A striking black and white lantern slide made around 1900 to 1910 shows Esien Esien Ukpabio, also rendered Essien Essien Ukpabio, seated with his wife and children at Adiabo in the Calabar area. Dressed in a European style suit with a fob watch visible across his waistcoat, Ukpabio appears as an established clergyman surrounded by his formally dressed family.
The photograph captures more than a household portrait. By the time it was taken, Ukpabio had spent decades at the centre of one of the most important transitions in the history of Christianity in Old Calabar. He had entered the Presbyterian mission as an early Efik convert, become its first indigenous teacher and, in 1872, its first indigenous ordained minister.
His career belonged to the formative period when a church introduced by overseas missionaries began developing African teachers, preachers and ministers of its own.
The Presbyterian Mission Arrives in Old Calabar
The Presbyterian mission in Old Calabar began in 1846, when Hope Masterton Waddell and his missionary party arrived after travelling from Jamaica. The mission had developed partly through connections between Scottish Presbyterian churches and Christian communities in Jamaica, where formerly enslaved people with memories or traditions linking them to the Calabar region had encouraged missionary work in West Africa.
Old Calabar was already a major commercial and political centre long before the missionaries arrived. Its Efik communities had participated for generations in Atlantic commerce, first through the slave trade and later increasingly through palm produce and other forms of legitimate trade.
READ MORE: Ancient & Pre-Colonial Nigeria
The missionaries entered a society with established political authorities, religious institutions, family networks and commercial systems. Their presence did not immediately produce a large Christian community. During the mission’s early years, conversion remained limited, making the emergence of figures such as Ukpabio particularly significant.
Hugh Goldie, who became one of the mission’s most important linguists and ministers, devoted considerable effort to learning and documenting Efik. His linguistic work later contributed greatly to the development of printed Christian literature in the language.
But books and foreign missionaries alone could not create an indigenous church. For Christianity to take institutional root, the mission required Efik converts who could teach, preach and eventually exercise church leadership.
Ukpabio became one of the earliest and most important of those figures.
Esien Esien Ukpabio and the 1853 Creek Town Baptism
A decisive moment came on 16 October 1853.
Hugh Goldie publicly baptised Esien Esien Ukpabio in the king’s yard at Creek Town. Ukpabio became the mission’s first baptised convert and later its first indigenous teacher.
The location of the ceremony was significant. The baptism did not take place privately or far from public life. It occurred in the king’s yard, placing Ukpabio’s new religious affiliation within the visible political and social world of Creek Town.
Conversion in nineteenth century Old Calabar involved more than the acceptance of a new religious doctrine. Religious practices were closely connected with kinship, political authority, household organisation, community obligations and established traditions. Publicly identifying with the mission church could therefore affect a person’s position within the wider society.
Two weeks later, on 30 October 1853, another convert, Young Eyo, a son of King Eyo, was baptised. Ukpabio and Young Eyo subsequently participated in the Lord’s Supper, an important stage in the formation of an indigenous church community at Creek Town.
Ukpabio did not remain merely a convert receiving religious instruction from Europeans. He moved into teaching and evangelistic work himself.
From Convert to Indigenous Christian Teacher
Ukpabio was already taking an active role in Christian worship years before his formal ordination.
During the illness of King Eyo in 1858, the king gathered people for worship and called upon Ukpabio to conduct the service.
The occasion marked an important development. An Efik convert was no longer simply listening to foreign missionaries. He was becoming a religious instructor within his own society.
Such local leadership was indispensable to the mission’s expansion. Indigenous teachers possessed linguistic knowledge and social familiarity that European missionaries could never fully reproduce. They could communicate Christian teaching directly in Efik and work within communities where cultural expectations, family relationships and political structures were understood from within.
Ukpabio’s progression from convert to teacher therefore represented a broader change taking place within the church.
That transition reached another historic stage in 1872.
The Historic Ordination of 1872
Esien Esien Ukpabio was licensed to preach on 9 January 1872.
Three months later, on 9 April 1872, Hugh Goldie ordained him into the Christian ministry. The date coincided with the twenty sixth anniversary of the Old Calabar Mission.
William Anderson delivered an ordination charge in Efik, while Samuel Edgerley also participated in the proceedings.
Ukpabio’s ordination made him the first indigenous ordained minister produced by the Old Calabar Presbyterian Mission and the first indigenous minister of its Efik church.
EXPLORE: Nigerian Civil War
His place in Nigerian church history is distinct from that of Samuel Ajayi Crowther, who had been ordained an Anglican deacon and priest in Britain in 1843, almost three decades before Ukpabio’s ordination. Crowther later became a bishop in 1864.
Ukpabio’s achievement lay specifically within the Presbyterian mission in Old Calabar. His ordination demonstrated that a mission founded and initially directed by Europeans was beginning to produce an indigenous ministry capable of assuming responsibility for teaching, preaching and congregational leadership.
Adiabo and Ukpabio’s Later Ministry
Ukpabio later became closely associated with Adiabo, a community in the Calabar region.
A congregation was formed at Adiabo under Reverend E. E. Ukpabio in 1880, followed by the opening of a church there in 1881.
This association explains the title attached to the surviving lantern slide portrait, which identifies him as “Ukpabio of Adiabo, Calabar, Nigeria, ca. 1900–1910.”
