The Dublin University Mission - Irish medical missionaries in Britain's empire in India, 1891 - 1929 : identity, impact and sustainability

Abstract

This thesis traces the evolution of the Dublin University Mission (DUM)from initial foundation as a graduate brotherhood mission in Victorian Dublin, to one which established a sustainable female healthcare programme in the remote region of Hazaribagh, Chota Nagpur, India, which exist to this day. Investigating the identity, impact and sustainability of an Irish Anglican mission in British India, this study positions the DUM in wider Irish, imperial, missionary and medical networks. By examining the DUM within these contexts, this thesis analyses the contribution of a small mission to the expansion of imperial control, Christianity and western healthcare in India. This thesis contributes to our understanding of the origins of Irish Anglican foreign mission endeavours. The missionaries who worked for the DUM held fast to their Irish identity, relying on an Irish religious legacy in mission to inform and justify their work. Thus, this work contributes to emerging scholarship on the role of the Irish in Britain's empire. The DUM also belonged to and identified with a wider Anglican community. Acting as a case study, this examination of the DUM explores the contribution of missions to the expansion of western medicine and in particular female healthcare in colonial India. In this way, the thesis adds to our understanding of mission activity and contributes to recent studies investigating the role of medical missions in the construction of female healthcare programmes in India. In examining an Irish mission working in rural India, this thesis brings new investigation to this field. This thesis seeks to understand how a small Irish mission working in a remote region of Britain's empire in India used the provision of female medicine to ensure its own sustainability, and contribute to both an evolving medical and medical missionary landscape in colonial India.