Calvert, James

CALVERT, JAMES: Wesleyan foreign missionary; b. at Pickering, 25 m. n. by e. of York, England, Jan. 3, 1813; d. at Torquay, England, Mar. 8, 1892. When appointed by the Wesleyan. Missionary Society in 1838 to go to Fiji he was master of the printing and bookbinding trades and had been in 1837 a student in the Hoxton Academy. His industrial training stood him in good stead for he was able to do his own printing in Fiji and issue many books, among them a translation of the New Testament into the vernacular. He lived to see the complete abandonment of heathenism by the Fijians, a result to which his heroic labors contributed largely. From 1865 to 1872 he was supernumerary minister at Bromley, Kent, England, thence he went as missionary to the South African diamond fields. He returned in 1881 and settled at Torquay. In 1885 he paid a visit to Fiji and rejoiced in the marvelous change.

Bibliography: G. S. Rowe, James Calvert of Fiji, London. 1893.