A group portrait including Samuel Ajayi Crowther, two other clergymen, wife and child.

Collection type: Photograph
Description: A group portrait including Samuel Ajayi Crowther, two other clergymen, wife and child.
Geographical reference: Nigeria
Africa > Western Africa > Nigeria
Person: Expedition or compiler G. F. Packer; Photographer G. F. Packer; Named Person S. Smart; Expedition or compiler Bonny CMS Mission, Nigeria; Named Person Samuel Ajayi Crowther; Named Person Archdeacon Henry Johnson; Named Person Mrs Johnson; PRM source William Allan
Date / Period: Date of photograph: Circa 1889
Acquisition information: Donated: 1902, uncertain
Photographic process: Print albumen paper
Dimensions: Length x Width 145 x 201 mm, Length x Width 228 x 285 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1998.66.2 Previous PRM number: AL.39.2
Research and responses: Although the album cover gives names as 'Allen' and 'Parker', and correct spelling of names are 'Reverend William Allan' and 'G. F. Packer'. See Biographies File for further information on W. Allan. [JD 13/9/2005]
Related Collection - PRM Object 1902.9.30 Accession Book record "Accession Book Entry - REV. W. ALLAN D.D.... National idol of the people of Asaba, Niger R., taken from them in war by the Royal Niger Company in 1888. Every temple, juju house and idol was destroyed with the exception of this idol which was taken by Dr. Cross of the Roy. Nig. Co. and was given by him to Mr Packer of the Church Miss. Soc who gave it to Dr W. Allan." [JD 9/9/2005]
Related Collection - PRM Obect Collection 1902.9 Related Documents File - Extensive correspondence from Reverend W. Allen regarding the specific details of most of the object in his donated collection, begining 6 January 1901. He also forwarded various letters from other missionaries which gave further detail or corroborated his information. Further, he passed to the museum several extracts of books, memoirs and unpublished lectures; these include: handwritten transcription of pages 28 - 29 of 'Up the Niger', a handwritten manuscript entitled 'Facts of the Ikuba - skull house, from the mouth of natives', an unpublished, printed manuscript entitled 'Light Shining in Darkness: or The Story of the Bonny Mission from 1864 to 1889.' by himself, a small pamphlet entitled, 'My Visit to West Africa' for the Church Missionary Society. [MOB 16/10/2001]
Biographical Information - [from African Photographer J. A. Green: Reimagining the Indigenous and the Colonial, edited by Martha G. Anderson and Lisa Aronson (Indiana University Press, 2017, p89-90): 'One likely instructor was the British architect G. F. Packer, whom CMS had brought to Bonny in 1887 to design and build a new boys high school then attended by J. A. Green himself. Packer was also a photographer, who worked for a time for the newly appointed commissioner of the Oil Rivers Protectorate, Sir Claude MacDonald, and who also had close connections with J. A. Green's uncle Uruasi Dublin Green. Indeed, the only Ibani Ijo chief whose portrait Packer includes in his album is that of Uruasi Dublin Green (fig. 3.5). This and other of his album photos infer his familiarity with the chief's nephew J. A. Green. For example, the album includes two images of the previously mentioned throne that J. A. Green and his classmates gave to St. Stephen's in honour of Bishop Crowther. In addition, there is a group portrait of the student's themselves (one of whom, the one seated in the near right corner, could well be Green) and views of St. Stephen's Cathedral (interior and exterior) that strongly resemble those Green would later take. Only written documentation will confirm, but these photos offer compelling evidence that it was G. F. Packer, a CMS employee, who introduced J. A. Green to, and possibly even taught him, photography. [CM 10/11/2017]
Associated publications: Reference: Finding the Forgotten: Locating Transatlantic Slavery in The Pitt Rivers Museum Collection, Main author: Jane Webster, 2025, Page: 118

Search terms: Religion, Portrait