CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ARCHIVE
Section I: East Asia Missions

Part 21: Periodicals for South, Central and West China, 1899-1970, and Japan, 1905-1941, including Papers of Fukien Conferences, 1906-1937

History of CMS Missions in China and Japan

When CMS was founded China was closed to all missionaries, though a small Christian community survived from sixteenth century Roman Catholic evangelism. Knowledge of this stimulated English interest in China and in 1807 the London Missionary Society sent out Robert Morrison; he died in 1834 having failed to penetrate beyond the permitted foreign trading areas. CMS had consulted Morrison when he was in England in 1824 and in 1835 corresponded with Charles Gutzlaff, a Prussian evangelist working under the Netherlands Missionary Society. He was renowned for his journeys in defiance of the Chinese authorities, sailing along the coast, distributing tracts wherever he could. His zeal encouraged CMS to send Edward Squire in 1836 to investigate possibilities of work. His reports were discouraging, however, and the outbreak of the first Opium War between Britain and China forced his return to England.

Ironically it was the Opium War that opened China to the Gospel. By the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 five Chinese ports were opened to Europeans (including missionaries); and Hong Kong was ceded to Britain. Many missionary societies immediately started work in mainland China. CMS was in a financial crisis, but an anonymous gift of £7,000 to start a China mission enabled them to send out two missionaries, George Smith and Thomas McClatchie in 1844. By 1847 work was established at Ningpo and Shanghai. In 1849 George Smith became bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong, having missionary jurisdiction over China.

The development of missionary work was beset by many difficulties. The country was vast with a large population and a sophisticated indigenous culture which was highly resistant to Christianity, regarding it as an insidious form of Western influence. Moreover, the language, with its innumerable dialects took many years to master. The educated Chinese (the literati) were violently opposed to the missionaries and encouraged the Chinese authorities to seek disputes with them, often (as at Foochow) over ownership of property. Property fights soured relationships with the British authorities too, exacerbated by the missionaries’ denunciation of the opium trade. Then there were civil disturbances which could cause disruption for many years. The Taiping rebellion against the Chinese government which lasted from 1850 to 1866 was one of the most confusing as the rebels incorporated some Christian elements into their dogma and were at first viewed sympathetically by some of the missionaries. Outbreaks of hostility to foreigners were common, one of the worst resulting in the massacre in 1895 of ten missionaries (among them Robert Stewart and family) by insurgents in Fukien.

Despite all this the work prospered. Successive conflicts gradually opened up the interior of the country to Europeans and missionaries extended their work. In 1873 the Rev W Russell was consecrated bishop of North China and in 1880 the bishopric of Mid-China (Shanghai and Chekiang provinces) was established with the Rev G E Moule as its first bishop. In 1897 the mission was divided into three, South China (covering Hong Kong, Kwangtung and Fukien provinces), Mid-China and West China (Szechwan province); Fukien became a separate mission in 1900.

As in other missions prime emphasis had always been given to the training of native clergy and the development of the native church. One of the most important of the training colleges was that at Ningpo, founded by J C Hoare in 1875.

Unlike other countries, however, in which the British ruled, the authorities in mainland China usually opposed mission school education. Although schools were founded at most major mission stations (notably at Foochow, where Robert Stewart succeeded in establishing a college and boarding school) it was medical work that proved the most important instrument of evangelism.

William Welton, the first CMS doctor to go to China, began work in Foochow City in 1850. He was followed by Dr B Van Someren Taylor who started an itinerant mission, helped by medical catechists whom he had trained.

By the 1880s China had the largest group of dispensary hospitals in any one country in which CMS worked. Outstanding work was being done amongst opium addicts (begun in 1866 at Ningpo) and leprosy patients (notably at Pakhoi, from 1890, and Hangchow from 1892).

