Arthur Gostick Shorrock - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Arthur Gostick Shorrock (1861–1945), a pioneer Baptist

Baptist

Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...

missionary in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

for 40 years. Arthur was born in 1861 in Blackburn, Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. He entered Spurgeon's College

Spurgeon's College

Spurgeon's College is a theological institute of higher learning located in South Norwood Hill, London. It was founded by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, known as 'the Prince of Preachers' and in his time minister of the largest church in the world, the Metropolitan Tabernacle at Elephant and Castle...

and as a student preacher took services at the Baptist Chapel in Wraysbury. There he met his future wife, Maud Doulton, a relative of both Henry Doulton

Henry Doulton

Sir Henry Doulton was an English businessman, inventor and manufacturer of pottery, instrumental in developing the firm of Royal Doulton....

the pottery manufacturer and William Thomas Buckland

William Thomas Buckland

William Thomas Buckland was born on 5 September 1798 in Wraysbury now in Berkshire, England, in the house on Longbridge Farm where he later lived, and where he died on 1 November 1870. He became an innovative surveyor and auctioneer, as well as establishing the Baptist Chapel in Wraysbury. He was...

the Wraysbury auctioneer. Arthur then left to become a missionary in China before returning to live in Wraysbury after his retirement.

Missionary work in China

Arthur joined the Baptist Missionary Society

Baptist Missionary Society

rightBMS World Mission is a Christian missionary society founded by Baptists from England in 1792. It was originally called the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen, but for most of its life was known as the Baptist Missionary Society...

and went to China

China

in 1887, firstly to Shantung. In 1897 he journeyed to India with one of China's most influential Baptist missionaries, Timothy Richard

Timothy Richard

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

. Richard hoped to see the conditions of mission work in India and was pleased to have the "able and earnest" young missionary as a traveling companion. They visited Sri Lanka

British Ceylon

British Ceylon refers to British rule prior to 1948 of the island territory now known as Sri Lanka.-From the Dutch to the British:Before the beginning of the Dutch governance, the island of Ceylon was divided between the Portuguese Empire and the Kingdom of Kandy, who were in the midst of a war for...

, Madras, Agra

Agra

Agra a.k.a. Akbarabad is a city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, west of state capital, Lucknow and south from national capital New Delhi. With a population of 1,686,976 , it is one of the most populous cities in Uttar Pradesh and the 19th most...

, Varanasi

Varanasi

-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...

, Delhi

Delhi

Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

, Mumbay and Kolkata

Kolkata

Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

, where Arthur "had a sharp attack of Cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

, narrowly escaping with his life."

Shaanxi Baptist Mission

In 1892 Arthur Shorrock and Moir Duncan founded the Sianfu Mission, in present day Xi'an

Xi'an

Xi'an is the capital of the Shaanxi province, and a sub-provincial city in the People's Republic of China. One of the oldest cities in China, with more than 3,100 years of history, the city was known as Chang'an before the Ming Dynasty...

, Shaanxi

Shaanxi

' is a province in the central part of Mainland China, and it includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River in addition to the Qinling Mountains across the southern part of this province...

Province. Arthur was responsible for the Baptist mission work in Shaanxi and became the Principal of the Shaanxi Bible College. In 1898 Moir Duncan and his wife returned to England on a furlough. Maud Doulton, who was attending the Royal Holloway College

Royal Holloway, University of London

Royal Holloway, University of London is a constituent college of the University of London. The college has three faculties, 18 academic departments, and about 8,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students from over 130 different countries...

before graduating in 1890, was then engaged to Aurthur. She left England in January 1900 accompanied by the Duncans. Aurthur and Maud were married soon after arriving in Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

and they and the Duncans arrived back in Xi'an on 24 May 1900. Seven weeks later, on 6 July they were forced to leave the city secretly to escape the Taiyuan Massacre

Taiyuan Massacre

The Taiyuan Massacre was one of the more bloody and infamous parts of the Boxer Rebellion. It took place on July 9, 1900, in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, North China, when the governor of Shanxi named Yuxian , or Yu-Hsien , ordered the killings of 45 Christian missionaries and of local church members,...

during the Boxer Rebellion

Boxer Rebellion

The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...

.

Two years later they returned and Maud then took responsibility for 'Women's Work', and in 1914 became principle of the church's Girls' High School in Xi'an

Xi'an

. Up until shortly before Arthur Shorrock left China, the following missionaries had worked with him:

Status	Total
Baptist Missionaries working in Shaanxi (1890–1925)
Died prior to 1925	11
Transferred prior to 1925	19
Resigned prior to 1925	19
Working in 1925	32
Total staff 1890-1925	81

Together with the Chinese members they established the following:

Establishment	Total
Contributions of Baptist Missionaries in Shaanxi (1925)
Churches	125
Total church members	2584
Secondary Schools	2 boys; 2 girls
Elementary Schools (6 years)	4 boys; 4 girls
Elementary Schools (4 years)	45 boys; 6 girls
Kindergarten	1 girls
Bible school	1 men; 1 women
Total scholars	1550
Hospitals	2

War against Opium

Arthur was horrified by the impact of the opium

Opium

Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...

trade. In 1890 he was a founding member of the Permanent Committee for the Promotion of Anti-Opium

Opium

Societies. Fellow committee members included the prominent missionaries John Glasgow Kerr

John Glasgow Kerr

John Glasgow Kerr was a Presbyterian medical missionary to China with the American Presbyterian Mission.Born in Duncansville, Ohio, Kerr graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He went to China as a medical missionary and arrived at Guangzhou in 1854...

