Missionary Society
The Missionary Society was a lay religious student organization in existence on the Trinity campus during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Founded circa 1831, the Missionary Society replaced what was known as the “Auxiliary.” Initially, the group met weekly “for religious exercises, serious reading, and the discussion of theological subjects,” 1) and raised money to be donated for missionary causes within the Episcopal Church. The Society was fostered by Episcopal clergy in the Hartford area who served as chaplains and advisors during its existence. Unlike other early student organizations which appeared in the first decades of the College, the Missionary Society remained active through the 1850s and 1860s, continuing to meet twice per month to participate in religious services and to hear essays delivered by both students and faculty, including the College president. In addition, the Society established a library–which comprised a reading room stocked with books and periodicals about mission work–in one of the College dormitories.
Even after the College had severed its ties to the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut in the 1890s, the Society continued to hold regular meetings and to raise money to be donated to missionary causes of the Episcopal Church. Society members volunteered as Sunday School teachers in Hartford parishes and provided leadership for a boys' club at Grace Church. In 1897, a Lenten lecture series attracted as many as 40 attending members.
By the early 1900s, the Missionary Society was joined on campus by a chapter of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, which caused a slight decline in the Society's membership, but sparked a friendly rivalry between the two. Both groups soon came under pressure from the College's administration to combine and to become less tied to the work of the Episcopal Church and more service oriented like the Y.M.C.A. However, neither group would yield to the suggestion and each continued to carry on as before. In an effort to revitalize membership, it was suggested that the Society change its name to one that did not overtly imply missionary work, as well as to extend the focus of the group to include Bible study and service to the Hartford community. Those suggestions did not come to fruition. In the fall of 1910, a student chapter of the Y.M.C.A. was established. By 1911, both the Brotherhood of St. Andrew and the Missionary Society could not afford inclusion in the 1911 Ivy. The 1919-1920 Trinity College catalogue represented the final mention of the Missionary Society (as well as the Brotherhood and the Y.M.C.A.).