There were a very large number of missionary societies at work in China and co-operation and discussion were a particular feature, lacking in other areas of CMS work. The Society in particular learned much from Hudson Taylor’s successes in Western China where he worked for the China Inland Mission. In 1890 a conference of missionary societies meeting at Shanghai called for 1000 new missionaries in the ensuing five years and of these a modest 44 came through CMS. Nevertheless by 1899 CMS had 196 missionaries assigned to China and, although Anglicans were a tiny minority of the Chinese Christian community there was scarcely a province to which the Gospel had not penetrated and congregations of believers were scattered throughout the length and breadth of the country.

By 1910 eleven Anglican dioceses had been formed. CMS worked on its own in three – Fukien (1906), Chekiang (1909) and Kwangsi and Hunan (1909), and in partnership with an Anglican section of the China Inland Mission in Western China (1895) and the diocese of Victoria Hong Kong. In 1912 the dioceses united to form the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui (Holy Catholic Church of China) which in 1930 became a fully constituted province of the Anglican communion.

As CMS work developed the work was gradually separated into five missions. First the work was divided in 1885 between South China and Mid-China (from 1912 called Chekiang). In 1897 Western China was separated from Mid-China; in 1900 Fukien was split from South China; finally in 1911 the work in Kwangsi and Hunan was made independent of South China.

SOUTH CHINA

Work had begun in Hong Kong in 1862 and although it was a natural centre for the mission the main work was concentrated on the mainland. In 1886 Dr Horder opened a hospital in Pakhoi and medical work spread to Limchow in 1902 where a dispensary was established and to Yunnan (later called Kunming) in 1913, where Dr Gordon Thompson was head of the hospital from 1915. Canton was declared a mission station in 1898. Its two outstanding institutions were Holy Trinity College begun in 1908 as a boys' school and until 1914 also a training college for pastors; and St Hilda's school for girls, opened in 1916 under Gertrude Bendelack's leadership. Both schools survived until the Japanese invasion of Canton in 1938.

The greatest concentration of schools, however, was in Hong Kong. St Paul's College founded in 1850 became a boarding-school in 1914 and was still flourishing in the 1970s. St Stephen's College was founded by E Judd Barnett, an outstanding pioneer missionary who was its first warden from 1903. Barnett, who was skilled in organisation and fundraising was also instrumental in the setting up of St. Stephen's Girls' College in 1907 and he played a large part in the founding of Hong Kong University.

As the South China mission was the longest-established CMS mission in China it was not surprising that it achieved more nearly than the other missions including the gradual transfer of power from mission to church which was a hallmark of CMS activity in the 1920s and 1930s. A Chinese Church Body had been formed in Hong Kong in 1902 and in 1913 the diocese was formally set up with a constitution and synod. By 1929 the diocesan board of missions had authority over foreign missionaries.

The diocese was led by a succession of men very closely connected with CMS and quite clear that mission was their primary task. R O Hall who was Bishop of Hong Kong from 1932 to 1966 was a remarkable and far-sighted man deeply committed to building up a vigorous Chinese church. He was ahead of his time in ordaining worker-priests (the first in 1938) and in 1944 he ordained Deaconess Florence Lee Tim-oi to the priesthood to serve the Anglican congregation in Macao, who were isolated by the Japanese occupation of south China.

CHEKIANG

CMS work in Chekiang had begun in Shanghai in 1845 and Ningpo in1848 and then spread to Hangchow in 1865. Ningpo and Hangchow remained the centres from which further stations developed:- Shaohing in 1870 to the west and Taichow in 1892 to the south of Ningpo; the Chuki district in 1892 to the south and Tunglu in 1913 to the southwest of Hangchow.

