Arthur Gostick Shorrock

Arthur Gostick Shorrock
Arthur Gostick Shorrock (1861–1945)
Born	1861 Blackburn, England
Died	13 June 1945 Windsor, England
Education	Spurgeon's College, London
Occupation	Baptist Missionary
Title	Rev.
Spouse(s)	Maud Mary Doulton

Arthur Gostick Shorrock (1861–1945), a pioneer Baptist missionary in China for 40 years. Arthur was born in 1861 in Blackburn, Lancashire, England. He entered Spurgeon's College and as a student preacher took services at the Baptist Chapel in Wraysbury. There he met his future wife, Maud Doulton, a relative of both Henry Doulton the pottery manufacturer and William Thomas Buckland the Wraysbury auctioneer. Arthur then left to become a missionary in China before returning to live in Wraysbury after his retirement.

Arthur joined the Baptist Missionary Society and went to China in 1887, firstly to Shantung. In 1897 he journeyed to India with one of China's most influential Baptist missionaries, Timothy Richard. Richard hoped to see the conditions of mission work in India and was pleased to have the "able and earnest" young missionary as a traveling companion. They visited Sri Lanka, Madras, Agra, Varanasi, Delhi, Mumbay and Kolkata, where Arthur "had a sharp attack of Cholera, narrowly escaping with his life."

In 1892 Arthur Shorrock and Moir Duncan founded the Sianfu Mission, in present-day Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. Arthur was responsible for the Baptist mission work in Shaanxi and became the Principal of the Shaanxi Bible College. In 1898 Moir Duncan and his wife returned to England on a furlough. Maud Doulton, who was attending the Royal Holloway College before graduating in 1890, was then engaged to Arthur. She left England in January 1900 accompanied by the Duncans. Arthur and Maud were married soon after arriving in Shanghai and they and the Duncans arrived back in Xi'an on 24 May 1900. Seven weeks later, on 6 July they were forced to leave the city secretly to escape the Taiyuan Massacre during the Boxer Rebellion.