DR WILLIAM MASON

Below is William Mason's 1^st Edition of his Cree Bible which was in an Internet

Catalogue, where it was for sale, priced at £2500 on the 27^th May 2016

Rev. Dr William Mason

William Mason was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme Staffordshire on 11th August 1816 the second son of Thomas Mason and his wife Sarah. He took his priest's orders in 1854, and in 1880 he was made a doctor of divinity by the then Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr Mason who was no ordinary man, spent many years in missionary work in North America on behalf of the Church Missionary Society. His labours were principally among the Cree Indians, of whose language he acquired an intimate knowledge. With the assistance of his first wife Sophia Thomas, William translated the bible into the mother tongue of the Cree. Sophia bore him 9 children 8 of whom were born in what was then called North West America. Sophia died in London in 1861 after giving birth to their 9th child. The Rev. William Mason resumed his missionary work with the Cree, but returned to England permanently in 1870. Then shortly after he became curate at Longhorsley.

Rev. Dr William Mason 1816-1893

In 1871 he married a second time, to Lucy Alice Hassard Short, and by her had 8 more children. In 1877 William succeeded the Rev Robert Green as vicar of Longhorsley. William Mason, a hard working and revered pastor much loved by his parishioners, died on the 25th January 1893 and was buried in Longhorsley churchyard.

NB.

The Longhorsley Local History Society are indebted to George Ian Hassard- Mason, William Mason's great grandson, for the above biographical information and the photograph, which was taken when William Mason was Longhorsley's Vicar.