My great great-uncle—Missionary to China

by Patrick Miles

In the first of two articles, our guest contributor Patrick Miles tells us about the life of Rev. Harry French Ridley. In this issue he describes the years from 1862 to 1905. This piece of original research shows what can be achieved by studying the family history of our missionary ancestors. – Tony Lambert

We had gone up to Northumberland to find out a little about our family history. As we were walking through some woodland, my mother mentioned Uncle Harry, who had been a missionary for many years with—was it China Inland Mission? I said that I had heard of them! After a few letters and phone calls to Tony, some extremely helpful material from OMF headquarters, and a few visits to the CIM/OMF archive at the School of African and Oriental Studies in London, a fascinating picture has emerged about his life, which I thought I would share. I am also grateful to my uncle, Brian Armstrong, from whose more general researches into the family history I have borrowed extensively.

Early years

Harry French Ridley was born in June 1862. The Ridley family had been lead mining engineers, and feature strongly in the local history museum at Allenheads, near Newcastle in northern England. It is a strongly Methodist area—there are several references in the museum to John Wesley preaching near there, and the Ridleys were a well-known Methodist family. HFR, the third of eleven children, suffered from tuberculosis as a child. (George Ridley, my great-grandfather, was the fifth child). No record survives of his conversion, but he was called to be a missionary at the age of seventeen at a service in York.

HFR was referred to as “Reverend” so he may have been a Methodist minister for a while in his early twenties. From 1888-9 he was General Secretary of the Wakefield branch of the YMCA, which at the time had strong links with the China Inland Mission. CIM had been founded in 1865 by James Hudson Taylor. In the 1880s Taylor had had some very specific answers to prayer for more missionaries to be sent out to this vast country. On a human level, CIM had gained a much higher public profile after the decision of the “Cambridge Seven”—seven extremely talented Cambridge graduates including England cricketer C.T. Studd—to sail for China in 1885. One hundred CIM missionaries sailed in 1887, and another seventy the year after. HFR was one of thirty-five missionaries to sail for China in 1890.

Arrival in China

HFR reached Shanghai on November 13th, 1890. As was the custom, he spent his first year training at Gan k’ing [Kangding] and learning the language. His first posting was at Ning-hsia [Ningxia], which, with the borders as they were at the time, was in the far north of Kansuh [Gansu] province, nearly a thousand miles inland. For some reason he visited Kwei-hwa-ch’eng in Shansi [Shanxi] province briefly, and it is from here that he made his first written contribution to the CIM magazine China’s Millions.

Marriage

A couple called Mr. and Mrs. Horrobin were working with HFR in Ning-hsia [Ningxia]. In 1893 China’s Millions reports that “Miss Querry spent a little time with her friend Mrs. Horrobin, who has no female companion, but she was unable to remain long...” This may have been the first time HFR and Sarah Querry had met. She had been born in Essex, and immediately before leaving for China had been a parlor-maid in Brighton. She had sailed for China a month earlier than HFR, and in those days single women trained at Yang-chau [Yangzhou]. Her first posting had also been in Kansuh [now Gansu] province, but some distance away at Ts’in chau. They were married on May 1, 1894.

Sining

Immediately after their marriage they were sent to Sining [Xining], then in Kansuh [Gansu] province, but now the capital of Qinghai province. Here they were to spend the vast majority of the rest of their missionary careers. They could hardly have been sent to a more difficult area. To this day it remains very remote—thousands of feet above sea level, and with sub-zero temperatures for much of the winter. The population was a mixture of Tibetans, Mongols, Han Chinese and Muslims (Hui). The station had been started by C.H. Polhill-Turner (another of the Cambridge Seven) in 1885, but only one baptism had taken place in the nine years since. The first reaction of the local people was hostile. They could hear people muttering “foreign devils” as they went past, and there was a reluctance to accept their hospitality. No one would drink their tea because of rumors that it was poisoned, or that it contained a drug that would make them convert to Christianity. When they preached in the open air, some people said “good words,” but disappeared before they could be contacted individually. Early in 1895 Sarah Ridley wrote: “The work here is moving very slowly.” She makes a “request for earnest prayer” and adds, “The field is very hard and dry, but the Lord can send showers of blessing.”

Muslim rebellion

However, later in the year their standing in the community was increased, although hardly in circumstances they would have chosen. Muslims in eighteen villages south of the Yellow River rebelled. A steady stream of refugees was already arriving in Sining, when one night the local Muslims joined the rebellion and the city came under siege. They could have fled from the city earlier, but felt that God was calling them to stay there. In spite of having no medical training, the Ridleys set to work tending the wounded, sometimes treating two hundred people in one day. It was exhausting work. On July 10, HFR wrote, “Laid prostrate for a short interval by the heavy demands made on my strength.” Smallpox was rife in the city, and HFR nearly died of diphtheria. Food was also in short supply, but they saw wonderful evidences of the Lord’s ability to provide. Only once did Sarah Ridley feel fear—when she was alone in the house with their new daughter Dora during an attack on the city. Then as she testifies, “He gave me the assurance that no harm should come to us.”

