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Dr Alexander Maclean Mackay: Profile of a China Medical Missionary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Luke S. K. Kwong
Luke S. K. Kwong
Affiliation:
University of Lethbridge
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Extract

Compared to missionaries like Timothy Richard (1845–1919) and Hudson Taylor (1832–1905), Dr Alexander Maclean Mackay is a name almost unknown in the annals of Christian evangelism in China. The personnel roster of the London Missionary Society, to which he initially belonged, did boast of such luminaries as Robert Morrison (1782–1834), a pioneering Protestant preacher in early nineteenth-century China and James Legge (1815–1897), a missionary turned Sinologist and Oxford don. But Mackay, as one of the Mission's numerous field workers, is not likely to be found in such distinguished company. In fact, his sojourn in China, in comparison, was relatively brief. It lasted not quite six years, from January 1891 to September 1896, when he died of cholera and was buried in China. In many ways, he was merely another missionary, one of the many men and women, Catholic and Protestant, who had toiled in China, then faded into oblivion, and have since eluded the eye of the historical researcher.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , May 1997 , pp. 415 - 444
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

1 Timothy Richard of the English Baptist Missionary Society spent forty-five years in China and was known to play a part in the Chinese reform movement. Hudson Taylor was the founder of the China Inland Mission. For a brief account and comparison of their lives and work in China, see Cohen, Paul, ‘Missionary Approaches: Hudson Taylor and Timothy Richard,’ Papers on China, XI (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 29–62.Google Scholar

2 For an overview of the missionary enterprise in late-Ch'ing China, see Cohen, Paul, ‘Christian Missions and Their Impact to 1900,’ in The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 10, ed. Fairbank, John K. (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 543–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Rowe, William, Hankow (Stanford, 1984), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

4 S.R.H. [Sydney Rupert Hodge], ‘In Memoriam,’ China Medical Missionary Journal (06 1897), p. 185.Google ScholarPubMed

5 The classic studies on this aspect include Cohen, Paul, China and Christianity (Cambridge, Mass., 1963);Google ScholarShih-ch'iang, Lü, Chung-kuo kuan-shen fan-chiao ti yuan-yin (Reasons for the Chinese gentry's objection to Christianity) (Taipei, 1966);Google ScholarWehrle, Edmund, Britain, China and the Antimissionary Riots (Minneapolis, 1966).Google Scholar

6 The information on Mackay's family and childhood is taken from S.R.H. pp. 185–7.

7 LMSA:CP, ‘Application,’ answer to question no. 4.

8 See the schedule of his studies leading to his medical degrees in ‘Special Collections,’ Edinburgh University Library.

9 LMSA:CP, ‘Application,’ answer to question no. 10.

10 Ibid., Rev. Reid Howatt to LMS, 15 Oct. 1890.

11 My discussion of this episode is based on the copy letters sent by officials of the Foreign Mission to Mackay, now deposited at the Department of Manuscripts, The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. I have not been able to locate letters written by Mackay to the Foreign Mission.

12 CSA:C, McMurtrie to Mackay, 9 February. 1889.

13 Ibid., McMurtrie to Mackay, 20 June 1889.

14 Ibid., Maclagan to Mackay, 13 July 1889.

15 This was mentioned in CSA:C, McMurtrie to Mackay, 20 July 1889.

16 Ibid.

17 CSA:S, Maclagan to Mackay, 27 March. 1890. See also the two letters cited in fns 19 and 20.

18 Professor Greenfield took an exceptionally active interest in Mackay's application to the London Mission. In his letter of recommendation, he ascribed the onus for Mackay's earlier unsuccessful applications to the other missions to the mission societies themselves. His eagerness to attribute ‘blame,’ as well as his stated preparedness, in the event of Mackay's acceptance by any of those missions, to urge him ‘in the strongest manner possible not to go under their auspices,’ made it tantalizingly suggestive that he may have been the informer, who had decisively swayed Mackay against the China Sub-Committee the year before. LMSA:CP, Greenfield to LMS, 8 May 1890.

