Reverend Henry Roe, a Primitive Methodist minister, was born in Old Lenton, Nottingham in 1842 and died at St. Ives, Cornwall in 1920. In 1870 he became one of the first two Primitive Methodist ministers to operate as missionaries out in Africa. They had gone to Fernando Po, a volcanic island off the coast of West Africa, and spent almost two years helping to convert the islanders to Christianity. Henry Roe wrote extensively about his experiences out in Africa. In 1902 he wrote Amos Deer, a book that was based on his early years in Lenton and the events that led to him entering the ministry. The book is constructed to make it appear that the events Henry Roe was describing all happened to someone else - a certain Amos Deer. His immediate family all became Deers and one or two other people may have undergone a change of name.
An interesting depiction of life in Victorian Lenton.