James Scarth Gale

James S. Gale (February 19, 1863 – January 31, 1937) was a Canadian Presbyterian missionary, educator and Bible translator in Korea.

The main source for information about the life of James Scarth Gale is the extensively researched Biography written by Richard Rutt that forms part (pages 1–88) of Rutt's edition of Gale's History of the Korean People (published in Seoul by the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, 1972, 1983). Most of what follows is based on Rutt's account.

James Scarth Gale (in modern Korean 제임스 스카스 게일, in old Sino-Korean characters 奇一) was born February 19, 1863 in Alma, Ontario, Canada. He married twice:

In 1882 Gale entered St. Catharine’s Collegiate Institute, St. Catharines, Ontario. From 1884 to 1888 Gale studied arts at the University of Toronto, including the summer of 1886 at the Collège de France, Paris on a language course. During his first year of study he heard Dwight L. Moody preach and was deeply impressed. On graduation, April 12, 1888 he was appointed a missionary of Toronto University's YMCA and was sent to Korea. On November 13, 1888 he set sail from Vancouver, arriving in Pusan on 12 December, from where he took a coastal vessel to Chemulpo, present Incheon.

In 1889 he visited Haeju, in Hwanghae province and from there moved to Sollae (often called Sorae) village, in Jangyeon District, Hwanghae from March to June. This village was home to Seo Sang-ryun, one of the first Korean Protestants, and his brother who had been baptized by Horace Grant Underwood. From August 1889 to May 1890 he lived in Pusan. In 1890 he taught English at the "Christian School" (예수교 학당). In February 1891 he and Samuel A. Moffet visited John Ross (who had first attempted to translate the Bible into Korean) in Mukden, Manchuria and returned to Seoul in June.

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