Wilson, Salim Charles
 (Hatashil Masha Kathish)

People > Wilson, Salim Charles

In 1880 three envoys from the Ruler of Buganda in Africa travelled to England with the missionary Charles Wilson to meet Queen Victoria.  They were housed for some time in the village of Pavenham where Charles's father was vicar.  After six weeks they began their long return home.  However, a young African Dinka who had travelled with them named Hatashil Masha Kathish - or Salim - remained living with the family in the vicarage. 

Salim's father had been a chief of a Gok Dinka tribe but, in a raid Salim had been captured and sold into slavery.  He had been later released during Romolo Gessi's war against Sulayman Zubayr in 1879 and joined Charles Wilson at Dem Suleiman.  In his autobiography Salim wrote "And so I decided on a very daring step.  I decided that, if I could, I would enter the service of these white men...And eventually, sure enough, out of a number of applicants, I was selected...When I learned that, eventually I should be taken to the white men's country called 'England', I was startled, but not daunted - although I frequently asked myself such questions as: 'Would these white men beat me badly?' and sometimes 'Would they eat me when they had me in their own country?'

Salim attended the village school in Pavenham in order to learn to read and write.  In his autobiography he wrote "Everybody in the village was kind to me, and many of the good people gave me money... Generally speaking, the lads of Pavenham were kind to me.  But of course, they could not resist having their bit of fun out of me, most of which was comparatively harmless... Sometimes, however, it was not so innocent. They would try to get rough with me, but when it came to that I was more than a match for them..."

After the death of her husband in 1881 Salim accompanied Mrs Wilson to Nottingham . He attended a Hume Cliff College a missionary training institute and continued to live in England much in demand as a preacher and speaker.  He authored 'The Ethiopia Valley; the story of the people called the Dinkas' (c.1906) edited by William Engledow Harbord and an autobiography, 'I was a slave' (1939)

He was baptised in August 1882 and given the name Salim Charles Wilson. He married and later kept a general store in Scunthorpe.

Sources:

• Africans in Pavenham by Eric Wilson, Bedfordshire Magazine, Vol. 21, Winter 1988,  pp273-276

Further Reading:

• Salim Wilson: The Black Evangelist of the North by Douglas H. Johnson, Journal of Religion in Africa, Vol. 21, Feb., 1991, pp. 26-41 (copy available in Bedford Central Library Local Studies Collection)

Salim Charles Wilson (Hatashil Masha Kathish) by Bedfordshire Libraries, 2006

Page last updated: 3rd February 2014