West China Mission Personnel Trends, 1916/17 - 1940/41
Item
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Title
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West China Mission Personnel Trends, 1916/17 - 1940/41
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Identifier
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DS0018
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Description
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Bar charts comparing the total numbers of Canadian and American missionaries in Sichuan through the decades, one tracking the total numbers and the other comparing by gender.
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Commentary
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These bar charts represent the total number of missionaries in West China from the Canadian Methodist Mission (1892-1925)/United Church of Canada Mission (1926-1951), the American Baptist Mission (1890-1951) and the American Methodist Episcopal Mission (1882-1949). The intervals are represented in decades, apart from the 1940s for which no data is available for 1946.
The most important interval is that between 1926 and 1936 because in 1927 almost all missionaries were evacuated from West China, and after 1928, missionaries were no longer protected by extraterritorial rights, such as military escorts and exemption from land taxes. They were also required to register their schools and follow the new government regulations for curriculum, including having all Chinese leaders and not mandating religious education.
When viewing the whole numbers, rather than the percentages represented in “Percentage of Canadian versus American Missionaries in West China, 1916-1941,” we can see that 1926, before the Nationalist Revolution, was the peek moment for all these missions. Between 1916/17 and 1926, the Canadian and American Baptist missions acquired 21 and 20 more missionaries, respectively, while the American Methodist Episcopal mission acquired 26 missionaries. When we look at the comparison by gender, it is apparent that almost all those gains were the addition of female missionaries to the field. The number of Canadian men remains almost identical, while the American Baptist and Methodists gained only 4 men each. In the case of the American Methodists, a sizable proportion of these women were at two stations in smaller towns where only one or two couples were stationed with them. The thinking was that rural women needed more attention than urban ones.
All these missions lost numbers in their ranks between 1926 and 1936 after the Nationalist Revolution and consequent “Exodus” of missionaries out of the field in 1927. The American Baptist totals returned to their 1917 numbers (42 total versus 44), although widening the gap between numbers of men and women. Both Canadian and American Methodist Episcopal missions lost significant numbers, 69 for the former and 73 for the latter, which brought their totals well below their 1916/1917 numbers. For the Canadians, this likely represents a cohort of early missionaries retiring after the 1927 Exodus. In contrast, the Americans closed the two stations they had in smaller towns, probably because most of the women were performing primary education tasks that were no longer viable when the Guomingdang forbade Christian education at that level. Canadian women were working collaboratively with villagers on several rural reconstruction projects that had no such restrictions.
In 1940/1941, the Canadian mission maintained almost the same number, while the American Baptist mission continued to shrink, but only slightly. The American Methodist Episcopal mission gained back a few missionaries, all women.
In addition to differences in these missionaries’ activities in the field, these trends may be explained in part by the different relationships between the missionaries’ home countries and China. The US increasingly supported the Guomindang military in their civil war against the communists and, after 1937, their fight against the Japanese invasion. Additionally, after the Great Depression, the US became much more involved in humanitarian initiatives at home, while Canada, as part of the British colonial empire, continued strong support for international causes.
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Creator
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Cory Willmott
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Date Created
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2026-05-05
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Location
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Sichuan
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Provenance
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Original research.
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Publisher
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SIUE
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Record Date
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2026-05-13
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Contributor
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Cory Willmott
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Type
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Dataset
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References
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American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. One-Hundred-Second Annual Report American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, 1916. Foreign Mission Rooms, Boston, MA
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Boynton, Charles L. ed. Directory of Protestant Missions in China, 1917 (The China Continuation Committee). Christian Literature Society Depot, 1917.
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The West China Missions Advisory Board’s Directory 1926, According to Missions
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American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. One-Hundred-Twelfth Annual Report American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, 1926. Foreign Mission Rooms, Boston, MA
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Directory of Protestant Missions in China, 1936. Shanghai: The North China Daily News.
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American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. One-Hundred-Twenty-Second Annual Report American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, 1936. Foreign Mission Rooms, Boston, MA
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Directory of Protestant Missions in China, 1940. Shanghai: The North China Daily News.
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American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. Along Kingdom’s Highways: One-Hundred-Twenty-Seventh Annual Report of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, 1941
Percentage of Canadian versus American Missionaries in West China, 1916/17 - 1940/41