CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ARCHIVE
Section I: East Asia Missions

Part 10: China Mission, 1834-1914

Parts 10-21 of Section I deal with CMS missions in China.

“The CMS Archive is one of the richest available sources for scholars concerned with the role of religion in the interaction between the Western and non-Western worlds in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”
Dr Brian Stanley, Director of the Henry Martyn Centre for the study of mission and world Christianity, Cambridge.

• Part 10 contains the papers of the China Mission covering the years 1834-1914.  It comprises Individual Letter Books for 1852-1914, Letter Books for 1834-1897, Mission Books for 1834-1880, a Précis Book for 1881-1888 and Original Papers for 1835-1884.
• There is good material on the expansion of the Fukien and Chekiang missions.
• There are instructions to missionaries on travelling out to China and on their work there, documents on the Opium trade, papers on the Shanghai English School, plans for the future of Ningpo College, details on medical students in Hokning, and reports on the anti-foreign disturbances in China in 1892 and the Hwa-sang Massacre in 1895.
• Other important documents include the papers regarding the Shanghai Conference of Protestant Missionaries, 1877.
• The main body of material in Part 10 is the sequence of Original Papers (O 15-93) which consists of the letters and papers of individual missionaries, arranged alphabetically beginning with Rev Charles Atkinson and ending with Rev Yiu-Kwong Wong.  These letters and papers are full of fascinating information on all manner of topics.
• Part 10 has important early records for the different missions throughout China.