Mary Geraldine Guinness | |
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Mrs. Howard Taylor: Missionary and Author
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Born | 25 December 1865 Liverpool, Lancashire, England |
Died | 6 June 1949 (aged 83) |
Spouse(s) | Frederick Howard Taylor |
Parent(s) |
Henry Grattan Guinness Fanny E. Guinness |
Mary Geraldine Guinness (金樂婷; 25 December 1865 – 6 June 1949), often known as Mrs. Howard Taylor, was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China, and author of many missionary biographies on the history of the China Inland Mission (CIM). She was the daughter of the revivalist preacher and author Henry Grattan Guinness, a friend of James Hudson Taylor, founder of the CIM. She became Taylor's daughter-in-law when she married his son, fellow CIM missionary Frederick Howard Taylor.
In her youth, Taylor taught a Bible class for "factory-girls" in Bromley-by-Bow in the East End of London where they lived. She attended meetings at "Berger Hall" named after William Thomas Berger.
She left London for China as a second-class passenger on the P&O vessel Kaisar-i-Hind I in January, 1888, age 22. The Hundred missionaries had all sailed to China the previous year. Among the 25 passengers (16 men, 5 ladies [sic]) aboard the steam ship with her were Miss Mary Reed (daughter of Mrs Henry Reed and sister of Mrs Harry Guinness), Mr and Mrs Hunt (travelling to Hanchung) and the Pigott family of The Sheo Yang Mission (who were eventually killed during the Boxer Rebellion).
As recorded in In the Far East (1889), the Kaisar-i-Hind took a route passing Gibraltar (10:30pm, 31 January 1888), calling at Naples and then passing the Straits of Messina, stopping for a day at Aden and then onward to Colombo, Ceylon.