John Leighton Stuart

John Leighton Stuart (Chinese: 司徒雷登; pinyin: Sītú Léidēng; June 24, 1876 – September 19, 1962) was a Chinese missionary educator who became the first President of Yenching University and later United States ambassador to China. He was the last person to hold that position before resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries three decades later.

John Leighton Stuart was born in Hangzhou, China, on June 24, 1876, of Presbyterian missionary parents from the United States. His father was a third-generation Presbyterian minister from a distinguished family in Virginia and Kentucky and arrived in China in 1868, one of the first three Presbyterian ministers sent to China from the U.S. and the first Christian minister to preach in Hangzhou. Stuart's mother, Mary Horton (known affectionately as "Mother Stuart" in Hangzhou), founded the Hangzhou School for Girls, one of the first institutions of its kind in China. His mother's family had played a leading role in the American revolution in Boston and her Boston Yankee culture valued the education of women. Stuart had three younger brothers, David Todd (1878), Warren Horton (1880) and Robert Kirland (1883).

Although an American by nationality who spoke English with a Southern accent, Stuart considered himself more Chinese than American. He spoke the Hangzhou dialect. At age 11, he left China to live for several years with relatives of his mother in Mobile, Alabama. At 16, he was sent to prep school in Virginia, where his outdated clothing and mid-19th century diction handed down from his missionary family in China made him a target for teasing by classmates. He graduated from Hampden-Sydney College and later Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, where he aspired to become a missionary educator, inspired by the influence of Robert Speer.

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