Thomas Dennis (priest)


Thomas John Dennis was an Anglican priest who was the main translator of the Bible into the Igbo language.

Childhood and education

He was born into a farming family in Langney in Sussex on 17 September 1869 and grew up in Cuckfield, Guestling and St Leonards. He was the eldest of eight children, four of whom were to follow him into overseas mission
He applied to joined the Church Missionary Society in 1889, and because he had not been able to complete his education, was sent to the CMS Institution in Clapham then to the CMS training college in Islington.
Dennis was ordained in St Paul's Cathedral in 1893, and served for some months as an assistant curate in the parish of St. Marys, Islington.
He also studied at Durham University.

Work in West Africa

He was assigned to West Africa in 1893. He was acting Vice-Principal of Fourah Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone before joining the Niger Mission in November 1894. Initially, his duties were mainly administrative, as Acting Secretary to the mission in 1895. Following the death of the Secretary H.H. Dobinson in 1897, Dennis became Secretary and was appointed Archdeacon of Onitsha in 1905. He was also Commissary and Examining Chaplain to the Rt Rev. Herbert Tugwell, Bishop in Western Equatorial Africa.

Bible translation

Dennis was one of the new generation of Evangelicals who were disappointed that, among other things, the Niger mission was not a "Scriptural Mission". There was no Bible in the local language and any translation efforts were directed towards hymnals and liturgy. He therefore undertook a new translation of the Bible into the Igbo language from 1906 to 1913 under the auspices of the British and Foreign Bible Society. It was considered that he alone had anything near what could be regarded as the experience and training for translation work.
Shortly after completing the Bible translation, Dennis died in a shipping accident off the Welsh coast. The Bible manuscript he was working on was reportedly washed ashore and found by a fisherman.
The Dennis Memorial Grammar School in Onitsha is named after him.