Alexander Williamson (missionary)
Alexander Williamson (5 December 1829 – September 1890) was a
Missionary experiences
Williamson was born in
For seven years he worked in evangelism, Chinese literary studies, and traveling. His health and strength wore out and he came home to Scotland on furlough from 1858 to 1863 to recover.
In 1863 Williamson returned to China with the
In 1867, Alexander Williamson, who had given Robert Jermain Thomas Bibles to take to Korea, journeyed to north-eastern China to the border with Korea. There at “Korea Gate,” Williamson sold Christian books to Korean border merchants.
In August 1869, his younger brother and fellow missionary, James Williamson also of the London Missionary Society, was murdered near Tianjin. That same year, Alexander returned to Britain.
In 1871, Williamson was awarded a Doctorate of Law by the University of Glasgow for his writings about China.
Between 1871 and 1883 he was back at Yantai with the NBSS and in 1874 also with the Scottish United Presbyterian Mission.
In 1883 he had to return to Scotland for health reasons. While he was there he founded the “Book and Tract Society for China” (later renamed in 1887: the “Society for Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese” or the “Christian Literature Society for China”).
Williamson returned to China again and was in Shanghai in 1886, when his wife Isabelle died. He died four years later at Yantai in 1890. He was 61.[2] His daughter Margaret Williamson King (known to her family as Veronica King) wrote about China, as did her son Louis Magrath King, and his Tibetan wife, Rinchen Lhamo.[3]
Works authored
- Natural Theology
- Journeys in North China, Manchuria, and Eastern Mongolia; with some account of Corea, 2 vols. London: Smith, Elder, 1870 Volume One, Volume 2
Works authored by his wife Isabelle
- Isabelle Williamson (1884). Old Highways in China. Religious Tract Society. p. 17.
- Old Highways in China, 1884
- reissued by LULU Press, 2010 Google Books
- reissued by the British Library, 2011
Notes
- ^ Aird (1894), 393-394
- ^ Broomhall (1984), 457
- ^ Chamberlain, Tim (2013). "Books of Change: A Western Family's Writings on China, 1855-1949". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society China. 75 (1): 55–76.
References
- Broomhall, Alfred (1984). Hudson Taylor and China's Open Century: Survivors' Pact. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
- Aird, Andrew (1894). Glimpses of Old Glasgow. Glasgow: Aird & Coghill.
- Chamberlain, Tim (2013). Books of Change: A Western Family's Writings on China, 1855-1949. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society China, Vol. 75, No. 1, pp. 55-76