Mary Ann Aldersey

Mary Ann Aldersey (simplified Chinese: 艾迪绥; traditional Chinese: 艾迪綏, 24 June 1797 – 1868) was the first Christian missionary woman (married or single) to serve in China proper (excluding Macau & Hong Kong, where Henrietta Shuck had been working earlier). She founded a school for girls in Ningbo, Zhejiang. Her pioneering the field of mission work for single women in China was the most remarkable outcome of her life.

Biography[edit]

Early life[edit]

Mary Ann Aldersey was born on June 27, 1797, in the Hackney London, England.^[1] Aldersey was a native of London from a wealthy nonconformist family. Aldersey’s father, Joseph, was considered a social leader amongst the small episcopal congregation of Dr. John Pye Smith. Aldersey joined the congregation as a member at the age of twenty-one and worked as the financial secretary of the Ladies’ Bible Association. When Aldersey’s mother, Elizabeth, died in 1822, Aldersey was required to fulfill twice her usual domestic duties.

In 1824, Robert Morrison moved to East London and taught English women who were interested in missionary work (usually as partners to their husbands)^[2] to speak and read Chinese.^[3]

She studied Chinese under Robert Morrison in London when he was on home leave from 1824 to 1826. Also in attendance were Samuel Dyer and his wife Maria Tarn. The friendship that she forged with Maria eventually led to her inviting their orphaned teenage daughters to work with her in China. In London, Aldersey was still attached to family ties, but she made gifts to the London Missionary Society that enabled Maria Newell to go to Malacca (1827), where Newell met and married pioneer missionary Karl Gützlaff.

In 1837, she herself was able to go to Surabaya, where she started a school for Chinese girls. When the treaty ports in China were opened (1843), she moved to Ningbo, where she opened a school for girls assisted by three teenagers: Mary Ann Leisk, Ruth Ati, and Christiana A-Kit. Ruth Ati and Christiana were from Surabaya. Never an agent of any missionary society, Aldersey did maintain close links with the London Missionary Society. In 1848, William Armstrong Russell and Robert Henry Cobbold arrived from England. Several of her teaching staff were Chinese-speaking daughters of missionaries; at least four became missionary wives, including Burella Hunter Dyer, who married John Shaw Burdon, and Maria Jane Dyer, who married James Hudson Taylor in 1857 (against Aldersey's wishes). Another protegee, Mary Ann Leisk, became the wife of William Armstrong Russell, who was later a bishop in north China.

In 1861, Aldersey handed her school over to the Church Missionary Society and retired to Australia, where she lived until her death. She retired to McLaren Vale, South Australia in 1861 and built a house (Tsong Gyiaou) named after a former preaching station. The name is an anglicised form of 'San Ch'iao' (pronounced 'Song Jow'). It is now part of the Southern Districts War Memorial Hospital.

References[edit]

^ E. Aldersey White (1932). A Woman Pioneer in China: The Life of Mary Ann Aldersey. Livingstone Press.
^ J.T. Gracey (1898). Eminent Missionary Women. p. 88.
^ E. Aldersey White (1932). A Woman Pioneer in China: The Life of Mary Ann Aldersey. Livingstone Press.

Bibliography[edit]

E. Aldersey White (1932) A Woman Pioneer in China. The life of Mary Ann Aldersey, London, Livingstone Press
History of the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East, Edward Suter, London 1847
Missions to the Women of China, E J Whately, James Nisbet & Co, London, 1866
Joyce Reason, The Witch of Ningpo (Eagle Books, No. 30.) London: Edinburgh House Press, 1940
The Story of the China Inland Mission Volume I; Mary Geraldine Guinness, Morgan & Scott, 1894
Hudson Taylor & The China Inland Mission Volume One: In Early Years; The Growth of a Soul; Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, China Inland Mission, London, 1911
Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret; Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, China Inland Mission, London, 1932 (republished in 2007)
Hudson & Maria; Pioneers In China; John Pollock, 1964
Hudson Taylor & China's Open Century Volume One: Barbarians at the Gates; Alfred James Broomhall; Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1982
Hudson Taylor & China's Open Century Volume Two: Over the Treaty Wall; Alfred James Broomhall; Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1982
Hudson Taylor & China's Open Century Volume Three: If I Had a Thousand Lives; Alfred James Broomhall; Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1982
From Jerusalem to Iriyan Jaya; Dr. Ruth Tucker, Zondervan
Hudson Taylor: A Man In Christ; Roger Steer, Paternoster, 1990
It Is Not Death to Die; Jim Cromarty, Christian Focus, 2001
Christ Alone - A Pictorial Presentation of Hudson Taylor's Life and Legacy; OMF International, 2005
Griffiths, Valerie, Not Less Than Everything, Monarch Books & OMF International, Oxford, 2004

External links[edit]

[1] E. Aldersey White (1932). A Woman Pioneer in China: The Life of Mary Ann Aldersey. Livingstone Press.

[2] J.T. Gracey (1898). Eminent Missionary Women. p. 88.

[3] E. Aldersey White (1932). A Woman Pioneer in China: The Life of Mary Ann Aldersey. Livingstone Press.

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v t e Protestant missions to China
Background	Protestantism in China Protestantism in Sichuan Chinese history Missions timeline Christianity in China Nestorians Jesuits Protestant missions in China 1807–1953
People	David Howard Adeney Mary Ann Aldersey Roland Allen Thomas J. Arnold Gladys Aylward Joseph Beech John Birch William Jones Boone Pearl S. Buck John Burdon Thomas Cochrane Hunter Corbett Jonathan Goforth Frederick Graves Karl Gützlaff Francis Hanson Laura Askew Haygood Elizabeth G. K. Hewat Jennie V. Hughes Robert A. Jaffray Carl C. Jeremiassen Griffith John Walter Judd James Legge Eric Liddell Robert Samuel Maclay Lottie Moon Robert Morrison George Moule Gideon Nye David Paton Karl Ludvig Reichelt Timothy Richard Issachar Jacox Roberts Charles Scott Cambridge Seven George Smith Vincent John Stanton John and Betty Stam John Leighton Stuart Elwood Gardner Tewksbury Hudson Taylor Thomas Torrance William C. White (more missionaries)
Missionary agencies	American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions American Methodist Episcopal Mission Canadian Methodist Mission China Inland Mission Church Mission Society London Missionary Society National Christian Council US Presbyterian Mission Protestant Episcopal Church Mission List of Protestant missionary societies in China (1807–1953)
Colleges and universities	United Board University of Shanghai Cheeloo University Ginling College University of Nanking Soochow University Yenching University St. John's University Hangchow University Fukien Christian University Lingnan University College of Yale-in-China Huachung University West China Union University Peking Union Medical College Methodist Episcopal Church Hwa Nan College English Presbyterian Mission Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association Reformed Church in the United States
Impact	Bible translations into Chinese Medical missions in China Manchurian revival Chinese Christian colleges Chinese hymnody Chinese Roman Type Minnan Roman Type Foochow Roman Type Anti-footbinding Anti-opium
Pivotal events	Taiping Rebellion First Opium War Second Opium War Unequal treaty Yangzhou riot Tianjin Massacre Kucheng Massacre Boxer Crisis 1911 Revolution Chinese Civil War Second Sino-Japanese War People's Republic
Publications	The Chinese Repository Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal The Christian Occupation of China Journal of the West China Border Research Society The West China Missionary News

Authority control databases
International	ISNI VIAF
National	United States
Other	SNAC