Timothy Richard

Timothy Richard was a Baptist missionary to China who influenced the rise of the Chinese Republic.

Richard was born on 10 October 1845, into a devout Baptist farming family in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Inspired by the Second Evangelical Awakening to become a missionary, Richard left teaching to enter Haverfordwest Theological College in 1865. There he dedicated himself to China. He applied to the newly-formed China Inland Mission, but Hudson Taylor considered that he would be of better service to the denominational Baptist missions. In 1869 the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) accepted Richard's application and assigned him to Yantai (Chefoo), Shandong Province.

In 1897, en-route to Europe, Richard undertook a journey to India to discover the conditions of the Christian Mission there. Travelling with an able and earnest young missionary, Rev Arthur Shorrock, they visited Sri Lanka, Madras, Agra, Benares, Delhi, Kolkata and finally Mumbay.Richard, Timothy, [http://www.archive.org/details/fourtyfiveyears00richuoft "Forty-five Years in China: Reminiscences"] publ. Frederick A Stokes (1916)]

Rev. Richard was a contributor to the the monthly "Wan Guo Gong Bao", or "Review of the Times", which Young John Allen founded and edited from 1868-1907. This paper was "said...to have done more for reform than any other single agency in China." The "Review" attracted a wide and influential Chinese readership throughout its thirty-nine year run. One of the ways in which the Review appealed to a broad, scholarly audience was through its discussion of current events and economics. During the First Sino-Japanese War period of 1894-1895, essay titles included: “International Intercourse, by a descendent of Confucius,” “How to Enrich a Nation, by Dr. Joseph Edkins,” “The Prime Benefits of Christianity, by the Rev. Timothy Richard,” and “On the Suppression of Doubt and the Acceptance of Christ, by Sung Yuh-kwei.” The articles attributed practical applications to the Christian faith and portrayed Christianity as a useful concept for the Chinese, one that Allen and his contributors intended to portray on an equal level to concepts such as market economics and international law. The Qing reformer Kang Youwei once said of the publication: "I owe my conversion to reform chiefly on the writings of two missionaries, the Rev. Timothy Richard and the Rev. Dr. Young J. Allen."

References

Bibliography

* Richard, Timothy; "Forty-Five Years in China" (1916) and "Conversion by the Million in China: Being Biographies and Articles, 2 vols". (1907).
* Bohr, Paul R.; "Famine in China and the Missionary: Timothy Richard as Relief Administrator and Advocate of National Reform, 1876-1884" (1972)
* Price Evans, Edward William; [http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-RICH-TIM-1845.html Welsh Biography Online]
* Soothill, W. E.; "Timothy Richard of China" (1924)
* Stanley, Brian; "The History of the Baptist Missionary Society, 1792-1992" (1992)
* Williamson, H. R.; "British Baptists in China, 1845-1952" (1957)

Richard's papers are preserved in the BMS archives at Regent's Park College, Oxford.