CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ARCHIVE

General Guide and Introduction to the Archive

RELATED ORGANISATIONS

The founding of the Society for Promoting Female Education in China, India and the East had its origin in an appeal by an American missionary, Mr David Abeel. In 1829 he had been sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to China where at that time all missionary work was confined to the foreign trading factories in Canton. Mr Abeel came to England in 1834 and made several appeals for women missionaries to work among the Chinese women and this resulted in the establishment of the Female Education Society (as it was commonly called) on 25 July 1834.

The Society was interdenominational, it was staffed by women and it employed only women agents. Its object was the establishment and superintendence of schools in China, India and the countries adjacent. It supplied experienced school mistresses for whom the Society gave passage and outfit money, but who were expected to be supported locally. It also gave schools grants of money and boxes containing supplies of school materials, fancy and useful work, and working materials for sale.

The Society's first missionary Miss Eliza Thornton went to Malacca in 1836 and that same year three other ladies went to Bengal, Miss Elizabeth Carter to Cawnpore to take charge of the orphanage asylum, Miss Anne Thomson to Chinsurah to help Mrs Mundy of the London Missionary Society and Miss Mary Craven to Madras to work under Miss Tucker sister of John Tucker the CMS missionary. It was in 1836 too that FES began work in Singapore though it was not until the 1840s when Miss Aldersey went to Ningpo that it began work in mainland China. The work in India expanded throughout the 1840s and 1850s, and agents were sent to Palestine and Syria from the 1860s and Japan from 1877. These were its main centres but it also had shorter-lived work in South Africa (1848-92), Lebanon (1859-71) and Mauritius (1860-81).

The Society's main work in India centred on Madras (1837-1888), Cuttack, Orissa (1854), Calcutta (1855), Multan (1863), Ludhiana (1867), Agra (1869) and Coonoor (1895). In China the main stations were Amoy (1848), Ningpo (1848 but transferred to Church Missionary Society 1888), Shanghai (1856-1880), Hong Kong (1858) and Foochow (1875). It worked in Palestine at Nazareth (1863), Bethlehem (1878) and Shefa Amr (1889) and in Syria at Shemlan, Mount Lebanon (1861). The main centres in Japan were Osaka (1877) and Hakodate [Esashi] (1896).

Its support for schools was widespread throughout India and China as well as in Ceylon, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Burma, Penang, Greece, Turkey, Algeria and throughout the Levant.

In 1899, following the death of the Secretary, Miss Webb, the Society was closed down and the work was divided. The Church Missionary Society accepted 24 FES missionaries and their work in Palestine, Japan, China (Hong Kong and Foochow) and India (Agra and Multan). The schools in Singapore were handed over to the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society. The Baptist Missionary Society took over the work at Cuttack, Orissa, while the London Missionary Society became responsible for Miss Dawson and her work at Coonoor. The British Syrian Schools Committee [now Middle East Christian Outreach] took over Shemlan, and the work at Ludhiana was handed over to the American Presbyterian mission. Ludhiana premises had been sold earlier to the North India School of Medicine [now Friends of Ludhiana].

The Society had from the beginning encouraged interested people to join together in groups as local Auxiliary Associations to spread interest and raise money for the Society. The earliest of these groups had been formed at Liverpool, Bishop's Stortford and Hackney in 1836. These supporters were encouraged to continue to raise funds and working parties existed until at least 1915.

The FES archives should be studied in conjunction with the CMS archives as the two societies worked very closely with each other. Indeed until the 1890s CMS depended upon both the FES and CEZMS for single women to work among women and children and regularly referred offers from women to these two societies, which had the necessary experience in equipping and sending women missionaries.

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