William Barleycorn

William N Barleycorn was a Primitive Methodist missionary who went to Fernando Po, about 1880.

One of his protégés, Edward Thaddeus Barleycorn Barber, returned to Elmfield College, York in about 1888, and went from there to Edinburgh University

His father Napoleon Barleycorn was also a Primitive Methodist missionary in Fernando Po. He sent his sons to be educated at Bourne College, Quinton. [ [http://www.bdlha.freeola.com/historian/bourne-college/bourne-college.htm Bourne College ] ] An elderly lady who as a girl had lived in Quinton commented, “We children used to go and stand at the gates of Bourne College because we had heard that there were overseas students there and we had never seen anyone foreign!”

At Bourne College boys studied "everything from book-keeping to botany, from chemistry to carpentry and from elocution to electricity. Here they exercised… Much interest is attached to games, with the conviction that proper physical culture is not only a source of pleasure and an auxiliary to health, but is a stimulus to the intellect (7)… and ate… Care is taken to provide a good substantial diet. Boys may be supplied with ham or other meat for breakfast at a charge of 25/- per term and day pupils may have dinners at 9d each (7) … and slept… in a light, lofty and well-ventilated dormitory. A thorough system of baths and lavatories is also provided (7) … and all, in the early days, for only twenty four guineas per term." [ [http://www.bdlha.freeola.com/historian/bourne-college/bourne-college.htm Bourne College ] ]

William Barleycorn compiled the first Bubi primer in 1875 along with co-missionary William B. Luddington [ [http://www.mundus.ac.uk/cats/4/1315.htm School of Oriental and African Studies Library: Luddington, William Broadbent ] ]

Two copies of "Bubi na English" primer compiled by William B. Luddington & William N. Barleycorn, 1875 are available for consultation in SOAS Library.

References