19 LMSA:CP, Mackay to Thompson, 8 June 1890.

20 The Chronicle of the London Missionary Society 1890, ed. RevCousins, G., p. 157.Google Scholar

21 LMSA:COL, Thompson to Bonsey, 28 March. 1890.

22 Ibid., Thompson to Bonsey, 2 May 1890.

23 Ibid., Thompson to Bonsey, 26 Sept. 1890.

24 Ibid., Thompson to Bonsey, 24 June 1890.

25 LMSA:CP, doctor's letter to Thompson, 20 July 1890.

26 See fn. 10.

27 LMSA:COL, Thompson to Sparham, 7 November. 1890.

28 LMSA:CCIL, HDC minutes, 22 January. 1891.

29 Ibid., John to Thompson, 12 Feb. 1891.

30 Ibid., Mackay to Thompson, 26 Jan. 1891.

31 Ibid., Gillison to Thompson, 28 April 1891.

32 Ibid., Mackay to Thompson, 2 Feb. 1891.

33 Ibid., Mackay to Foster, 25 April 1892; enclosed in Foster to Thompson, 26 April 1892.

34 LMSA:COL, Thompson to Bonsey, 21 July 1891.

35 Ibid., Thompson to John, 30 Oct. 1891.

36 Ibid., Thompson to Sparham, 20 Nov. 1891.

37 Ibid., Thompson to Foster, 24 Dec. 1891.

38 LMSA:CCIL, HDC minutes, 24 February. 1892.

39 Ibid., HDC minutes, 29 02. 1892.

40 Ibid.

41 LMSA:COL, Thompson to Bonsey, 21 July 1891.

42 Ibid., Thompson to Foster, 8 April 1892.

43 Ibid., Thompson to Burton, 8 April 1892.

44 Ibid., Thompson to Foster, 14 April 1892.

45 LMSA:CCIL, HDC minutes, 1 June 1892.

46 Ibid., Foster to Thompson, 29 July 1892 and HDC minutes, 8 Aug. 1892; LMSA:COL, Thompson to Burton, 22 July 1892.

47 LMSA:CCIL, Foster to Thompson, 29 July 1892.

48 Ibid., Foster to Thompson, 26 April 1892.

49 LMSA:CCIL, HDC minutes, 9 May 1892.

50 Ibid., Mackay to Thompson, 31 Jan. 1893.

51 Ibid., Mackay to Thompson, 3 April 1893.

52 For his academic qualifications, see The Chronicle 1891, pp. 381–3.

53 Ibid., Foster to Thompson, 22 Nov. 1893.

54 Ibid., Mackay to Thompson, 5 Dec. 1893.

55 LMSA:COL, Thompson to Foster, 16 March. 1894.

56 The full reference to his Chinese name can be found in a letter written by T'ang Ts'ai-ts'ang to Ou-yang Chun-ku (c. 1896) in Ou-yang Yü-ch'ien, comp., T'an Ssu-t'ung shu-chien (The letters of T'an Ssu-t'ung) (Shanghai, 1948), p. 87.Google Scholar

57 For Chang's view of Ts'ai, see Chih-tung, Chang, Chang Wen-hsiang kung ch'üanchi (The complete works of Chang Chih-tung) (Taiwan reprint, 1963), 28:32–3, 35:26–7.Google Scholar Also see Yün-feng, Su, Chung-kuo chin-tai-hua ti ch'ü-yü yen-chiu, Hu-pei sheng, 1860–1916 (Modernization in China, 1860–1916: A regional study of the social, political and economic change in the Hupeh province) (Taipei, 1981), pp. 181–2.Google Scholar For Chang's new enterprises, see Chi-hsu, Chang, Chang Wen-hsiang kung chih-O chi (Chang Chih-tung's governor-generalship in Hupeh) (Taipei, 1966).Google Scholar

