They Shall See His Face

by Linda Banks

  This was a bright counterpoint to the wider social and political developments that had been taking place in China. Protests against the West that had first surfaced before Amy and George’s departure had been strengthened by university student unrest and the emergence of the Communist Party. And although the communists had joined the Nationalist Kuomintang Party under Sun Yat Sen, the relationship between them was uneasy. Worsening economic conditions and food shortages lead to further disturbances, as in Foochow in 1924. At times like these the Blind School was reliant on food packages distributed through CMS from England. It also received donations from Australia, including from St Stephen’s Willoughby in Sydney and St Peter’s College in Adelaide.12

  From 1926, a series of larger demonstrations, which sometimes turned violent, took place in Foochow. Some of these arose from within Christian institutions like Trinity College and others were caused by soldiers from outside the province. During these disturbances, several Christian organisations in the Old City, including the Blind School, were attacked.

  On the day of the looting the soldiers went to the Blind School three times, and this is how they were parried. The boys bravely stood around the gate and each time the soldiers came the head boy, who has one sighted eye, was there ready. He assured them that there were no foreigners on the premises. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘we are all blind, and very poor, I am the manager of this place, and these blind people make matting here – there are no foreigners here at all. If you want to come in, please choose a few of your number – you could not all come – I will show a small party of you the whole place.’ … They looked into every corner, and seeing no signs of foreigners or foreigner’s things, they left, but they told the head boy they would kill him if they did find that any foreigners were there.13

  Early the next year, more violent protests took place. The Blind School was looted, the buildings wrecked and pupils turned out into the streets. Mr Woods, the temporary head of the School, and his wife were on site, but fortunately they managed to escape. In early May, soldiers were again involved in looting and robbing a number of Christian institutions, including the nurses’ and doctors’ quarters at Cha Cang Hospital. These disturbances led to missionaries being evacuated from the City for the remainder of the year. The military commander in Foochow arrested 200 agitators involved in outrages against missionaries and summarily executed them.14 During that time, the hospital was run by the Chinese staff alone. Both institutions recovered when life settled down in early 1928. Soon after, the hospital opened new buildings and the Blind School moved to the Western-style Medical University. By then Rev. Norton had returned as principal, and all eight of the students who had toured England were teachers at the school.15

  In 1925 Sun Yat Sen died and General Chiang Kai Shek was appointed leader of the Kuomintang. Because of the latter’s influence, two years later the smaller communist faction withdrew from the Kuomintang and based themselves more in the countryside than in the cities. Starting from Canton, Chiang’s forces began a major military expedition to defeat the ruling conservative Nationalists in the north. On the way they passed through Foochow, and after some heavy fighting they were ultimately victorious. The new capital was set up in Nanking and Chiang installed as the country’s new leader. He initiated laws requiring the transfer of power in schools and hospitals into Chinese hands, and with his Western-educated wife’s help, he sped up the modernisation of China, seeking economic and political support from several major Western countries.

  In the spring of 1930, terrifying news reached Amy and George about two of their friends, English CMS missionaries Eleanor Harrison and Edith Nettleton, who worked at a school in the mountainous north of Fukien Province. These two senior missionaries had been kidnapped by bandits who had loose links with the communists. Amy was the same age as Eleanor and had done three months language study with her in Foochow. English and Australian newspapers were filled with confusing accounts of their plight. Apparently in August, as they travelled down the Min River to the capital, they were captured and a ransom of half a million dollars was demanded. Through the British consul, CMS offered to pay part of this sum for their release.

  While negotiations were taking place, these 60-year-old women were subjected to physical and mental brutalities. They were allowed no privacy, were guarded around the clock by four captors and were constantly harassed by depictions of the terrible fate that awaited them. When their captors received word of the reduced payment, one of Eleanor’s fingers was cut off and forwarded to Foochow. Then, without waiting for a response, on 1 September Eleanor and four Chinese prisoners were given a lengthy, farcical trial. At its conclusion, one of the Chinese was shot and the remaining three beheaded. Eleanor was reprieved for a fortnight while her captors waited for a response, although they told her that her head would be sent to a nearby provincial city, with Edith’s to follow. After a few days, the two were taken to an isolated house on a hillside and beheaded. Immediately after their murders, a letter written by their captors stated: ‘We have power to take you foreigners, hold you to ransom, and kill you.’ 16 For Amy, so many memories flooded back as she read about how her friends’ bodies were eventually found and taken to Foochow for burial beside the other martyrs at Kucheng, who had died 25 years earlier.

  院書光靈

  In planning the visit of the Blind Boys Band to England, Amy had made many contacts within the British Embassy in London. Once these officials realised she was skilled in the Chinese language, she was regularly asked to help Chinese seeking assistance in understanding and filling out documents, looking for employment and making use of community services.

