elected to be the first African to be the General Secretary of the Blantyre Synod of the Central Africa Presbyterian Church.

Private life Before the second world war he married Christian Mtingala and they had seven children.

Death and legacy Sangaya died in 1979.