For five and a half months they could send no news to the outside world. In August China’s Millions reported that “We know not how it may be with our dear friends Mr. and Mrs. Ridley and Mr. Hall.” Hudson Taylor himself was very concerned, and the episode gets a four-page mention in his biography.

Improved standing

Good was to come of this, as there was general acknowledgement of the value of the work that they had done. At one stage in the rebellion, the prefect sent them 200 pounds of wheat in recognition of this. HFR wrote, “Surely we have great cause to be thankful to God our Father for giving us such opportunities of showing both to Chinese and Mohammedans the practical side of the doctrine we preach.” They moved to Lan-chau [Lanzhou] for a while after the rebellion was put down—the authorities were taking terrible reprisals, so possibly they wanted to distance themselves from this. Certainly when they returned, the Chinese were taken aback that they were prepared to feed Muslims as well.

Signs now become apparent of their improved standing in the community. In 1897 Sarah Ridley was invited to a feast in very select company, including military officials’ wives—a valuable open door for the gospel among the higher classes. There were signs that the people were disillusioned with their own gods, but the general attitude to Christianity, while no longer hostile, was still apathetic. “They will read our books, listen to our preaching, praise our doctrine—and go away and pursue their own course.”

Furlough

In 1899 the Ridleys returned to England on furlough. HFR gave an address to the annual meeting of the CIM in Exeter Hall on May 1, in which he described in some detail the events of the Muslim rebellion. He also addressed a prayer meeting, where, amazingly, he could testify that he had “never once been depressed in the work, never once doubted he was in God’s appointed place, and never once had even a desire to give up the work and return to England.” This seems extraordinary, when we realize that he had been in China for nine years without seeing anyone converted.

The Boxer Rebellion

They returned to Kansuh [Gansu] at the beginning of 1900. However, the work was quickly interrupted by one of the saddest events in the history of the CIM. Whereas the Muslim rebellion of 1895 had been a rebellion against the Chinese, the Boxers wanted China to be for the Chinese alone, so were intent on driving out all foreigners. Christian missionaries were one of their prime targets, and Chinese Christians suffered terribly. Fifty CIM missionaries were martyred as well as twenty-eight of their children. Mercifully, the rebellion was confined to four provinces in the north, but Kansuh [Gansu] could easily have been cut off if the rebellion had spread. All inland missionaries were therefore recalled to the coast. While there is doubt about whether this message had been received in Kansuh [Gansu] in August, by October the Ridleys had reached the coast. They did not leave again until December 1901.

A terrible dilemma

The lack of conversions in Kansuh [Gansu] remained a matter of prayerful concern for the CIM. Another article comments that the greatest temptation for missionaries there was to lose the spirit of expectation. In 1903 the Ridleys spent a year in Wuhu, much nearer the coast. The reason for this is not clear. Maybe there was danger of more trouble from the Boxers, or maybe the discouragement of working in this area had finally got to them. Sining [Xining] was without a resident missionary at this time, and when their colleague, Mr. Hall, visited, he commented that “it remains an ungrateful and disappointing place.” A third possibility is that there is a connection with the health and education of their two oldest children, Dora and Eddie. Certainly there was a danger to their health at Sining [Xining]. The three youngest sons were all to die in childhood—two from scarlet fever. It was about this time that, with great sadness, they were sent away to Chefoo—a school founded by CIM for missionaries’ children, near the coast. Eddie later completed his education in Scotland. Dora lived the rest of her life in Canada. In a letter to my mother shortly before her death, she says she never really knew her parents. (The letter also mentions measles as a further health hazard.) Mercifully, with faster travel available, this is a dilemma most modern day missionaries are spared. Not all Christians would agree with their decision, and certainly this was not one Harry and Sarah would have made lightly. But the way that they would have seen it is that if the only alternatives were to risk their children’s health, or to abandon their God-given calling, this was the only decision they could take.

At last—conversions

Whatever the reason for moving there, they had the encouragement when they were in Wuhu of seeing God more visibly at work. In September 1903 it was reported that there had been eleven recent baptisms. They seem to have set off for Kansuh [Gansu] in May 1904 or shortly afterwards, and then in April 1905 China’s Millions contains some wonderful news. “Mr H.F. Ridley reports the baptism of two men and one woman at Sining [Xining] in Kansuh [Gansu], all of whom had been enquirers since 1896. Our readers will rejoice with him and his fellow workers in these first fruits of their labors in this hitherto hard and unproductive field.” It was indeed a turning point in the work at Sining [Xining], and a vindication of HFR’s persistence throughout those difficult years.

(To be continued in the next issue.)

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