Christian History Timeline: Hudson Taylor and Missions to China

• 
• 
• 
• 

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

Show more