James Watson Cunningham Dougall

James Watson Cunningham Dougall
Born	1896
Died	1980
Residence	Jeanes School, Kabete, P.O. Box 831, Nairobi, Kenya PO Box 919, Nairobi, Kenya Colony [1933]
Occupation	educator church
Society Membership membership ordinary fellow left 1935 last listed elected_AI 1931.01.13

Notes

House Notes

1930.12.16 proposed by E.W. Smith, seconded by J.L. Myres

Notes From Elsewhere

obit. in International Bulletin of Mission research by Kenneth r. Ross
James W. C. Dougall was born on April 8, 1896, in the town of Auchterarder in Perthshire, Scotland. (1) He grew up in a strongly Christian home. His mother was well known locally for championing the cause of temperance, a powerful popular movement at that time. His pastor was James S. Stewart, who later became one of Scotland's most celebrated preachers and published highly valued volumes of sermons. (2) Growing up nearby was Nan Eadie, who became his childhood sweetheart; in 1924 they married. Theirs was a very strong marriage, based perhaps on an attraction of opposites, as Nan's fiery, emotional, and temperamental character contrasted with the calm, dispassionate, and diplomatic personality of James. They were blessed with four children but had the sadness of losing one son at the age of fifteen.
James was educated at George Watson's College in Edinburgh, Glasgow Academy, and Perth Academy. He served in the Observation Corps in the First World War, an experience of which he never spoke. He completed his M.A. at Glasgow University in 1919 and proceeded to Trinity College, Glasgow, to prepare for ordination to the ministry. During these years he was greatly influenced by the Student Christian Movement, and through it he became interested in missionary work. The memory of the Edinburgh 1910 World Missionary Conference was still fresh in Scotland, and it cast its spell over young Dougall, causing him to think of giving his life to "the evangelization of the world in this generation."
The calling to missionary service found expression, following ordination in 1923, with Dougall's acceptance of a major responsibility in Africa as secretary of the Phelps-Stokes Commission (1923-24). This commission, the initiative of New York-based philanthropists, examined the situation throughout Africa in order to determine how education might best be developed. Its reports led to the colonial governments' taking much greater responsibility for education in the African community. For Dougall it was a unique opportunity to develop an extensive familiarity with the African situation. He therefore already had wide experience when he began his work in Kenya, where from 1925 to 1931 he served as principal of Jeanes School in Kabete, and from 1932 to 1936 as educational adviser to the non-Roman Missions in Kenya and Uganda. His eleven years there left him with a deep sense of identification with Africa and its people.

Dougall returned to the U.K. in 1936 to become a secretary of the Conference of British Missionary Societies. His position enabled him to develop a wide range of contacts and connections. Particularly influential was friendship with Joe and Mary Oldham at a time when Oldham was at the height of his influence on missionary and ecumenical thinking. (3) In 1940 Dougall embarked on what was to be twenty years of service in the secretariat of the Church of Scotland Foreign Mission Committee, as associate secretary from 1940 to 1946 and general secretary from 1946 to 1960. On his retirement, the committee recognized that "with his unique knowledge and experience of the World Church, his outstanding gifts and his unusual insight into the nature of missionary trends, he has been the guide, inspirer and formulator of the policy of the Committee in recent years." (4) Finally, he was elected to serve as convener of the new Overseas Council, which brought together all the Church of Scotland committees concerned with overseas work, from 1964 to 1969. After the death of his wife, Nan, in 1977, it was said that "there was a darkness about him." Three years later, on November 9, 1980, he died quite suddenly in Edinburgh.

Publications

External Publications

SCHOOL EDUCATION AND NATIVE LIFE. BY JAMES W. C. DOUGALL

Characteristics of African Thought

Christians in the African revolution

the village teacher's guide

building Kenya's future

the new approach in world evangelization

Christianity and the sex-education of the African