Joseph Mullens

Joseph Mullens (2 September 1820 – 10 July 1879) worked with the London Missionary Society (LMS) in India.

Life

Joseph Mullens, son of Richard Mullens, was born on 2 September 1820 in London. He studied at Coward College, a dissenting academy that trained people for nonconformist ministry, in 1837 and graduated from the University of London, to which the college was affiliated, in 1841. He then undertook further study in Edinburgh with the intention of working for the LMS in India.

Mullens was ordained at Barbican Chapel as a Congregational minister in September 1843 and soon after sailed for India. He shared the journey with a Swiss missionary, Alphonse François Lacroix, who was returning to Calcutta after taking leave, and joined Lacroix's mission at Bhawanipur, near Calcutta. On 19 June 1845, Mullens married Hannah Catherine, an evangelist daughter of Lacroix who spoke fluent Bengali. In the following year, Mullens became pastor at the church in Bhawanipur.

In 1857 he became a member of the governing body of Calcutta University.

Probably a more gifted publicist than he was a missionary, Mullens did not restrict himself to promoting the interests and achievements of the LMS but rather did so for Protestant missionaries in general. This ecumenism was later evidenced in 1860 when he attended a conference of Protestant missionaries in Liverpool and pleaded with those present to set aside their doctrinal differences for the greater good of serving the cause of Christianity in India. His efforts in producing statistics relating to work done in India were significant to the fundraising abilities of missionary societies in Britain.