Pip’s Patch

Mary Ann Aldersey – with her “warm, aggressive spirit” as one missionary described it – had achieved impressive results. Many women in Britain were inspired by her letters which were published in the  Female Missionary Intelligencer, the newsletter of  the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East (SPFEE). Asan and Agnes Gutzlaff were two of the young Chinese women who featured in her letters:

By the time that Miss Aldersey arranged Asan’s marriage the young woman had come to terms with being the “adopted” daughter of a foreigner. For many years she had thoroughly resented having to conform to English customs, such as allowing her feet to grow to their natural size. Asan was constantly insulted by the Chinese for having big feet like a working girl. In Ningbo at that time all girls in wealthier families had their feet broken and bound when they were two- or three-years-old in order to create “three-inch golden lilies”. This custom had continued in China for over 1,000 years. To produce such “beautiful” feet a girl’s mother would bend all the toes except the big one under the sole of the foot. The arch of the foot would then be crushed by binding a large stone on top of it. The mother would endure her daughter’s screams because she knew how ashamed the girl would be years later if she was rejected on her wedding day by her mother-in-law for having feet longer than four inches.

For years Asan had been aloof and rebellious, meeting all attempts to convert her to Christianity with determined indifference. Miss Aldersey wrote: “Although she had a very superior mind, and could read Chinese and English well, she sometimes asked ‘What is the use of adding to our stock of knowledge?’” But then in 1851 Asan was converted and changed considerably. Miss Aldersey described her as a clever girl with great powers of managing the school children, even if there was no teacher there.

Zia-Leang-Sang had helped at Miss Aldersey’s school since its infancy and became an evangelist after he was converted. Not wanting her work to be confined to Ningbo or just to girls Miss Aldersey had sent him to a place known to her as  Tsong-gziao, five miles from the port and in a district where the Rev William Russell had established a Church Missionary Society out-station.  Soon people were walking miles to listen to Zia and the American Presbyterians sent two of their church members to help him. After they were married Asan set up a small school to complement her husband’s work.

Miss Aldersey handed over her own school to the American Presbyterians because she wanted to be free to do more missionary work. The SPFEE noted that she would continue her superintendence of Chinese evangelists in the villages around Ningbo and the establishment of schools like that run by Asan. It sent a grant in 1860 towards the cost of running five of these schools and Miss Aldersey’s support of Agnes Gutzlaff. Miss Aldersey had taken in Agnes as a member of her own family in June 1856 when the blind Chinese girl arrived in Ningbo.

Agnes was the only one of the seven blind girls sent to the West for education by Mrs Mary Gutzlaff who did return to China. Agnes was one of the four young girls who arrived at the school of the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read in the early 1840s. After 13 years at the Society’s school she was recruited, in 1855,  by the Chinese Evangelisation Society (CES) to work among blind women in Xiamen (Amoy).

CES could boast that it was the first agency to send a blind person as a missionary to another country. It was also almost certainly the first to send a single Chinese woman. Sadly it was not capable of doing it properly.

One of the CES missionaries in China, James Hudson Taylor, was horrified when she arrived in Shanghai accompanied by John and Mary Jones. Like himself, the Joneses had not been given sufficient money by the CES to provide for themselves on arrival in China. In Hong Kong the whole family had become ill and the eldest boy had died of dysentery. Mary had also given birth. But for the help of other missionaries the family would have been destitute. Agnes had been sent out with the promise of just £10 a year towards her support. Hudson Taylor wrote home: “How very wrong it is, to take a poor blind beggar girl, bring her up in the best style, & then leave her with a less sum than will  pay for her food, for she cannot now live as a Chinese.” He added that she could play the piano but  knew nothing of Chinese.  When Agnes arrived in Ningbo in June 1856  she did find a safe haven thanks to Miss Aldersey.

When she retired from her school Miss Aldersey  moved her “household” to the home of the Russells (she had been Mary Russell’s guardian for many years).  The Russells must have had quite a large home for Miss Aldersey’s household included her three elderly Christian servants,  two mums with their children whom she was sheltering, San Avong, Agnes, and three blind girls who were being instructed by Agnes. Miss Aldersey went on to create a small school of industry for the blind with Agnes as the teacher. Agnes would also accompany Miss Aldersey on her trips to the district where Zia and Asan were working.

Miss Aldersey loved working with Agnes – but the way the blind girl had arrived at Ningbo would not have endeared her to the CES. She was even more shocked when Hudson Taylor decided that the only way he could successfully travel inland in China was to be dressed like the Chinese. This was an issue that would continue to divide the missionary community. Miss Aldersey who felt very strongly that they had to maintain their standards and be dressed properly – like Westerners. She and Mary Russell ran very proper British households! There was no way that Miss Aldersey would consider someone so improperly dressed as Hudson Taylor to be a suitable suitor for one of her girls. And to her the teenage daughters of Maria Dyer Bausum were under her guardianship.

Sources: Female Missionary Intelligencer of the SPFEE;  the records of the SPFEE; and M Miles Blind & Sighted Pioneer Teachers in 19th century China and India (part 3), 2001