Hannah Riddell(1855–1932) was an English woman who devoted her life to the salvation of Hansen's disease patients in Japan.
Hannah Riddell was born in 1855 in Barnet, north of London in a complex family. Her father was an officer of the army who was engaged in the training of ex-soldiers at that time. The details of Hannah's education are not known.
In 1877, her family moved to Mumbles, in South Wales and Hannah and her mother started a private school for young gentlemen and young ladies. The school was a success for some time, but in 1889, it went into bancruptcy. Hannah's next job was as a superintendent for the YMWCA, a church organization, in Liverpool. In 1890, she was selected by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) as a missionary to Japan. She arrived in Japan in 1891 at the age of 35 and was transferred to Kumamoto, Kyūshū.
At Honmyoji, the most popular temple in Kumamoto, she witnessed miserable leprosy patients begging for mercy and made up her mind to dedicate her life to the salvation of Hansen's disease patients.
Hannah was politically shrewd enough to sense where authority and power existed, and successfully approached influential people such as leaders of CMS, university professors, industrialists, statesmen, ad influential people such as leaders of CMS, university professors, industrialists, statesmen, and ultimately the Imperial family of Japan.
She was also a highly adept socialiser, creating a close circle of supporters such as Grace Nott, one of the five missionaries who came to Japan with Hannah, and Professors Honda and Kanazawa. Founding a hospital was an extremely difficult task, but Kaishun Hospital, (the English name is the Kumamoto Hospital of the Resurrection of Hope) was opened on 12 November 1895. Negotiations with the CMS were laborious, but finally in 1900, Hannah won the hospital at the expense her quitting the CMS and devoting her life to fund-raising for the hospital. Professors Honda and Kanazawa helped with obtaining the land for the hospital.
Hannah Riddell was not the first foreigner in this field. Father Testevuide, a French Catholic missionary, built the first Hansen's disease hospital in Gotemba, Shizuoka, in 1889. But the greatness of Hannah Riddell lay in how she managed to run the hospital. Naturally she staged fund raising mainly from her mother country, England. Unfortunately, the start of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 brought a great economic crisis. English people, accustomed to various wars during the long history of Europe, immediately stopped sending money to Japan, fearing trouble because of the fleet of Russian warships approaching Japan.
Marquis Okuma donated many cherry and maple trees for the decoration of the hospital. In 1905, he and Viscount Shibusawa, influenced by the eagerness of Riddell, invited many officials and prominent persons to the Banker's Club in Tokyo, in order to listen to Riddell's appeal. At the meeting, Prof. Kanazawa spoke for Riddell to the effect that Kaishun Hospital was a good hospital worth supporting, since Riddell was independent of CMS. As the direct effect of the meeting, Riddell's crisis was avoided, and later Japan's first leprosy prevention law was promulgated in 1907. In 1914, Riddell wrote in a long letter to Marquis Okuma, "I think the expenses of the Government policy would not cost more than a single gun-boat and the yearly expenses could well be met by a tax of about one sen (one hundredth of one yen) on every person in the land. The gain to Japan and to the humanity would be immeasurable."
Riddell was interested in missionary work independent of CMS. She sent missionaries to Kusatsu, a hot spring resort where Hansen's disease patients gathered. Later, Mary Conwall-Leigh, another Englishwoman, did substantial missionary work there. To Okinawa, she sent Keisai Aoki, who was a patient and Christian. Notwithstanding great difficulties, he succeeded in building a shelter, leading to the establishment of Okinawa Airakuen Leprosy Sanatorium. In 1924, a Japanese-style church building was completed within the campus of Kaishun Hospital. It was characterized by a long front wheelchair ramp, imported from England.
In 1918, Riddell established the first scientific Hansen's disease research laboratory in Japan.
Ada Wright, Hannah Riddell's niece, came to Japan in 1896 and joined Riddell. After Riddell's death in 1923, Wright became the director of Kaishun Hospital.
In 1940, relations between Japan and England became unfriendly. In September, Secretary Jingo Tobimatsu was detained in the police station and Ada was questioned for the possession of a short-wave radio. On 3 February 1941, the closure of the hospital was suddenly declared, and patients were transferred to the Kyushu Sanatorium (Kikuchi Keifuen). In April Ada Wright escaped to Australia.
She came back to Japan in June 1948. She died in 1950. The ashes of Riddell and Wright were laid in the hospital ground.
In 1995, the centenary of the Kaishun Hospital was celebrated at Kumamoto, and the stories of Hannah Riddell and Ada Wright were recalled. Lady Boyd thoroughly studied the records of Hannah Riddell left in England and wrote Hannah Riddell, An English Woman in Japan which corrected some of the myths about Hannah Riddell.
Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by mycobacterium leprae. An effective therapy was discovered in 1941 by Faget, 9 years after Riddell's death. Traditionally Japan and Japanese leprologists at that time adopted a segregation policy, but Riddell's thinking was unique. She firmly believed that the only way to stamp out leprosy in Japan was by segregation of the sexes, and she insisted on it as long as she lived. She was against male and female patients even becoming friendly. Kensuke Mitsuda, a noted leprologist, commented that Riddell believed that what ended leprosy in England in the Middle Ages was the legal abolition of cohabitation of the sexes. The patients at the Kaishun Hospital accepted her segregation, but they could visit their families when indicated.
Soichi Iwashita, the director of Fukusei Hospital, the first leprosy hospital in Japan, established by French Catholic Missionary Father Testevuide, met Hannah in April 1931 and wrote the following comments concerning her: