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Hudson Taylor

1807 

Englishman Robert Morrison, first Protestant missionary to China at Canton

1830 

Elijah Coleman Bridgman, first American missionary to China, arrives at Canton

1832 

May 21: Hudson Taylor born

1840’s 

Karl Gützlaff works in China

1843–1860 

American and British Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Episcopalians send missionaries to China treaty ports

1850 

Taylor declares China hopes

1853 

September: Taylor departs for China

1854 

March: Taylor lands at Shanghai; December: first inland journey

1857 

Taylor proposes to Maria Dyer; resigns from Chinese Evangelization Society; Ningpo mission started

1858 

Taylor and Maria marry

1861 

An exhausted Taylor and his family depart for rest in England

1862 

Taylor qualifies as midwife

1865 

Taylor resolves to lead China Inland Mission (cim); writes China: Its Spiritual Need and Claims

1866 

Lammermuir sails with Taylor, his family, and 16 cim missionaries

1868 

Lewis Nicol dismissed from CIM; anti-foreign riot in Yangchow injures several missionaries

1869 

House of Lords debates value of missions to China

1870 

Maria Taylor dies

1871 

Taylor marries Jennie Faulding

1875 

Taylor appeals for 18 pioneers to go to nine interior provinces; April: recovers from paralysis; July: China’s Millions Vol. 1, No. 1, published

1876–1880 

18 CIM missionaries penetrate nine interior provinces

1885 

“Cambridge Seven” depart for China

1886 

Taylor appeals for 100 new missionaries

1887 

CIM committees in London and China clash over control of the mission; 100 new missionaries accepted

1900 

Boxer Rebellion—58 cim missionaries and 21 children among those murdered; Taylor in Switzerland recuperating from illness

1903 

D. E. Hoste appointed general director of cim upon Taylor’s retirement

1904 

Jennie Faulding dies

1905 

Hudson Taylor dies; abolition of old examination system opens way for mission schools

1910 

World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh

1926–27 

Nearly all 8,000 Protestant missionaries flee during chaos of Northern Expedition

1934 

CIM missionaries John and Betty Stam executed

1941–1946 

Most missionaries interred or evacuated but return to China after WWII

1951–52 

Wholesale evacuation of missionaries; last of CIM leaves July 20, 1953

Other China Events

1839–42 

First Opium War ends with Treaty of Nanking: five treaty ports open to foreigners; Hong Kong ceded to British

1851–1864 

Taiping Rebellion

1858–1860 

Tientsin and Peking treaties end Opium Wars: more rights granted to foreigners, including right to travel anywhere inland

1877–78 

Worst of the great Shantung-Shansi famine

1883–85 

War with France over Annam (Vietnam)

1894–95 

Sino-Japanese War: China loses Taiwan to Japan and Korea to independence

1897–98 

Various provinces ceded to Britain, France, Germany, and Russia

1898 

Failure of radical reform

1900 

Boxer Rebellion

1911–1912 

Revolution; Republic of China established; Kuomintang Party (KMT) inaugurated

1919 

May 4th Student Movement

1921 

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) founded

1926–1927 

Chiang Kai-shek launches Northern Expedition to unite China under KMT, and purges CCP from its ranks

1934 

Long March: CCP forces under Mao Tse-tung retreat from KMT

1937 

Open war with Japan begins; KMT and CCP fight Japan together

1946 

KMT and CCP resume civil war

1949 

October: People’s Democratic Republic of China declared

By the Editors

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