  After the Napoleonic Wars and as a result of the East India Company’s trade with China in tea, silks and ceramics, the number of Chinese living in London grew significantly. A typical permanent resident, mostly from southern China, would sign on as a crew member in Hong Kong and then jump ship in London with the intention of working hard to send money back to their extended family. By the late 19th century, they had settled across the dockland areas of Limehouse and Pennyfields, living on streets with names like Amoy Place and Ming Street. Many opened up shops, restaurants and laundries. Alongside these reputable businesses were not-so-reputable ones that catered to the sailors’ favourite pastimes: prostitution, gambling and smoking opium. As most of the Chinese seamen’s wives remained in China, many of them moved in with British women. As these women knew they would lose their citizenship if they married, most of these mixed couples simply cohabited. The city was also the base for a sizeable floating population of sailors who were between ships,17 as well as a growing number of Chinese students who had travelled to London for study.

  Amy felt sure that God was opening up a new way of serving the Chinese people. Her embassy contacts had connected her with the Chinese community in the East End: ‘Since 1923 a good deal of my time has been spent in work for the Chinese, both in the Embassy and among students – also a definite work for Chinese seamen, their wives and families and those who have married English wives, and their children.’18

  As well as visiting these people in their homes, for the next six years Amy hired a local hall in Pennyfields and set up English language classes, children’s clubs, Scouts and Cubs, Sunday School and church services. For this work she seems to have been paid a small stipend by both the British embassy and the London Chinese Evangelical Mission. Part of the genius of her approach was training a team of voluntary helpers. By the early 1930s she was reaching up to 3,000 men, women and children a year. The growth of the work encouraged the Mission to hire two larger rooms in Gower Street in which Amy often preached on Sundays. Through these services and her personal contacts, many people came forward for baptism.19

  7.4 Chinese in Limehouse during the 1930s.

  On the home front, in 1930 Isabel went to India as a nanny employed by a British army expat family and Marsden began work as a trainee manager. Amy and George decided to move to Ealing, as this was closer to George’s n
ew group practice in Fulham. In the following years, their home became a haven of hospitality to many Chinese people.

  There were those … who would come and see me, Chinese cadets would come up from their ships for a day and a night, and (once) a Chinese radar officer spent three weeks in our house. One steward on board keeps me informed of the dates of his ports of call, from the Persian Gulf, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Western Australia, Tasmania and lastly of Sydney – I send him books and he sends me letters and sometimes rice, to share when my Chinese friends visit me. 20

  A succession of China Inland Mission workers, either setting out for, or on furlough from, various parts of China also lived in their house for longer periods of time. These included a mix of serving and new missionaries including Eric and Edith Liberty, and William Drew, who Amy mentored while he assisted her in the Gower Street mission.

  Alongside his medical practice, on weekends George also helped in the work at Gower Street. Since opium addiction was an issue in Chinatown, his experience dealing with addicts in Fukien was occasionally called on. Around this time, the Gilead Medical Mission, which had a link with CMS, asked if he could act voluntarily as one of its doctors in a dispensary for Jewish people in Fournier Street, Spitalfields. In the 1930s this area was predominantly made up of poorer, Jewish, working-class people. The Mission encountered strong opposition from Jewish community leaders, particularly for its work among women and children, some of whom showed interest in midweek meetings held in the same building. However, the dire needs of the East End during the Depression were so severe that these leaders largely turned a blind eye to what was happening. The Mission stood out among the predominantly garment-making businesses with the words ‘Jeshua said I am the way, the truth and the life’ painted on its facade.

  Meanwhile in India, taking advantage of her new-found freedom, Isabel quickly adjusted to expat living, enjoying the travel and social life in Bombay. Not long after her arrival she met Geoffrey Hazelton,

  a very young officer in the British Army who had been invited to a tea party at the house of one of his commanding officers and had been instructed to dress for tennis. He arrived feeling very hot and nervous late in the afternoon. As he was shown out to the court he saw a young lady playing a match. Captivated he said ‘There she was, this tiny little thing with flaming red hair, laughing and laughing.’ It was not long before he proposed and had to change his regiment because his own would not give young officers permission to marry.21

  Their wedding took place in London in November 1932 and Geoffrey always called her ‘Bonnie’. A year letter Marsden married Elizabeth (Betty) Trace. With the birth of Isabel and Geoffrey’s first child, Peter John Edwin Hazelton, the same year, Amy and George became grandparents. It was several years before Marsden and Betty had a child, whom they named Shuna. Amy enjoyed being a grandmother and Peter has good memories of them doing fun things together.

  院書光靈

  During the 1930s, Amy and George continually received news about developments in China. They were relieved to hear that life was now more settled in Foochow as a result of Chiang Kai Shek’s leadership of the country. A radio station had opened in Foochow, and within a few years every second house in the city had its own wireless. One was donated to the Blind School.22 Every so often, mission schools and colleges, including the Blind School, were asked to come into the radio station to record a musical program containing religious content. Every Christmas, a special carol service and sermon was broadcast across the whole of Fukien Province.

