William Hopkyn Rees – Chinaeg A Chineaid, 1907 (in Welsh)… and Lao She

Posted: January 5th, 2025 | No Comments »

William Hopkyn Rees – Chinaeg A Chineaid (1907) is a particularly interesting missionary account of China as it is published in Welsh. Now obviously this presents some problems to non-Welsh speakers but is a curiosity for sure.

Accrdoign to the Welsh Dictionary of Biography – “Hopkyn Rees (1859-1924) was born at Cwmavon, Glamorganshire. He entered Bala Independent College, 1877, and was minister of Llechryd and Ffynnon-bedr from 1881 to 1883, when he sailed for the North China, L.M.S., mission field. He married Margaret Charlotte Harrison of Coed-poeth, and settled at Chi Chou in 1888, where he had founded a station. He weathered the difficulties of the 1900 rebellion, and was decorated with the ‘ Blue Ribbon ‘ and given rank of Mandarin for services of pacification. He was transferred to the Peking United Theological College and the Language School for Missionaries, appointed to the Board of Revisers of the Old Testament Scriptures in Mandarin, and to the Shanghai staff of the Christian Literature for China Society. In 1915 he was elected associate secretary, with Timothy Richard, and in 1916 general secretary, of the Christian Literature Society for China, and a member of the editorial board of the Chinese Recorder in 1919. He resigned in 1921 owing to ill health, and was given the chair of Chinese in the University of London. He published China a’r Chineaid, 1906, Griffith John o China, 1901, in Welsh, and Jonathan Lees of Tientsin and How to Study Chinese, 1918, both in English. He died in London 4 August 1924.”

But there is more to Hopkyns Rees – Re-reading Anne Witchard’s Lao She in London (HKUP) Witchard notes:

“It was in the summer of 1924 that Lao She received the offer of a five-year teaching appointment in London. One of the English teachers at Yenching was the Reverend Robert Kenneth Evans (1880–1925). Evans’ father-in-law was a Welsh missionary and linguist, W. Hopkyn Rees (1859–1924), who had weathered the Boxer rebellion and was now retired from the LMS to a chair of Chinese at the University of London (1921–24). Evans had been informally supervising the Gangwashi church but was home from China in December 1922 after suffering ‘a serious nervous breakdown’.

Lao She had not begun classes at Yenching until September 1923, so he could not have been taught by Evans but their paths certainly would have crossed at the church during 1922. Back in London, Evans was teaching at London University’s School of Oriental Studies. When Hopkyn Rees was looking for a candidate for an assistant lectureship in Mandarin he sought out Lao She on Evans’ recommendation. Kitted out in his Western suit and with a second-class boat ticket, paid for with a loan from the LMS, Lao She embarked from Shanghai on the SS Devanha to Harwich. He was met by Reverend Evans at London’s Cannon Street station on 14 September 1924.”

In his novel of 1920s London, Mr Ma and Son, he writes: