African medical personnel of the universities' mission to Central Africa in Northern Rhodesia

The medical work of the Northern Rhodesian diocese of the UMCA was consistently marginalised by the male-dominated missionary hierarchy due to its status as 'women's work'. Understaffed and under-funded, it relied heavily on its small team of male medical orderlies. Whilst the scarcity of such orderlies often placed them in a position of power, they were under-represented in publications intended for missionary supporters. An examination of the records of the UMCA enables us to identify individuals and demonstrate how the orderly became an integral part of the medical work. By the presentation of selected brief 'biographies', it is shown why the colonial government's appeal to missions to set up training schemes for female nurses from the late-1940s was such an attractive proposition for the UMCA.