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Collection title: Papers of George William Clarke (Scotland, China: 1875-1969)
Description: George William Clarke (1849-1919), China Inland Mission missionary to China, was born on May 30 1849 in Shoreditch, East London. One of five children he began working full-time in a factory when he was nine years old. In his teens he attended a night school run by Annie Macpherson, the promoter of child migration to Canada. When he was twenty-three he took charge of the first party of Macpherson boys being sent to Canada. In 1879, in Shanghai, he married Fanny Rossier (also referred to as Marta), a Swiss missionary. In 1886 he married Agnes Lancaster, who had gone to China in 1880 and had worked in T’ai-yuen in the province of Shansi. They had a son (John) but Agnes Clarke died in 1892 after giving birth to a daughter (also Agnes). Clarke died in Shantung province in 1919. Agnes, was a CIM missionary for forty-six years and worked in east Szechwan before retiring to the CIM home for retired members in Kent. The collection consists of a pamphlet by Agnes Clarke about her father (1962); three volumes of diaries written by George Clarke (1879-1883); a book on Kweichow and Yunnan provinces by George Clarke (1894); cuttings from China’s Millions about the Clarke family (1875-1941); and four photographs of the family and one of a Chinese river (circa 1880-1890).
Archive address: New College, the University of Edinburgh, Mound Pl, Edinburgh EH1 2LU
Reference number: CSWC 15
Links: The catalogue is available from the New College Library Special Collections Repository.
Publications: The archives of the China Inland Mission are held at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Several of the histories of the Mission or biographies of Hudson Taylor mention the Clarke family, particularly the pioneering work of George and his wife Fanny: see, for example Story of the China Inland Mission by Geraldine Guinness (London, 1893). Agnes Clarke mentions ‘an ancient Chinese classic’ translated by Clarke which she donated to the British Museum. She also donated a copy of her book China’s man of the book : the story of William Chalmers Burns (London, 1968) to the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World. Agnes Clarke used her father’s diaries to write The Boy From Shoreditch. London: CIM, 1962. The biographical history was compiled using the following material: (1) the collection itself; (2) Guinness, Geraldine. Story of the China Inland Mission. London, 1893.
Contributor: Marie Ruiz