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- [S1] MWS, Andries William De Villiers, (University of Witwatersrand).
Ordained: Deacon in St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town on 18 December 1864, and Priest in St. Mark's Church, George on 2 May 1869 by the Metropolitan Bishop of Cape Town, the Most Revd Robert Gray. Career: Catechist in the parish of Beaufort West (from August 1861); Catechist licensed 24 September 1863), Missionary (SPG), and Curate in charge (licensed 19 December 1864; served until 1868), of St. John the Baptist's, Schoonberg, in the parish of George; Curate in charge of St John the Evangelist's, Victoria West (licensed 3 May 1869; served until 1874); and Rector of Stellenbosch (March to June 1875), all in the diocese of Cape Town. Died: Stellenbosch, of dysentery, on 3 June 1875. "(Dine of the most faithful, one of the most tried of the Clergy of this Diocese ... . His early removal from us, it is more than probable, was in large measure due to several successive years of physical privation consequent on straitened means in a remote part of the Diocese, where, at a time when the necessaries of life were everywhere exceptionally dear, they were occasionally at what, in England, would seem famine prices. He had no lack of warm friends; but his flock was small, and had not very much in their power; and he was one of those brave spirits that seldom complain, and are always ready to take new courage. ... Scarcely yet five months ago he was removed to Stellenbosch, where a better income and cheaper rate of living seemed to promise a diminution of anxieties long and much desired. But `God moves in a mysterious way.'.. (Mr. Brien leaves] a widow and three young children as a charge to the Diocese, which we cannot doubt it will cheerfully undertake. ... Any one visiting Victoria West will now find there a neat, well-ordered, little English Church. This is due almost entirely to the loving labours of Robert Brien. ... The internal decorations are due almost wholly to his own hand. He was an excellent and sound ecclesiologist ..., and delighted in expending any amount of care and time that he lawfully might so apportion on the beautifying of God's House and worship " (The Church News).
[Archives of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa, AB 1162B1, Subscription Book of the Diocese of Cape Town, 1848-1879, p. 122. Bishopscourt Archives, Catechists Licensed, 1848-1912, p. 84; Letters of Orders, 1848-1985; Licences to Clergy, 1848=1963, p. 4, 5. The Church News, no. 89 (1 February 1875), p. 5; no. 94 (2 August 1875), p. 12. CF Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the S.P.G.
(1901), p. 891. J Hunter, A Short History of the Church of St. Mary, Stellenbosch, 1852-1952 (1952), p. 25. RR Langham-Carter, "The Early Stellenbosch British", in Familia, XXIX (1992), no's. 3 & 4, p. 84.]
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