The Ukpabio family’s involvement with the Adiabo church continued into another generation, with his son William later associated with his father’s pulpit.
By then, the movement represented by Ukpabio’s own career had become much larger than a single conversion. Indigenous Christians were increasingly assuming roles within churches that had once depended overwhelmingly upon missionaries from Europe and the Caribbean.
Esien Esien Ukpabio and the Efik Bible Era
Ukpabio’s ministry also unfolded during a remarkable period in the development of written Efik.
Hugh Goldie carried out extensive linguistic work, including the preparation of grammatical and lexical material in Efik. His work formed part of a wider missionary effort to make Christian texts available to Efik readers.
A major landmark came in 1862, when the New Testament appeared in Efik through Goldie’s translation work.
The complete Bible followed later. Alexander Robb was responsible for the Old Testament translation, and the Efik Bible was completed in 1868.
The 1868 Efik Bible became the first complete Bible translated into an indigenous language of the territories that would later form modern Nigeria.
Ukpabio lived and ministered during this transformation of Efik into an important language of printed Christian literature. As a teacher, preacher and minister, he belonged to the generation that helped carry Christianity from missionary stations into Efik congregational life.
His career developed alongside the expansion of religious publishing, education and literacy in the Efik language.
The Portrait of Ukpabio and His Family
The surviving portrait of Ukpabio provides an unusually personal connection to this nineteenth century history.
The photograph belongs to the International Mission Photography Archive and originated from material held by the Centre for the Study of World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh. Its catalogue identifies Reverend Esien Esien Ukpabio, his wife and children and dates the image approximately to 1900 to 1910. The photographer is not identified.
Ukpabio wears a European style suit and fob watch. His family are also formally dressed.
EXPLORE NOW: Military Era & Coups in Nigeria
Such clothing was common in missionary and professional portraiture of the period and could communicate education, clerical status, Christian respectability and participation in new social institutions.
The photograph preserves the appearance of an established African minister whose Christian career had begun nearly half a century earlier.
A Name Preserved at Itu
Ukpabio’s name remains visible in Nigerian Presbyterian life through the Essien Ukpabio Presbyterian Theological College at Itu, Akwa Ibom State.
The institution was founded in 1994 and bears his name. It has an academic affiliation with the University of Calabar.
The National Universities Commission lists Essien Ukpabio Presbyterian College, Itu, among institutions affiliated with the University of Calabar. In January 2025, the Commission conducted an accreditation visitation for the institution’s Religious Studies programme and granted it full accreditation.
The connection between Ukpabio’s name and a theological institution is particularly appropriate. His nineteenth century career represented one of the earliest efforts to create an indigenous Presbyterian ministry in Old Calabar.
More than a century later, an institution bearing his name continues the work of educating people for Christian scholarship and ministry.
Conclusion
Esien Esien Ukpabio occupies an important place in the history of Christianity in southern Nigeria because his life illustrates the movement from foreign missionary activity towards indigenous church leadership.
Publicly baptised by Hugh Goldie at Creek Town on 16 October 1853, he became the Old Calabar Mission’s first indigenous teacher. He was already taking part in Christian instruction and worship before his formal entry into ordained ministry.
On 9 April 1872, he became the first indigenous ordained minister of the mission’s Efik church. His later ministry at Adiabo placed him within the continuing expansion of Presbyterian Christianity beyond its earliest mission stations.
At the same time, he lived through the development of a written Efik Christian tradition, including the Efik New Testament of 1862 and the completion of the Efik Bible in 1868.
The surviving portrait from around 1900 to 1910 therefore records much more than Reverend Ukpabio and his family. It preserves the face of a man whose career spanned a formative period in which Efik Christians moved from converts and pupils to teachers, ministers and leaders of their own congregations.
Author’s Note
Esien Esien Ukpabio’s life demonstrates that the lasting establishment of Christianity in Old Calabar depended not only upon overseas missionaries but also upon Africans who transformed a missionary movement into an increasingly indigenous church. His journey from public baptism in 1853 to ordination in 1872 shows how Efik converts gradually assumed responsibility for teaching, preaching and pastoral leadership. Remembering Ukpabio in this wider context gives proper recognition to African agency in the development of nineteenth century Christianity and to the local men and women who shaped institutions that survived long after the pioneering missionary generation had passed.
References
William Dickie, The Story of the Mission in Old Calabar. Edinburgh: United Presbyterian Church, 1894.
Hugh Goldie, Calabar and Its Mission. Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1890.
Hope Masterton Waddell, Twenty-nine Years in the West Indies and Central Africa: A Review of Missionary Work and Adventure, 1829–1858. London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1863.
International Mission Photography Archive and Centre for the Study of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh, Ukpabio of Adiabo, Calabar, Nigeria, ca. 1900–1910, archival reference IMP-CSWC47-LS9-18.
Bible Society of Nigeria, historical records on Bible translation in Nigerian languages and the completion of the Efik Bible in 1868.
SIL Nigeria, historical record of the completion of the Efik Bible in 1868.
National Universities Commission, Approved Affiliations, Essien Ukpabio Presbyterian College, Itu, affiliated with the University of Calabar.
National Universities Commission, accreditation report for the Religious Studies programme at Essien Ukpabio Presbyterian College, Itu, January 2025.
