INTRODUCTION

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN the Warren family and Japan began with Charles Frederick Warren (1841–1899). It was continued on into the second generation by his sons, Charles Theodore Warren (1865– 1949) and Horace George Warren who followed their father into the priesthood and also became Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries in Osaka. Charles Theodore Warren served in Osaka between 1890 and 1910, and his brother Horace George between 1893 and 1899. This essay, however, focuses on the father, Charles Frederick Warren, the pioneer CMS missionary in Osaka who laid the foundations for lasting British Anglican work in that city and outlying areas between 1873 and his death in Fukuyama in 1899. He was the son of George Warren of Margate in Kent, a man known locally as ‘Dr Warren’ because he was a herbalist, in addition to operating a small leather shop. C.F. Warren's three brothers were all in trade in Margate and district or in London. His two sisters were married to well-to-do tradesmen. Warren's wife, Mary Ann Ada Tibbatts (d. 1886) whom he met at the local Mission Hall in the neighbourhood of the Essex Road while he attended the CMS Training College in Islington, was the daughter of Horace Nelson Tibbatts, a doctor in Islington. His second wife, Sarah Lizzie Fawcett, was a CMS missionary in Osaka whom Warren married in 1892. She left Japan in 1908.

In 1865 Warren became a CMS missionary in Hong Kong, and worked there for three years serving at the newly-established St Stephen Mission Church with its Chinese congregation. In 1868, unfortunately, ill health forced him to return to England. In 1873 when the CMS announced its intention to send more missionaries to Japan, Warren competed for a place and was selected.

FIRST YEARS IN OSAKA

On 2 December 1873, Warren arrived in Kobe but soon moved to live in the treaty port concession in Osaka. He was the vanguard of the CMS contingent sent to Osaka to reinforce the American Protestant Episcopalian missionaries already at work there. To a great extent, because of Warren's effort and leadership, Osaka would quickly develop into the most significant CMS mission station in Japan. His leading role within the CMS Japan Mission was consolidated in 1880 when he became its Japan secretary, a position that he held until 1888.