Vyvyan Donnithorne

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The Venerable

Vyvyan Henry Donnithorne

MC MA
Archdeacon of Western Szechwan
V. H. Donnithorne at West China Union University, 1931.
ChurchChurch in China
DioceseWestern Szechwan
Installed1935
Term ended1949
PredecessorFrederick Boreham
Personal details
Born(1886-01-08)8 January 1886
Twickenham, England
Died12 December 1968(1968-12-12) (aged 82)
British Hong Kong
BuriedHong Kong Cemetery
NationalityBritish
DenominationAnglican
SpouseGladys Emma Ingram
ChildrenAudrey Donnithorne
Alma mater

The Venerable Vyvyan Henry Donnithorne, MC, MA (8 January 1886 – 12 December 1968) was Archdeacon of Western Szechwan from 1935 to 1949.

Biography

Vyvyan Donnithorne was of Cornish descent.[1] He was educated at Christ's Hospital, Clare College, Cambridge and Ridley Hall, Cambridge.[2] After wartime service[3] in the Royal Hampshire Regiment[4] he was ordained in 1919. He was a member of the Church Missionary Society in Szechwan (now romanized as Sichuan), West China from 1920 to 1949.[5][6] He served as pastor in the Gospel Church of Hanchow, since 1929.[7] He was a chaplain in the Canary Islands, Spain from 1949 to 1953.[8] In retirement, he lived in Hong Kong.[9] He died in 1968 and was buried in Hong Kong Cemetery.[10]

He was the father of Audrey Donnithorne;[11] and was one of the key figures in the discovery of the archaeological site now known as Sanxingdui.[12] A well to do farmer had discovered jade implements while dredging an irrigation ditch in 1927.[13] This was near Hanchow, where Donnithorne was stationed, and the discovery was brought to his attention in 1931. He recognized the importance of the discovery and contacted a local magistrate as well as Daniel S. Dye, a professor of geology at West China Union University. The three of them then visited the site and photographed and measured it. Through the magistrate, a few items were acquired and sent to the museum at WCUU. Then, in 1934, David Crockett Graham, the new director of the museum at WCUU, organized the first archaeological excavation of the site.[13][14]

See also

Notes

  1. ISBN 9781925801576
    .
  2. ^ ‘DONNITHORNE, Rev. Vyvyan Henry’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2016; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014 ; online edn, April 2014 accessed 6 July 2017
  3. ^ National Archives
  4. ^ National Archives
  5. ^ "Audrey Donnithorne obituary". thetimes.co.uk. 30 June 2020. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
  6. ^ Mission Studies
  7. ISSN 1671-265X
    . Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  8. ^ Crockford's Clerical Directory 1938 p2011: Oxford, OUP, 1938
  9. ^ GWULO
  10. ^ "Donnithorne, Vyvyan Henry". hkmemory.hk. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
  11. ^ Zhang, Emma (10 January 2021). "Book Review: China: In Life's Foreground". hkrbooks.com. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
  12. ^ "谁发现了三星堆？寻找九十年前揭开古蜀之谜的关键人物" [Who Discovered Sanxingdui? Looking for the Key Person Who Uncovered the Mystery of the Ancient Shu Kingdom 90 Years Ago]. new.qq.com (in Simplified Chinese). 15 April 2021. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
  13. ^
    ISBN 978-0-691-15298-1
    .
  14. ^ Graham, David C. (1934). "A Preliminary Report of the Hanchow Excavation". Journal of the West China Border Research Society. 6: 114–131.
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