CHINA THROUGH WESTERN EYES
Manuscript Records of Traders, Travellers, Missionaries & Diplomats, 1792-1942

Parts 4 & 5: Manuscript Diaries and Papers from the China Records Project at Yale Divinity Library

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

China Through Western Eyes makes available the original manuscripts of a wide variety of Western traders, travellers, missionaries and diplomats who visited China between the Macartney Embassy to China in 1792 and the onset of World War II some 150 years later.

Parts 1-3 were drawn from the holdings of the William R Perkins Library at Duke University. Parts 1 & 2 covered 23 individual collections of American and British figures, including first hand accounts of the Macartney (1792-1794), Amherst (1816-1817) and Elgin (1844-1864) embassies, as well as records of the Fairbank missionary family for the period 1837-1945. Part 3 was entirely devoted to the papers of J A Thomas (1862-1942), tobacco entrepreneur, philanthropist and sinologist.

Parts 4 & 5 relate mainly, but not exclusively, to missionary archives from the holdings of the China Record Project at Yale Divinity School Library. The manuscripts cover many aspects of life in China - historical, political, cultural, medical and religious - and extend into the early 1950s.

Part 4 covers over fifty individual collections describing life in China from 1871 to 1951. Containing journals, manuscripts and documents detailing not only missionary activity in China but also day-to-day living in the country these papers provide a unique insight into many aspects of life in China.

It is particularly strong in describing the relative successes of differing denominations undertaking missionary work in China in the nineteenth century, the role of medical work in establishing good working relations in China, the special problems faced by female missionaries, the Rape of Nanking (1937), life in China under Japanese rule, China under Chiang Kai-Shek and the relentless march of communism that drove most missionaries out of China between 1949 and the mid-fifties.

Some of the collections included are:

• Martin Albert’s ‘The Story of Hope Hospital, 1871-1952’;
• Karl Beck’s ‘Memoirs of Hsiang-Si Mission’, 1914-1952;
• Wesley Bissonette’s account of the siege and battle of Kutien, 1934;
• Ruth Chester’s reports on Ginling College, Nanking, and her record of Women in War-Time China;
• Ernest and Clarissa Forster’s account of the Japanese occupation of Nanking, 1937-1938;
• Kate Hinman’s diaries of life in Foochow, 1907-1933 & 1937;
• E F Knickerbocker’s autobiography, including details of the China Inland Mission in Ningpo, with diaries, 1909-1916;
• Thomas Lee’s letters from Honan, 1947-1949, and Hong Kong, 1949-1953, describing life in
• China before and after the Revolution;
• Emma Martin’s diary during the siege of Peking, 1900;
• Martha Parker’s typescript history of the Church of the Brethren Missions in China, 1932-1950; the diaries and records of Alvin Parker Pierson for the period 1879-1924;
• and Mabel Smith’s notes on missionary work in Ningpo, 1894-1936.

Part 5 focuses on a number of large collections, starting with Robert Bartlett’s accounts of Jimmy Yen and Chinese Revolutionaries and the diaries and writings of Willard and Ellen Beard, who served in Fukien province, 1895-1941.

These are followed by the splendid seventeen volume diary of Arthur Judson Brown (1856-1963) who surveyed Presbyterian missions in Asia following the Boxer Rebellion. There is also correspondence relating to other mission fields including India, Japan, Korea and the Philippines.

The fifth part is brought to a close with the records of the remarkable Campbell family, two generations of which were active as missionaries in China from 1880 to 1951. The main family members represented are George Campbell (c1860-1927), his wife Jennie (1863-1939) and their two daughters Louise (1883-1968), who was principal of the Kwong Yit Girls’ School in Kwantung Province and worked for forty years among the Hakka tribespeople, and Dorothy (1898-1972). Also covered are the records of Elsie Clark, a faculty member at Hua Nan College, Foochow, 1912-1918.

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