Chekiang province was assigned to the southern part of the diocese of North China until 1880 when it was divided and G E Moule, the first CMS missionary in Hangchow, became Bishop of Mid-China. There was overlapping jurisdiction with the missionary bishop in Shanghai, who was from the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA. When Bishop Moule retired in 1908 the American bishops recognised Chekiang province as an "English" episcopal area and H J Molony was appointed as bishop in Chekiang. The CMS mission, however, continued to be responsible for work in Shanghai, where it had its headquarters office for all its work in China. As with other missions the transfer of authority from mission to diocese which began in 1910 was delayed by the disturbed state of the country in the 1920s so that it was not until 1937 with the outbreak of war with Japan that real authority was given to the Chinese clergy.

The nub of educational work in Chekiang was Trinity College Ningpo, where W S Moule was principal for twenty seven years. It had a lower elementary practice school as well as a teacher- training class and a divinity class for catechists and pastors. For several decades it provided a steady supply of teachers, catechists and clergy, though by 1923 it was changing to become a source of general education on Christian lines. Apart from the college the main secondary schools were boys schools at Shanghai (where W H A Moule was principal 1890-1924) and Shaohing which opened 1906 with P J King as principal; and two girls schools, St Catherine's Ningpo which opened 1869 with Miss Matilda Laurence as headmistress and the Mary Vaughan High School, Hangchow. All the schools closed in 1927 but were open again by the end of 1928 and survived into the 1930s.

The hospital at Hangchow was the pivot for medical work in Chekiang and the other hospitals at Ningpo and Taichow depended on it for staff and expertise. James Galt started medical work in Hangchow in 1871 but the outstanding name connected with the hospital is that of Dr Duncan Main who developed it from the time of his arrival in 1882. When he retired in 1926 it was dealing with 3,000 inpatients and 60,000 outpatients a year with over 1,000 major operations annually. It also included a fine medical school, whose development had been Main's chief interest from 1908 when CMS had first discussed the idea of medical training. The school was given provisional registration by the China Medical Association in 1926. The hospital was commandeered by the Japanese in 1937.

WESTERN CHINA

The Western China mission began in 1891 when J H Horsburgh led a pioneer party to Chungking in the province of Szechwan. By 1894 work had started in Mienchow, Chungpa, Anhsien, Mienchu and Sintu. All missionaries wore Chinese dress and their hallmark was direct personal evangelism. The province was isolated, the missionaries scattered and the persistent disturbed state of the countryside with war, banditry and general unrest made the work difficult and dangerous.

The diocese of Western China was formed in 1895 and the CMS work was in the west of the region, the eastern part being worked by the China Inland Mission. Bishop W W Cassels was working on a draft constitution for the diocese in 1910 but the reluctance at CMS headquarters to encourage rapid constitution making when there were no Chinese clergy in the CMS area and also the delicate relationship with CIM areas where church membership was considerably in advance of CMS made progress slow. Only the evacuation of all the missionaries in 1927 forced the pace. In 1929 C T Song and H L Ku were consecrated assistant bishops but even in the 1930s the missionary conference was still more influential than the diocese.

Medical work in Western China centred on dispensaries with a hospital at Mienchu for thirty years under the charge of Dr J H Lechler. In education the missions provided primary schools in most stations and there were boarding-schools at Mienchow, but they never developed the large schools and colleges such as those in Hong Kong.

CMS also contributed to West China Union University College by appointing H G Anderson to the teaching staff (from 1938 to 1959 he was to be Medical Secretary at headquarters). The Union University had been set up by four missions from other denominations (American and Canadian) as a centre of Christian education and CMS was not connected with it until 1910 when Bishop Cassels appointed James Stewart as warden of the Anglican hostel. In 1919 CMS became a full partner, providing a series of members of staff in both the medical and arts faculties.

FUKIEN

One of the distinctive marks of Fukien province was the large number of dialects spoken by the people. Most missionaries lived upcountry with little or no contact with other foreigners and because of the language problems they did not move about much. Even the Chinese church workers were limited in this respect.

