Fonds ChUn 18 - Central Mainland Marine Mission fonds

The first of the Thomas Crosby mission boats was launched in 1912, replacing the Homespun, a small gasoline launch that had been in use since the Udal was lost in 1909. The Thomas Crosby I, II, and III served on the mainland for the Port Simpson District of the Methodist Church up to church union in 1925, being known at that time as the Crosby Mission. Under the United Church, the Mission became a pastoral charge, first called the Queen Charlotte (Marine) Pastoral Charge and then renamed Central Mainland Marine Mission in 1929. The Thomas Crosby III, built in 1923, was replaced with the more seaworthy Thomas Crosby IV in 1938, which in turn was replaced by the Thomas Crosby V in 1967, the Sea Island II being chartered for a brief period while the Thomas Crosby V was being built. Missionaries who served on the Crosby include R.C. Scott, Peter Kelley, R.H. McColl, John Towers, Bob Scales, Oliver Howard, Jack Gosse serving as a lay minister, Bob Faris and Gordon Taylor. In the 1970s, the Presbytery created an Oversight Committee to act as board for the Mission, and eventually most of the responsibility for the Mission's funding was transferred from the Presbytery to the Division of Mission (B.C.). Through the 1970s and 1980s, the Mission reported to both the Presbytery and D.M.C. (B.C.) through the Committee; during this period the staff was fairly large as well, with separate positions for the Master and the Missionary, as well as an engineer, deckhands and a nurse. Although the Thomas Crosby V was the only marine mission operating in the region in the 1980s, the cost of operating the Mission was becoming more and more of a concern to those involved, and several studies were conducted into the possibility of finding more cost-effective ways to conduct its work. Late in 1990, Prince Rupert Presbytery voted to recommend that the ship be sold, with a view to finding more cost effective ways of reaching the same constituency, although the 1992 report to Conference describes it as having had a ship in 1991 as well. Since then the Mission has relied on air travel to reach its points of call.