Chauncy Maples

Chauncy Maples (1852–95) was a British clergyman and Anglican missionary who became Bishop of Likoma, on Likoma Island, in East Africa.

Born in 1852, Maples had sailed for Zanzibar in 1876 where he set up clinics and schools for released slaves. Ten years later he founded the Anglican Mission on Likoma Island. In 1895 Maples received recognition when he was consecrated as the sixth Bishop of Nyasaland.

A man of the cloth, while on the way to take up his duties, his steel boat the Sherriff (named after the late captain Sherriff of the Charles Janson) capsized during a storm on the lake and Maples and a layman missionary Joseph Williams drowned. All eighteen African men and boys swam safely ashore but Maples was pulled down because of the weight of his cassock.

In recognition of his role in East Africa, in 1901 the ship SS Chauncy Maples, the first steamship on Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi), was named after him. The ship continues to serve as a floating hospital to this day.

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