Herbert Hudson Taylor

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Herbert Hudson Taylor (April 3, 1861June 6, 1950), British Protestant Christian missionary to China, author, speaker and eldest son of James Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission (renamed as Overseas Missionary Fellowship, OMF International [1] in 1964 and based in Singapore), and Maria Jane Dyer. He served there for over 50 years – the last 3 as one of the prisoners of the Japanese at the Weifang internment camp during World War II along with Eric Liddell and 1500 others.

Herbert Taylor was four when his father founded the China Inland Mission. Herbert was born in London during his parents’ first furlough in England together. In 1866 at the age of five he was taken with his parents, 3 siblings and sixteen other missionaries to China aboard the Lammermuir (clipper) as part of the famous Lammermuir Party. During the 4-month long voyage the ship was nearly wrecked by 2 typhoons. His sister, Grace Dyer Taylor died of meningitis the first year. When he was six the family was nearly killed by a rioting mob in Yangzhou in 1868. Finally in 1870 he was sent home with his surviving siblings with Emily Blatchley to live in London, separated from his parents. His mother died in China soon after they arrived home.

Like his father, he enrolled in the Royal London Hospital medical college. After 2 years he decided to return to China to become one of the charter teachers at the newly founded China Inland Mission Chefoo School at (Yantai). After marrying a fellow missionary, Jeanie Gray, they endured tumultuous years in China, including the Boxer Rebellion, the fall of the Qing dynasty, the Warlord era, and the Sino-Japanese War (1937).

In 1930 the China Inland Mission published “Ren Ch'eng-Yüan, A Tamarisk Garden Blessed with Rain. Or the Autobiography of Pastor Ren. Translated and edited by Herbert Hudson Taylor & Marshall Broomhall”.

At the age of 80 he was interned by the Japanese at the Weihsien or Weifang concentration camp after Japan had entered the war in 1941. Everyone at Weifang were liberated in 1945 by American paratroopers.

Descendants of Herbert Hudson Taylor continue his full-time ministry today in the communities in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Grandson, Rev. James Hudson Taylor III and his son Rev. James Hudson Taylor IV are now based in Hong Kong. Another of Herbert Taylor’s grandchildren is Mary Previte who served in the New Jersey General Assembly representing the 6th legislative district from 1998 to 2006.

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