In 1922, the need for a new missionary strategy in northern Nigeria, and in other Moslem areas, was identified at CMS headquarters but there was no obvious candidate to send there. In 1923, G. T. Manley, CMS Africa Secretary, visited Cambridge University and appealed for men to lead a mission. As a result, a 'Hausa Band' was formed in March 1924 with four members: Guy Bullen and W. H. Oswald who were preparing for ordination at Ridley Hall, Cambridge; Norman Cook who was in medical training and whose father was J. H. Cook, a former medical missionary in Uganda; and Max Warren, a first year student at Jesus College. They offered themselves to CMS as a team, to work in northern Nigeria among Moslems. The Hausa Band was a largely self-supporting group within the CMS; it recruited for members and raised a special fund for their support. It also published an occasional paper, Crusade Report, later known as Northern Nigeria which reported on the progress of the missionaries and of the Band's special fund for supporting them in northern Nigeria. Bullen and Oswald arrived in Zaria in November 1926 and Max Warren reached Zaria in December 1927. In 1928, Bullen married Oswald's sister, a medical doctor, who became the fourth member of the Hausa Band to get to Nigeria and she contributed to the development of the medical mission work in Zaria with Dr Norman Cook, another member of the Hausa Band. Cook started branch dispensaries at Funtua in 1931, at Maska in 1932 and at Chafe in 1933 before his death in that year. Warren was invalided home in 1929 but once recovered, he played an active role in the administration of the Band, negotiating the financial arrangements with CMS headquarters and in recruiting new members.
Reference: Gordon Hewitt, The Problems of Success: a history of the Church Missionary Society 1910-1942 (SCM Press Ltd, 1971).
From the guide to the Hausa Band Correspondence and Papers, 1926-1930, (University of Birmingham Information Services, Special Collections Department)
