Beckingsale , Laura Elsie , 1886-1983 , missionary and teacher

Laura Elsie Beckingsale was born on 1st September 1886 in Camden Town, North London. She was educated privately at first, and then attended Bestraven High School, Brondesbury, until she was eighteen. After teaching for a year elsewhere, she returned to Bestraven as a member of staff. At the age of twenty-three she entered the Women's Missionary College, Edinburgh, and in March 1911, went to Wuchang, China, with the London Missionary Society. She remained there until 1915, when she returned to England under medical advice, arriving March 1. A year later she resigned her connection with the London Missionary Society and joined the Baptist Missionary Society, for work in China. She was put in charge of a girl's boarding school at Tai Yuanfu Shansi. She finally returned to England in 1939. Laura Beckingsale never married. She died in 1983.