Friends in China
Quaker Missionaries in Chongqing, China, ca. 1901
The full story of the links between British Quakers and China is long and complex. The Library of the Religious Society has a good deal of material - archives, personal papers, published works, photographs and artefacts which relate to this history. In this exhibition we have shown only some illustrative material from two particularly influential periods. First, the missionary work from the 1880s to the 1930s under the auspices of the Friends Foreign Mission Association and its successor the Friends Service Council - particularly in Sichuan (Szechwan) Province, where the first Chinese Yearly Meeting was founded in 1904. Second, the work of the Friends Ambulance Unit's China Convoy in the 1940s in transporting humanitarian supplies and providing much-needed medical services.
Epistle from London Yearly Meeting, 1916 Friends Ambulance Unit in China, 1942
It was during the period between the 1880s and 1940s that the links were forged that have since withstood the test of time and major political upheavals. By the early 1950s foreign workers in China came under extreme pressure from the Chinese government to withdraw, and official links between the Friends Service Council and China ceased in 1953. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Chinese Christians of all denominations suffered oppression, and there was a break in communications between mainland China and Western Christians. However, when British Friends began to return from the late 1970s onwards they found many who remembered the former ties. Since then there have been continued contacts. Sadly, the region where the Friends' Missions were first founded in the late 19th century has been devastated by the earthquake of May 2008. The Quaker China Group is raising funds to support the millions made homeless by the earthquake.
Please send donations for the earthquake victims to the treasurer of the China Group, Alison Hardie, 8 Walker's Lane, Wortley, Leeds LS124AP. Cheques should be made payable to China Group (Quakers). These will be channelled through a local Sichuan charity called DORS.
The first links between China and Britain were forged tragically by drugs and violence.