  Despite the earlier disruptions, Cha Cang – now renamed Christ’s – Hospital continued to expand. There were now several doctors, additional nurses and two new midwives. In London in 1933, the annual meeting of the Medical Mission Auxiliary of CMS rated the training of nurses in China as the best among its 54 hospitals throughout the world. The advanced medical treatment of tuberculosis in four of the hospitals, including Christ’s, was also highly praised.23 As the pioneer of these kinds of developments, George must have felt especially gratified.24 A couple of years later, in the Church Missionary Outlook, George and Amy read that two friends, the current Anglican bishop and the ex-principal of the Blind School, Rev. E.F. Norton, were both optimistic about the new life emerging in Fukien Province. Though Christians had experienced much suffering over the decades – from the Hwasang massacre to the present – more Chinese in influential positions and more people in unreached parts of the province were now being reached by the gospel.25

  Amy and George continued to be visited by people they knew in Fukien. Every few years they caught up with one of the CMS missionaries from the province on furlough, someone connected to the work of the Blind School or hospital, or a particular colleague with whom they had a close connection. One of these was Sophie Newton who, with fellow CMS missionary Marion Onyon, visited Amy in October 1937. The following letter provides one of the few, if brief, firsthand descriptions of Amy’s work among the Chinese in London.

  [We] alighted at 7.30pm. Mrs Wilkinson met us and we did so enjoy those who help her. A nice earnest young man is Cub Master and is doing a splendid work among the boys, and this was the third anniversary. The cubs are nearly all half-castes and children of sailors. Later on, the Scouts met. We met the Chinese Evangelist, Mr Chen, who comes from Ningpo and his English wife who works among women and children. It was good to be in Chinatown and see the characters all over the walls. But I must tell you it took well over an hour to get home and yet Mrs Wilkinson has regularly to take one and a half hours by tube and bus to reach the house – she is the same zealous, enthusiastic, worker she ever was, and loves those boys. On Sunday we had a delightful afternoon at the house and met three Chinese students (one English history, one journalism, one philosophy – clever and so nice to talk to). Also a Chinese born in Jamaica (who can’t speak Chinese), a nurse four years in Liverpool and now in a London Hospital, such a dear – a Mrs Lim (a doctor’s wife) from Singapore so young and charming – and both so perfectly natural … We had tea … then we set to work to start rolling bandages in order to help China and also in response to Madam Chiang Kai Shek’s plea for help. It was beautiful to see how ready the young men were to roll bandages … then we went round together to a Baptist Church nearby where Mrs Wilkinson knows the gospel is faithfully preached, as the students are not all Christians.26

  In her letter Sophie also mentioned the concern expressed by the Chinese at the recent Japanese offensive against Fukien.

  In July 1937, the Japanese army began an undeclared war on China near Peking. A month later, the Chinese government ordered the evacuation of Japanese residents from several cities, including Foochow. The Nationalist and communist forces combined in a popular front to resist the invaders. Several northern cities, including Peking, Shanghai and the capital Nanking, fell to the Japanese. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians were killed in the wake of their victories, now known as ‘the Rape of Nanking’.

  In May 1938, the city of Amoy fell to the Japanese, threatening the security of nearby Foochow. Then, at the beginning of June, three Chinese gunboats in the estuary of the Min were bombed and sunk. The naval barracks, shipyard and hospital near the Pagoda Anchorage were blown up, and that part of the city fell to Japanese forces.27 Amy and George were understandably anxious about their ex-colleagues in the capital, as well as the boys and patients in the school and hospital.

  However, they soon had more immediate concerns. After the ‘calm before the storm’ in the opening months of the war, the fall of the first bombs on central London changed life as they knew it. As well as seeking to erode morale before a German invasion, the Blitz was designed to paralyse commercial life by targeting docks and nearby warehouses, railway lines, factories and power stations. During September 1940 and May 1941, 25,000 tons of bombs left much of the East End in ruins and drove most Chinese residents to relocate a few miles away in Soho. This marked the beginning of the final chapter of Amy’s work with the Chinese.

  Amid the
se events, Amy and George became grandparents again with the birth of Isabel’s second son, David Geoffrey Hazelton. As this took place in South Africa, where Isabel was safely located with other officers’ wives while their husbands were away fighting in Palestine, Amy didn’t see her new grandson until he was three. Peter, who would have been eleven by this stage, recounts various stories about his grandma at this time. On one occasion, he went with her to a Chinese restaurant in Soho, and all the staff and diners stood up to show their respect as she entered the room. On another occasion, when bombs were dropping near their house in Putney during the war, Amy prayed on her knees while he tried to peek through the blackout curtains! 28 At the same time in Foochow, Japanese planes were dropping bombs near the Blind School and Christ’s Hospital, fortunately without loss of life. Later in that conflict, however, both the school and hospital were ransacked and badly damaged.29 Only with the Japanese surrender in May 1945 did peace finally return to Foochow.

  By the closing years of the war, several pressures weighed heavily upon Amy. Now in her late seventies, she was feeling the strain not only of an exhausting war but the death of almost all her siblings and many of her friends. George’s health also started to decline, and by 1946 he was showing the signs of what we would now describe as Alzheimer’s disease. It became impossible for Amy to leave the house for any length of time. To help his parents out, Marsden and his family moved into a three-storied residence in central Ealing with Amy and George, and shared the rent. How well this arrangement worked out, we don’t know. In any case, at the end of 1948, Marsden was offered a management position in Sydney by the jewellery company he was working for in London. As this position had long-term prospects, he decided to emigrate with his family as part of the Ten Pound Pom program offered by the Australian government.