William Turnbull Balmer was born at Philadelphia, a mining village near Durham in 1866. He was educated locally, was trained as a teacher at Westminster College, Oxford and became Headmaster of the Wesleyan School at Tenby in South Wales. In 1899 he became an ordained minister of the Wesleyan Church and in 1901 went out to West Africa as an educational missionary. He taught at Richmond College in Freetown, at the Mfantsipim High School, Cape Coast, Ghana and at Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone. He also carried out evangelical work. In 1921 he was forced to resign from overseas service due to ill-health but, on his return to Britain, was appointed to the post of Editor and Secretary of The Atlantis Press, which sought to provide Christian works in a number of West Africa languages. He also made valuable contributions to the study of less well-known West African languages. This work he continued right up to his death in 1928.
From the guide to the Balmer, William Turnbull, ca. 1923-1951, (School of Oriental and African Studies)