The first work in the area began at Foochow in 1850 but in the 1880s it spread to Funing, Kutien, Lienkong and Loyuan and in the 1890s stations opened at Hinghwa, Kienow, Ningteh and Futsing. The development of the work warranted the mission being set up as an administrative unit in 1900 and in 1906 a diocese was formed with H McC E Price, a CMS missionary in Japan, as its first bishop. He was followed by John Hind who served from 1918 to his retirement in 1940. Bishop Hind was a missionary sent out through the Dublin University Fukien Mission. This had been founded in 1885 to recruit CMS missionaries from the university and to support them financially. DUFM dealt directly with CMS London, not with the mission secretary in Fukien. Together with the CEZMS which had many women workers in the province the three societies formed a strong partnership followed by John Hind who served from 1918 to his retirement in 1940.

The process of diocesanisation was urged by Bishop Price from 1918 onwards and to some extent was spurred on by the recurring financial difficulties and retrenchment of the 1920s, but, as with other missions, progress was slow and transfer of authority was not completed until 1930. Even then the hospitals and dispensaries, which were numerous and widespread, were not accepted by the diocese, but continued under the Medical Mission Auxiliary, controlled from London. They were finally transferred in the 1940s by which time CMS had completed its gradual withdrawal of financial support.

CMS work was widespread in both education and medicine. There were hospitals with dispensaries in many places, the largest at Hinghwa begun in 1894 by Birdwood van Someren Taylor, who was principal of the Union Medical College in Foochow from its opening in 1911 until 1918. The college, a joint venture of Anglicans, American Congregationalists and Methodist Episcopalians closed in 1922. In 1937 another cooperative venture between CMS and the Methodist Episcopal Mission began at Sienyu. The Christian Union Hospital provided training for maternity nurses, who could help in the development of maternity and child welfare units, particularly in the villages.

In education Fukien mission was responsible for more schools and training institutions than any other of the CMS missions in China. As well as elementary schools in villages, boarding schools, boys and women's schools there was a divinity college at Foochow, theological classes at Hinghwa and Kienning, a teacher-training school and the Stewart Memorial College for Bible Women in Foochow.

CMS shared in a number of ecumenical projects in Foochow, including Fukien Christian University (mainly American and started in 1916), the Union Kindergarten Training School (CMS and CEZMS sharing with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the Methodist Episcopal Mission) and the Foochow Christian Women's School of Industrial Arts planned by CMS, CEZMS and the American Board and started in the early 1920s.

The Foochow Union Theological School, opened in 1912 was a joint co-operative venture in Christian higher education by six Protestant missions. The co-operation ended in part because of differences in outlook and working practices between the American missions and CMS. There was also difficulty in finding educationally well-equipped candidates for the ministry caused partly by sheer lack of training offered by the mission.

KWANGSI-HUNAN

The first bishop of Kwangsi-Hunan, William Banister, was consecrated in 1909. CMS had work in Kweilin from 1899 and in Yungchow from 1903, and in 1910 with the impetus of Banister's appointment missionaries entered Hengchow. The following year CMS declared the diocese an individual mission with its own secretary and conference, though it was the smallest of the CMS China missions, having only 18 missionaries. Its only large institution was the hospital at Kweilin, which had opened in 1910 and was in the charge of Dr Charlotte Bacon (née Bailey). Negotiations about the constitution of the diocese were begun by Bishop Banister in 1913, but the small numbers of Christians made progress slow and CMS did not agree the formal constitution until 1921. But the Church grew steadily and gradually control moved from the mission to the diocese. By 1930 it was almost complete and the 'Five Years Movement' initiated throughout the land by the National Christian Council of China gave a fresh impetus to evangelism. These years of peaceful growth and development had contrasted with the first twenty years of the century when there were continual power struggles and missionaries ran a constant risk of being captured by bandits. But in 1937 war with Japan broke out and many of the missionaries had to leave. When the republic was proclaimed in 1949 only a few returned and by 1951 they had all gone.

