families which have been brought to her notice during her eight years of service, she has proved a persevering and devoted friend of the poor, and a consistent agent of the Bible Society. The proof of her work, as far as figures can show it, appears in our Balance Sheet; but we believe a more important record is on High, and will be her rejoicing on the great Day of Account (CTLBA 1870, 2).
It is clear as well that the women learned from the Bible women and vice versa. One of the first women hired by the CTLBA in the 1840s was a woman from England. However, she could not speak Dutch and tended to mimic the forms of evangelisation used in England, like “cottage meetings” (sermons in the houses of the poor). She proved to be less than effective and so the next appointment was a “colonial” woman who spoke Dutch and English; she soon discontinued the cottage meetings. With increasing frequency, the committee appointed Bible women who had some nursing background and who could offer a combination of print and medicine that had proved so effective in other mission settings (A. M. Piers to Mrs March, letter dated 27 Nov. 1894 attached to CTLBA 13 Oct. 1894).
Another way to understand how members of the CTLBA viewed themselves and their work is through a closer consideration of the genres through which they represented themselves and negotiated their transnational networks. Like all other committees, the CTLBA generated and circulated a series of texts; it received texts, reprocessed them and passed them on. The major texts received were the reports from the Bible women. These were verbally delivered and then summarised in the minutes, often according to rules of understatement. Take, for example, the summary of the Bible woman’s report given in the November meeting. The minutes note that she “gave a verbal account of work in homes w[h]ere mothers are drunkards etc.”; the radical curtailment apparent in the “etc.” usefully captured a genre favoured by the CTLBA, which wished to portray itself as in touch with the poor, but at the same time not contaminated by their “depravity”. Via the Bible woman, they could both be “directly” in touch with poverty, but at the same time demonstrate their gentility by euphemising its more awful effects. Their task became one of both vouching for their “close encounter” with poverty and of sparing their audience its excesses.
These mediated accounts of the Bible women were forwarded from the CTLBA to the SAABFBS and appeared in its annual reports. One example appeared in 1864:
It is no easy matter to give in condensed form an adequate report of such a work. Even in our meetings of Committee we feel that we cannot tell each other one half of the interesting matter which is brought before us by the agents under our superintendence. But of this we are satisfied, that prudent, persevering and prayerful effort is being put for the spread of Gospel Truth among the careless, the misguided, and the suffering poor around us (SAABFBS 1965, 9).
A decade later, similar reports were still appearing:
We are thankful for the one agent in the work—an earnest Christian woman, who has been disciplined by a wise Providence for going among the poor as a kind and sympathizing friend. We refrain from giving a detailed account, but this much we may say: Bibles are carried about from house to house, and through the markets and open streets, and offered for sale. 385 copies of the Holy Scriptures, in whole or in part, have been sold in this way, during the past year, and the sum of £17.18.10 received in payment. The sick and dying have been visited, and on every available opportunity sinners have been directed to the sinners’ Friend—the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who subscribe to this mission understand its quiet, penetrating methods, and will not require us to say more. The lady superintendent of the Bible woman submits a report of her work at our monthly meeting; and we are fully satisfied that our agent is a faithful Christian worker, doing service as unto the Lord and not unto men. We shall be happy to give more minute information to any friends who may require it (CTLBA 1877, 1).
Another genre favoured by the CTLBA was that of people weeping and crying when confronted with the Bible. The genre itself forms part of a broader Protestant mythology in which the Bible functions as a powerful and quasi-magical text that can precipitate radical changes in people. One physical manifestation of these internal changes is weeping and crying, which also symbolise the remorse that sinners feel for their wickedness. One typical report from the CTLBA appeared in the annual report of the SAABFBS in 1863:
The hard and sterile ground is before us, and our hearts are often overwhelmed by the revelations continually made of the depths of vice and iniquity too appalling to be even named, which constantly impede our progress. Still, we know that the work is the Lord’s. Our impotence matters little. It cannot be too hard for him our Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. He is showing us His Purpose of mercy, by raising up agents for the work—women adapted to both the English and Dutch speaking poor, and of such age and character as can with propriety go into these strongholds of sin and Satan, and hold forth the Word of Life. Sickness, and a sense of utter misery, will sometimes make those visits welcome. Tears have been shed as the love of Christ to sinners has been made known to one laid on a bed of suffering … Negro, Kafir, Malay, and European have been alike glad to meet the Bible Woman, and to pay their weekly pence for this blessed Book (CTLBA 1863, 6).
Like many other organisations, the CTLBA generated a history of itself, and this genre become another way of positioning the committee transnationally. This history was sketched out in an annual report in the 1860s:
We copy from the “Jubilee Memorial” of the Parent Society: “It is an interesting fact, that the first Bible Association ever formed was established in 1804, by a young lady fifteen years of age, at Sheffield, without her having the slightest knowledge of the British and Foreign Bible Society, which was formed in the same year. The name of this young lady was Catherine Elliott. Observing in her visits to the poor, a deplorable want of the Holy Scriptures, she determined to do what she could towards supplying this want. She mentioned to her younger brother her intention of contributing something every week towards purchasing a Testament, for at that time they had no idea of being able to give away a Bible. She began with a penny, and he with a half-penny. They procured a tin box in which they kept their savings till they amounted to sixteen pence, with which they bought a Testament. This young lady next drew up an appeal, which she sent to her school fellows. The proposal was received and entered upon with ardour, and the Testaments were given away as fast as they could be procured. The number of subscribers gradually increased, and a degree of system was adopted. The committee consisted of four subscribers, who met every fortnight. The total number of Bibles and Testaments distributed by this little Society in sixteen years exceeded two thousand five hundred (CTLBA 1868, 10).
William Elliott, the brother of Catherine, emigrated to South Africa, and it is his wife who founded the CTLBA. Thus, by tracing its history back through a female lineage, the CTLBA could script a history for itself that precedes that of the BFBS. This history also celebrates the role of women as philanthropic pioneers and hence establishes a precedent for the workings and identity of the committee.
Unsurprisingly for a committee embedded in a transnational network, the CTLBA, like its parent body, relied heavily on narratives of circulation. Endless lists of figures and tables recorded how many Bibles, testaments and portions of scripture had been sold. As we have seen in relation to the meeting in November 1912, stories of Bibles travelling to far parts of the continent were often rehearsed. As Michael Warner (2002) has argued, questions of circulation, both real and imagined, lie at the very heart of how publics come into being. For Warner, it is the limits and pathways of circulation that are critical. How these are imagined become the sinews around which publics take shape. A key methodological move in such an equation is to pay close attention to how texts dramatise the limits of their circulation. In Warner’s words (2002, 63):
From the concrete experience of a world in which available forms circulate, one projects a public …. This performative ability depends, however, on that object’s being not entirely fictitious—not postulated merely, but recognized as a real path for the circulation of discourse. That path is then treated as a social entity.
By endlessly rehearsing how their Bibles circulated—in
