Editing Clement Martyn Doke (section)

==Early life and career==
The Doke family had been engaged in missionary activity for the [[Baptist Church]] for some generations. His father, Reverend [[Joseph J. Doke]], left England and travelled to South Africa in 1882, where he met and married Agnes Biggs. They returned to England, where Clement was born as the third of four children. The family moved to New Zealand and eventually returned to South Africa in 1903, where it later settled in [[Johannesburg]].

At the age of 18, Clement received a bachelor's degree from [[Transvaal University College]] in [[Pretoria]] (now the [[University of Pretoria]]). He decided to devote his life to missionary activity. In 1913, he accompanied his father on a tour of north-western [[Rhodesia]], to an area called Lambaland, now known as [[Ilamba]]. It is at the watershed of the [[Congo River|Congo]] and [[Zambesi]] rivers. Part of the district lay in Northern Rhodesia and part of the Belgian Congo. The [[Cape-Cairo Railway]] threaded through its eastern portion; otherwise, most travel had to be on foot.

The Reverend William Arthur Phillips of the Nyasa Industrial Mission in [[Blantyre, Malawi|Blantyre]] had established a Baptist mission there in 1905; it served an area of {{convert|25000|sqmi|km2}} and 50,000 souls. The Dokes were supposed to investigate whether the mission in Lambaland could be taken over by the Baptist Union of South Africa. It was on that trip that Doke's father contracted enteric fever and died soon afterwards. [[Mahatma Gandhi]] attended the memorial service and addressed the congregation. Clement assumed his father's role.

The South African Baptists decided to take over Kafulafuta Mission, and its founder, Reverend Phillips, remained as superintendent. Clement Doke returned to Kafulafuta as missionary in 1914, followed by his sister Olive two years later.