MD, American Presbyterian Mission

American Presbyterian Mission

American Presbyterian Mission was an American Presbyterian missionary society, operated by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, that was involved in sending workers to countries such as China during the late Qing Dynasty and to India in nineteenth century...

in Canton

Guangzhou

Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...

; B.C. Atterbury MD, American Presbyterian Mission

American Presbyterian Mission

in Peking; Archdeacon Arthur Evans Moule

Arthur Evans Moule

Arthur Evans Moule was an English missionary to China. He was the son of Henry Moule, vicar at Fordington, Dorset, and was educated at Malta Protestant College and the Church Missionary Society, Islington College.-Missionary in China:...

, Church Missionary Society in Shanghai

Shanghai

; Henry Whitney MD, American Board of Commissioners for foreign Missions

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was the first American Christian foreign mission agency. It was proposed in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College and officially chartered in 1812. In 1961 it merged with other societies to form the United Church Board for World...

in Foochow; the Rev Samuel Clarke, China Inland Mission

China Inland Mission

OMF International is an interdenominational Protestant Christian missionary society, founded in Britain by Hudson Taylor on 25 June 1865.-Overview:...

in Kweiyang and the Rev Griffith John

Griffith John

Griffith John was a British Christian missionary and translator in China. A member of the Congregational church, he was a pioneer evangelist with the London Missionary Society , a writer and a translator of the Holy Bible into the Chinese language.-Biography:Griffith John was born on 14 December...

, London Missionary Society

London Missionary Society

The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...

in Hankow. They resolved to continue their opposition to the opium traffic, urging Christians in China to arouse public opinion against it. The desire of the missionaries that their ideas be carried out caused them to form “continuation committees” that were assigned tasks to assure that action would be taken on whatever matters had been approved by the conferences.
He continued working with other missionaries opposed to the opium

Opium

trade, including writing to Alexander Hosie about poppy cultivation and corruption associated with attempts to end the cultivation.

Xinhai Revolution

Once the Xinhai Revolution

Xinhai Revolution

The Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, also known as Revolution of 1911 or the Chinese Revolution, was a revolution that overthrew China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing , and established the Republic of China...

reached Shaanxi, resulting in the death of eight foreigners, an evacuation of all missionaries and other foreigners in the region was planned. The Rev J C Keyte and the explorer Arthur de Carle Sowerby

Arthur de Carle Sowerby

Arthur de Carle Sowerby was British naturalist, explorer, writer, and publisher in China. His father was Arthur Sowerby .-Background:...

planned the relief expedition, and all but a handful of the mission was successfully evacuated due to their efforts. However, Arthur, Maud and their daughter Mary remained in Shaanxi. Arthur gave the following reason for remaining: -

Anti-Christian movement

Arthur's contributions to China were rewarded with the awarding of the Order of the Excellent Crop, Third Class, conferred upon him by the President of the Republic of China in 1917. Popular sentiment in the 1920s in China was directed against missionaries, foreign merchants, Christian schools, churches and hospitals which were viewed as ‘imperialistic'.

Arthur Shorrock helped organise the 1925 Shensi Baptist Conference, writing a book that argued that missionaries were not imperialist. At the time he wrote:

Many missionaries were forced to leave China in the following years. For the Baptist Missionary Society

Baptist Missionary Society

such experiences resulted in them becoming more sensitive to the political situation of different mission fields.

Evangelical Methods

The evangelical methods

Approaches to evangelism

Throughout history, Christians have used many different approaches to spread Christianity via the practice of evangelism. Christianity began with only a few different evangelical approaches, but over the years, many different forms of evangelism have been employed by various groups to spread the...

used at the time in Shaanxi

Shaanxi

were described as follows:

Return to England

While missionaries and other foreigners were besieged in Sianfu,
Arthur's wife, Maude, died on 25 September 1925 of typhoid. After his retirement, he returned to Wraysbury

Wraysbury

Wraysbury, traditionally spelt Wyrardisbury, is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It is located in the very east of the county, in the part that was in Buckinghamshire until 1974...

and became the minister of the Baptist Chapel

Wraysbury Baptist Chapel

Wraysbury Baptist Chapel is situated in the village of Wraysbury, Berkshire, England. The present day building was opened in 1862, but the chapel was first established in 1827.- History :...

there. He died on 13 June 1945 in Windsor

Windsor, Berkshire

Windsor is an affluent suburban town and unparished area in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England. It is widely known as the site of Windsor Castle, one of the official residences of the British Royal Family....

, aged 83, and is buried in Wraysbury together with his wife.

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