W. A. Elmslie


Rev. Walter Angus Elmslie was a Scottish missionary of the Livingstonia Mission in Nyasaland and associate of Robert Laws.

Life

He was born in Aberdeen which is where he went to university. He became a missionary spending his time in northern Malawi at where one of the first churches in Malawi was built. He was working in Ekwendeni with William Koyi who was a missionary born and trained in South Africa at the Lovedale mission station. Elmslie appreciated Kopi's knowledge of the local people but he criticised him for being too close. Others saw Kopi as Elmslie's interpreter and right-hand man and they wanted to know who would take over from him when he died in 1886.
Elmslie published the first book in the Ngoni language in 1886 titled Izongoma zo ‘Mlungu, which included hymns and tracts. He later published a translation of St Mark's gospel in Ngoni and books on the Ngoni language.

Works