James Calvert (missionary)

Calvert founded this Wesleyan chapel in Hastings, now called the Calvert Memorial Methodist Chapel.

James Calvert (3 January 1813 – 8 March 1892), was a Methodist missionary.

James Calvert was a native of Pickering, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. He was sent out in 1838, in company with John Hunt, to labour amongst the cannibals in Fiji, where he remained for eighteen years, during which time he witnessed marvellous triumphs of Christianity. In his labours among the Fijians he was ably assisted by his heroic wife, Mary Fowler Calvert, who was in every way a model missionary's wife, and much of the wonderful success of those years was due to her patient, self-denying labours. By Calvert's ministry the Fijian King Seru Epenisa Cakobau was converted to Christianity, renounced polygamy, and for many years after lived a consistent life. His last act as a king was to cede Fiji to Great Britain. In 1856 Calvert returned to England, and during his stay in the country superintended the printing of the entire Scriptures in the Fijian language. In 1872 he was sent out by the Wesleyan Missionary Society to South Africa. He died at Hastings, England, in 1892 aged seventy-nine. In that year he founded a Wesleyan chapel in Hastings; after his death it was named the Calvert Memorial Chapel.