Description
Inuit boy brought to England by Captain Ommaney and enrolled at St. Augustine College, Canterbury, which was situated in the grounds of St. Augustine’s Abbey in the city. Named Kallihirua (Erasmus) Kalliessa. He was taught to read and write in English and also spent time in a tailor’s shop in the city, learning the trade. During 1852 and 1853, he was involved in the revisions of Captain John Washington’s Eskimaux and English vocabulary, for the use of the Arctic expeditions (London, 1850). He was baptised in the parish church of St Martin’s, Canterbury on Advent Sunday (27th November), 1853. He left England in Autumn 1855 in order to attend religious training at Queen’s College in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and he became ill and died there in 1856. May have been displayed as a human exhibit during his time in Britain by the Royal Ethnographic Society.
Bibliographic sources
“Baptising an Esquimaux,” Leicester Chronicle, 17 Dec, 1853, 1; http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/kallihirua_8E.html. Image credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Greenwich Hospital Collection