James Hudson Taylor Gets a Chinese Blue Plaque From the Good Folk of Barnsley

The tradition of erecting English Heritage Blue Plaques on buildings in the UK where famous folk resided is well established. I’ve mentioned a few London plaques on this blog before that have China connections – for instance, the poet and lecturer William Empsom who spent a long time in Peking recently had a plaque unveiled to him on Marchmont Street in Bloomsbury. There are several other China-related Blue Plaques around London – for instance in 2003 a Blue Plaque was unveiled in honour of Lao She at 31 St James’s Gardens in London, where Lao She lived between 1925 and 1928. It is the only blue plaque in London to feature Chinese characters and, significantly, it is the only one to commemorate a Chinese writer.

But now there is a blue plaque with Chinese writing on display up north…in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. the Gospel Herald (some sort of Christian newspaper – it popped up on Google, obviously I’m not a believer or anything daft like that) reports that a plaque has been unveiled on Barnsley’s Cheapside to James Hudson Taylor.  It was unveiled by the Mayor of Barnsley, Cllr. Dorothy Higginbottom (honestly, you couldn’t make up a better Yorkshire name!!) and the Rev. Dr. Lai Pong from the Chinese Christian Community in Leeds. Well done to the local Barnsley Civic Trust and some local businesses who funded it as it is interesting and he is best known for founding the China Inland Mission.

Now who, you may well ask, was James Hudson Taylor (apart form the founder of the CIM)? Well, he was a rather important figure in the history of Christian missionaries to China(not a group who feature often on the pages of China Rhyming admittedly). A brief official bio as follows – “James Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) was an English missionary to China. At the age of 21, Taylor left his homeland to China and started his works near Shanghai, where he then established a church. He founded the China Inland Mission, one of the largest and Christian movements in the world. Taylor spent 51 years in China. The society that he began was responsible for bringing over 800 missionaries to the country who began 125 schools and directly resulted in 18,000 Christian conversions, as well as the establishment of more than 300 stations of work with more than 500 local helpers in all eighteen provinces.” Wikipedia has more on him here.

It seems Hudson Taylor had some adventures including nearly being killed in Shanghai and Yangzhou though ultimately whether he was more or less of an annoying and interfering God Botherer than any other missionary I don’t really know. I’m afraid my experience of missionaries is that they are all a pious and sanctimonious pain in the arse wandering around with their Big Book of Fairy Stories praying on weaker minds with their nonsensical superstition – but, hey, if it’s your thing! Anyway, below is a drawing of him almost being killed in Shanghai.