58 Ibid., Mackay to Thompson, 5 Dec. 1893.

59 Ibid., Mackay to Thompson, 8 Jan. 1894.

60 Ibid., HDC minutes, 14 Jan. 1894, especially the note, penciled in red, attached to the minutes.

61 LMSA:COL, Thompson to Mackay, 7 September. 1894; also Thompson to Foster, 16 Mar. 1894.

62 LMSA:CCIL, Hart to Thompson, 16 January. 1894; 22 Jan. 1894; John to Thompson, 29 Jan. 1894.

63 Ibid., HDC minutes, 3 Aug. 1894.

64 Ibid., Hart to Thompson, 9 Dec. 1894.

65 The Chronicle 1891, p. 381.

66 This interpretation is based on a reading of the sources cited in fns 64 and 69.

67 See fn. 64 and LMSA:CCIL, Mackay to Bonsey, 6 December. 1894.

68 Ibid., Thompson to Bonsey, 29 Nov. 1894.

69 Ibid., HDC minutes, 7 Dec. 1894.

70 Ibid., John to Thompson, 24 Dec. 1894.

71 Same as fn 65. Also, Hart to Thompson, 18 December. 1894.

72 LMSA:COL, Thompson to Mackay, 23 January. 1895.

73 Ibid., Thompson to John, 8 Feb. 1895.

74 Ibid., Thompson to Hart, 23 Jan. 1895.

75 LMSA:CCIL, HDC minutes, 7 March. 1895.

76 Ibid., HDC minutes, 8 Mar. 1895.

77 Ibid., Bonsey to Thompson, 19 Mar. 1895.

78 Ibid., Mackay to Thompson, 12 Mar. 1895.

79 Ibid., Hart to Thompson, 10 Mar. 1895.

80 LMSA, ‘China: General-Personal, Terrell Diaries,’ 11 February. 1895.

81 Ibid., 30 Mar. 1895.

82 Ibid., 2 April 1895.

83 LMSA:CCIL, Foster to Thompson, 22 April. 1895.

84 Ibid., Foster to Thompson, 18 May 1895.

85 Ibid., Foster to Thompson, 12 Mar. 1895.

86 Ibid., Hart to Thompson, 19 Mar. 1895.

87 Ibid., HDC minutes, 4 June 1895; Mackay to Thompson, 4 June 1895.

88 Ibid., Bonsey to Thompson, 11 June 1895.

89 Ibid., John to Thompson, 17 June 1895.

90 Ibid., Hart to Thompson, 8 Aug. 1895.

91 LMSA, ‘Annotated Register of L.M.S. Missionaries 1796–1923,’ S. L. Hart.

92 The Chronicle 1890, p. 345.

93 LMSA:COL, Thompson to Foster, 24 December. 1891.

94 The Chronicle 1891, pp. 355–7.

95 LMSA:COL, Thompson to John, 10 January. 1890.

96 Ibid., Thompson to Foster, 14 April 1892.

97 The Chronicle 1894, P. 190.

98 LMSA:COL, Thompson to Hart, 23 January. 1895.

99 LMSA:CCIL, HDC minutes, 22 January. 1891.

100 Ibid., John to Thompson, 17 July 1893.

101 John, Griffith, ‘The Opening of Hunan,’ The Chronicle 1891, pp. 324–6.Google Scholar

102 LMSA:CCIL, Mackay to Thompson, 12 March. 1895.

103 For the identity of both T'an Chi-hsun's granddaughter-in-law and grandson, see my ‘Ma Shang-te,’ Li-shih yen-chiu (Historical research) 2 (1992), p. 182.Google Scholar

104 Public Record Office, F.O. 228:1226, Carles to Beauclerk, Feb. 26, 1896. T'an Ssu-t'ung, the governor's son, wrote in a letter to a friend, dated July 1895: ‘Occasionally, a foreign doctor is called in for consultation.’ There is no question that the reference was made to Mackay. See Ssu-t'ung, T'an, T'an Ssu-t'ung ch'üan-chi (Complete works of T'an Ssu-t'ung) (Peking, 1981), p. 154.Google Scholar

105 S.R.H., ‘In Memoriam,’ p. 186.

106 For Mackay's association, in particular, with a son of Governor T'an, T'an Ssu-t'ung, see my ‘Ma Shang-te,’ pp. 184–6.

107 T'an Ssu-t'ung, p. 454.

108 See note attached to the offprint of S.R.H., ‘ In memoriam,’ in the David Hill papers of the Methodist Missionary Society archives. Also, Barber, W. T. A., David Hill (London, 5th ed., 1909), pp. 315–16.Google Scholar

109 S.R.H, ‘In Memoriam,’ p. 186.

110 F.O. 917:738, no. 170065, ‘Last Will & Test, of Dr. A. M. Mackay.’

111 LMSA:CCIL, HDC minutes, 6 January. 1986.

112 See photograph of his tombstone in S.R.H., ‘In Memoriam.’

113 This aspect of nineteenth-century Sino-foreign contact, i.e., the relationship between Chinese female patients (both married and unmarried) and foreign male physicians, deserves to be explored in depth, especially in view of the traditional Chinese medical practice: ‘In old China, an herbal physician faced an interesting dilemma when he had to attend to an unmarried female patient. Because such a young woman was not supposed to be seen or touched by a strange male, all the physician could do was to have a string tied to her wrist and ‘take the pulse’ at the other end of the string outside the curtained bed.’ See Hsu, F. and Chu, G., ‘Changes in Chinese Culture: What Do We Really know?’ in Moving a Mountain, ed. Hsu, F. and Chu, G. (Honolulu, 1979), p. 396.Google Scholar

114 Title of book by Richard, Timothy (Shanghai, 1907), 2 vols.Google Scholar

115 See Feuerwerker, Albert, The Foreign Establishment in China in the Early Twentieth Century (Ann Arbor, 1976), pp. 39–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

116 An expression used in the English inscription on Mackay's tombstone. See photograph in S.R.H., ‘In Memoriam.’