James Hudson Taylor
1832 – 1905

Pioneer missionary, James Hudson Taylor, was born in Barnsley, England, the son of a Methodist minister. After studying medicine and theology, he went to China in 1854 as a missionary under the auspices of the China Evangelization Society.

In 1858, after working in a hospital for four years, he married the daughter of another missionary. He returned to England in 1860 and spent five years translating the New Testament into the Ningpo dialect. He returned to China in 1866 with sixteen other missionaries and founded the China Inland Mission.

In 1870 his wife and two of their children died of cholera. He remained in China and before his death, established two hundred and five mission stations with eight hundred and forty-nine missionaries from England and one hundred and twenty-five thousand witnessing Chinese Christians. He died in Changsha, China, in 1905.