Presbyterian Church of England , Foreign Missions Committee
English Presbyterian Mission

Presbyterian Church of England , Foreign Missions Committee
English Presbyterian Mission

The Presbyterian Church of England (PCE) Foreign Missions Committee, or the English Presbyterian Mission, was established in 1843, as one of the first committees of the reconstituted Presbyterian Church. It resolved at its Synod to 'institute foreign missions in connection with this Church as speedily as possible'; however, the first missionary was not appointed until 1847. China was chosen as the first mission field for the English Presbyterian Mission, due in part to the interest engendered by the Opium Wars and in part to the fact that the Free Church of Scotland were unable to set up a Presbyterian mission in China at that time. In 1847 William Burns was appointed, and worked firstly in Hong Kong, moving on to Amoy in 1850.

The first mission field for the English Presbyterian Mission was Amoy (South Fukien) established by Burns and Dr James Young. Work was extended to the Swatow (Lingtung) area of East Shandong. George Smith was the first permanent PCE missionary in the area from 1858, and the Swatow Mission Hospital was established in 1863, while the Women's Missionary Association was founded in 1878. The mission field in China was further extended inland with the establishment of the Hakka mission in 1879.

Work began in Formosa (Taiwan) in 1865, and it was quickly designated as a children's field. Medical and education work was carried out by missionaries Dr Maxwell and Thomas Barclay, the latter founding the Tainan Theological College. The growing power of Japan in the 1930s led to a reduction of PCE staff in Formosa, and missionaries finally withdrew in 1940. In the post-war period however the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan was able to recover, and the relationship between the Church and PCE has undergone profound change.

Whereas the Formosa mission extended out from Amoy, the extension of PCE mission work to the Singapore and Malaysia field was as a response to calls from missionaries in the Swatow and Hakka fields, and from the expatriate Presbyterian congregation of Orchard Road, Singapore. John Bethune Cook began work in the area in 1881, and retired in 1925. The fall of Singapore and the Japanese occupation effectively ended the PCE mission, a small number of missionaries were interned and the Church cut off from mission support. In the period of ecumenical change following the War, PCE missionaries worked primarily at a congregational level and in local schools.

The withdrawl of the PCE from China, as for other missionary societies, is also a phenomenon of the post-war period. Despite the optimistic attempts to re-establish the missions after the Japanese occupation, the situation became increasingly difficult and the PCE, along with other missionary societies, withdrew from China between 1949 and 1953.

Work of the English Presbyterian mission was not confined to East and South East Asia, and in 1862, a mission was established at in the district of Rajshahi, Bengal, India (now Bangladesh). The mission was started by Rev. Behari Lal Singh who was an agent of the Free Church of Scotland's mission in Calcutta. The first English Presbyterian missionary Dr Donald Morison arrived three years after his death in 1878. Medical and educational work was carried out, with limited successes, and the mission was both understaffed and often in danger of being closed down. In the period after the partition of India in 1947, the mission increased its staffing and developed a hospital, nursing school and Girls High School. Work was also carried out among the Santal tribal people. However, the civil war between East and West Pakistan, which led to the establishment of Bangladesh in the 1960s, affected the mission field, which is now the Rajshahi deanery of the Church of Bangladesh.

In 1972 the Presbyterian Church of England joined with the Congregational Church in England and Wales, a constituent body of the Council of the Congregational Council for World Mission, to form the United Reformed Church. The CCWM changed its name to the Council for World Mission as a result of the inclusion of both Congregational and Reformed members. In 1981 the URC joined together with the Re-formed Churches of Christ.

Further information on the history of the Presbyterian Church of England Foreign Missions Committee can be found in the following works: Edward Band, Working His Purpose Out: the history of the English Presbyterian Mission 1847-1947 (London, 1948); Reginald Fenn, Working God's Purpose Out 1947-1972 (London, 1997); George Hood, Pilgrims in Mission: Celebrating 150 years of the English Presbyterian Mission (Alnwick, 1998); George Hood, Neither bang nor whimper: the end of a missionary era in China (Singapore, 1991).