JAPAN

At the end of the eighteenth century Japan was closed to outside influence. No foreign Christian had been allowed to enter the country for some 200 years and Christianity was a proscribed religion, largely because of antipathy to the influence of Jesuit missionaries who had reached Japan in the sixteenth century. In the 1850s, however, the United States of America, needing additional ports for its steamer run to Hong Kong demanded and enforced a treaty, and Great Britain followed suit.

So it was that in 1859 American missionaries were able to enter Japan, though their work was still restricted and extremely difficult. It was not until 1869 that the Rev G Ensor, the first English missionary, landed at Nagasaki; and he was sent by CMS thanks to an anonymous gift of £4000 received two years earlier for the founding of a Japan mission.

Ensor could only receive enquiries privately, but some converts were made. By 1873, however, the government was pursuing a more liberal policy and CMS was able to place missionaries in five of the treaty ports. Osaka (occupied 1873), Tokyo (1874) and Hakodate (1874) remained the centres of CMS work until the end of the century; while from 1879 the work of Rev John Batchelor amongst the Ainu on the island of Yezu was outstanding. Mission work spread through education and translation work as well as by the direct evangelism of the preaching chapels. The main educational centre was Osaka, where the most famous of the CMS girls' schools, later called Bishop Poole Memorial School, was opened in 1879 though its real development began with the arrival of Miss Katherine Tristram in 1888, who was to be its principal until 1925. The comparable school for boys, Momoyama Middle School, was not founded until 1890.

In 1883 the Japan bishopric was established with Rev A W Poole, a CMS man, as first bishop, and the following year a divinity college for the training of Japanese clergy was set up in Osaka. In 1887 again in Osaka delegates of the Japanese Christians met and formed themselves into the Japan Holy Catholic Church, the Nippon Sei Ko Kai. At the time there were only about 1300 Christians but Edward Bickersteth, then bishop of Japan, was passionately concerned that the small Anglican congregations should be effectively cared for. Before his death in 1897 he and the bishop of the American Episcopal Church saw six dioceses formed.

From then on the missionaries were gradually integrated into the structure of the NSKK, which itself became a province of the Anglican Communion in 1930. Missionary institutions, such as the schools, remained independent, except for the Central Theological College at Tokyo, begun in 1910 and officially opened in 1914. CMS London was already in 1921 suggesting withdrawal from Japan and transfer of its mission property to the NSKK and although this did not immediately take place the very proposal stimulated the movement to a self-supporting church. The number of European missionaries was significantly reduced, partly because some found the new conditions difficult to adjust to. There were many single women missionaries, however, as they had greater freedom than clergy to find new patterns of evangelism, because they were outside any Japanese official or social pattern.

There had been specialised work among soldiers from 1894 onwards and also among the Chinese students in Japan, though this came to an end in 1928 as a result of the wars in China.

There was a lack of progress in rural evangelism in the 1930s, but newspaper evangelism proved effective under the leadership of Rev Murray Walton and Rev M S Murao until radio replaced newspapers.

THE LOOCHOO MISSION

The Loochoo Naval Mission was begun in February 1843 by a small group of naval officers, who wished to send a missionary to the Loochoo Islands (Ryukyu Islands), aiming thereby to reach Japan. When their application to CMS was refused the officers set up an independent fund and sent out Dr Bernard Jean Bettelheim, who was succeeded by Rev G H Moreton. When Moreton's health failed the mission came to an end. In 1861 the balance of the funds was given to CMS as a basis of support for evangelistic work in Japan, when that should be possible. CMS began work in Japan in 1869.

The very small archive comprises the secretaries' papers and correspondence as well as the lengthy journals of Bettelheim and Moreton. The archive is enlivened by the naval connection, not only by the briskness of some of the comments from the secretaries, but by the inclusion of such odd items as the 1842 designs and plans for “gangway annular scupper mouths” for use in frigates and the description of riots at Dingle, Co Kerry, Ireland c1850.

<back