On Saturday, 6th October, Advolly Richmond gave an interesting and Illuminating talk about The Reverend Thomas Birch Freeman, a botanist and a Methodist Missionary.
Born in Twyford, Hampshire in 1809 to an African Farmer and an English mother. He worked as a gardener and botanist for Sir Robert Harland at Orwell Park near Ipswich until he was dismissed for abandoning Anglicanism for Wesleyan Methodism.
He was responsible for establishing a number of schools in the colony of The Gold Coast (present day Ghana) and Nigeria from where he regularly sent plant samples to Kew Gardens.