Kathleen Anne Baird Hall

Kathleen Anne Baird Hall (Chinese name: He Mingqing - 何明清)(4 October 1896–3 April 1970) was a New Zealand nurse and Anglican missionary who served in China. She was born in Napier, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand on 4 October 1896.

She trained at Auckland public hospital. In 1922 she was accepted by the Anglican society for the Propagation of the Gospel for missionary work in China.

In 1923, she arrived in Beijing (at that time called 'Beiping'). For several years she worked at the Peking Union Medical College, which was a well-funded hospital operated by protestant missionaries. She went through several years of language training and eventually was put in charge of a hospital in Datong.

In 1927, she was transferred to a hospital in Anguo, where she was placed in the hospital management. Anguo was the first western hospital in a rural part of northern China. She ran two classes for training nurses in Anguo and trained more than 60 nurses.

She went to rural areas to set up clinics and help the local people. She set up western medical stations in many places that had never seen such things before.

In 1934, she returned to New Zealand briefly to do some studies before returning again to China.

In 1934, she went to Shijiazhuang to help poor Chinese living in terrible conditions with western medicine. She used her own money and even wrote back to New Zealand to ask her family to send her money.

Japanese soldiers began the war in July 1937 following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The first major battle in the war was fought in the area around Beijing (see Battle of Beiping–Tianjin). During this period, Kathleen tended to the medical needs of wounded Chinese. She also met Chinese general Lü Zhengcao who himself was wounded and tended by Kathleen at her hospital in Anguo. She treated many wounded Chinese soldiers at her hospital in Anguo.

She came to know of the Japanese atrocities in the war, like the taking of all the food and supplies from villages, then burning them down. During this time, according to local Chinese sources, she actively assisted the Chinese resistance against the Japanese invaders.

She frequently used her identity as a missionary as a cover to purchase medical supplies that were used by Chinese that were resisting the Japanese invasion. She would purchase supplies in Beijing and then transfer them to rural areas in Hebei or Shanxi. She assisted Canadian doctor Norman Bethune, who was helping the Chinese communists in the Eighth Route Army, in this capacity, and formed a deep friendship with Dr. Bethune.

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