Henry TINDALL was born at Grengley-on-the-Hill in Nottinghamshire on the 30th of March 1831. He arrived in Cape Town with his parents in the early part of 1836, and three years later accompanied them to Great Namaqualand where his father had been engaged to assist the Rev. E. COOK in the Wesleyan Mission at Nisbett’s Bath. In 1841 he was placed under the tuition of the Rev. Holt OKES, D.D., at Wynberg.

After a brief stay he joined his parents then in Damaraland, returning to Capetown to attend classes at the South African College in 1848. It was then, when about 17 years of age, under the ministry of Rev. Thomas W. HODGSON, that he definitely decided for Christ and commenced his career of Christian activity and usefulness. He began to preach, and having offered himself for the work of God, he was unanimously recommended as a candidate for the ministry at the Cape of Good Hope District Meeting in 1852, and accepted at the ensuing Conference.

As he was  familiar with the country and the people, and possessed special linguistic qualifications, he was at once appointed to assist his father, the Rev. Joseph TINDALL, then labouring in Great Namaqualand. There he spent three arduous years amid difficulties, dangers and privations that furnished material for many an interesting and instructive public platform speech in later years. With the exception of four years in the Capetown English Circuit, the whole of his active ministry was given to Mission work in the Cape of Good Hope District, for which his thorough knowledge of the Dutch language gave him a special fitness; and by his varied and untiring efforts for the social as well as for the spiritual well being of the people, he left the stamp of a zealous, sagacious and successful missionary on every Circuit in which he was appointed to labour His special knowledge and qualifications enabled him to take an active and leading part in the official work of  the District, and in the movement which led up to the formation of the South African Conference.

He was one of the first Assistant Secretaries, and in that capacity he continued to act, until his election to the Presidential Chair in 1888, the duties of which he discharged with great with great courtesy and dignity. His Christian character was of a robust manly type, and his mental powers were keen and active. In the administration of affairs he was exceedingly judicious, and his pulpit ministrations were characterised by careful preparation, sound reasoning, and clear practicalexposition. Owing to ill-health he was compelled to retire from the active work of the ministry in 1898, but continued to render valuable assistance,in various ways until within a short time of his decease.

Physical weakness gradually overcame him, but his mental faculties maintained all their accustomed alertness, and his interest in the work of the Redeemer’s Kingdom remained  unabated to the end. After several months attractive personality that ensured him a has of of painful weariness and suffering, borne with great fortitude and Christian resignation, he passed to his reward on the 16th July, 1909, in the 78th year of his age, and the 57th of his ministry. Mr. TINDALL was pre-eminently “a brother beloved”, genial, sympathetic, catholic-minded, well-informed, an excellent conversationalist, and endowed with a rare sense of humour and a strikingly attractive personality that ensured him a welcome among all classes, and won for him an esteem and affection far beyond the limits of his own denomination. His intimate acquintance with many of the pioneer missionaries of our Church, more particularly in the Cape of Good Hope District, furnished him with a rich fund of historical incident and episode in connection with the inception and development of our work, and his departure severs another, and almost last link with those who laid  the foundations of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in this Country.

From: Wesleyan Methodist Conference Minutes of 1910

Melinda Bam

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Betekenis: Pleknaam Bamm in Havelland (Duitsland).
Stamvader: Jan (Johann) Andreas Bam, van Schwerin (Duitsland). Kom in 1725 hier aan as soldaat. Word burger in 1734 en was daarna ‘n bakker in Kaapstad; oorl. 28.11.1762. Vier kinders by Ragel (Anna Catharina) van die Kaap.
Wapen: ‘n Afstammeling was lt.-kol. sir Peter Cansius van Blommestein Stewart-Bam, lid van die Wetgewende Vergadering in Kaapstad, geb. 29.7.1869, seun van J.A. Bam en Maria Frederika van Blommestein. Trou 1910 met Erna Dingwal Tasca Stewart, dogter van Alexander George John Stewart, van Ards (Ierland) (5 kinders). In 1910 word aan hom deur die wapenherout van Ulster die volgende wapen verleen: Gevierendeel: 1 en 4 gedeel van swart en goud, gedwarsbalk van vier stukke van die een in die ander; op ‘n skildhoof van hermelyn ‘n distel met stingel en blare tussen twee dobbelstene van natuurlike kleur (Bam); 2 en 3 in goud ‘n dwarsbalk geblok van silwer en blou in twee rye, tussen twee klimmende leeus van rooi, in die punt ‘n blou wassenaar en (vir onderskeiding) ‘n kanton van rooi (Stewart). Dekklede: swart en goud.

Signature of Johann Andreas Bam

Daar word dan twee helmtekens verleen – dié vir Bam is ‘n distel met stingel en blare van natuurlike kleur tussen twee goue volstruisvere, en dié vir Stewart ‘n rustende draak belaai met ‘n wassenaar soos in die skild en (vir onderskeiding) op die vlerk belaai met ‘n herkruiste kruisie van rooi. Motto: Metuenda corolla draconis.
Hieruit blyk dat die eerste en vierde kwartier die Bam-wapen is, met die daarby behorende helmteken, waarskynlik sonder die wapenspreuk.

Marcus Van den BERG was born at Groningen in Holland on the 15th January 1846. Being of Jewish parentage he was intended for, and educated to become a Rabbi, but having come under the influence of a Missionary of the Presbyterian Church he was convinced of the truth of the Christian faith, and at great personal sacrifice he abandoned Judaism, embraced Christianity and was received by baptism into the Presbyterian Church at Norwood in England. He was then 27 years of age.

He arrived in South Africa in 1873 and for some time laboured in connection with a Railway Mission. A Study of Methodist Literature and Doctrine led him eventually to join the Wesleyan Methodist Church. After a term of service as Catechist, at McGregor, in the Robertson Circuit, he was admitted in 1880 a Probationer for the Wesleyan Ministry, and received into Full Connexion at the Conference of 1883.

The whole of his active Ministry was spent in the Coloured Mission Circuits in the Cape District. During his 13 years in which he travelled in the Cape Town and Mowbray Circuit the scattered Coloured congregations in Cape Town were united in the Buitekant Street Church and the work consolidated and extended. Previous to that he had charge of the Robertson Circuit and afterwards was Superintendent of the Somerset West and Strand Circuit for a period of four years. At the Conference of 1900 he became a Supernumerary and retired to Roodepoort in the Transvaal, where, with undiminished zeal, he laboured  as opportunity offered, chiefly among the Coloured and Native population, with greatacceptance. During 1907 his health began to fail. Early in the present year it became necessary for him to undergo an operation, an on the 31st of January he passed away in Johannesburg Hospital.

He was devotedly attached to the doctrines and discipline of the Weslyan Methodist Church – a man of studios habits and possessed with a burning zeal for the salvation of souls. He laboured with untiring energy, was a master of the Dutch language (his mother tongue), had considerable linguistic skill, and his pulpit ministrations were of a high order. He was a good man, of reverent and pouis spirit and brotherly affection, and he cheerfully suffered the loss of much for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ his Lord.

Transcribed from Minutes of Wesleyan Methodist Conference 1908 Pages 6 & 7

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Horace Edward Ramsden

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