Margaret Dryburgh
| Margaret Dryburgh | |
|---|---|
| Born |
21 February 1890 Sunderland, United Kingdom |
| Died | 21 April 1945 (aged 54) Bangka Island, Dutch East Indies. |
| Education | BA Degree in Education, qualified nurse |
| Medical career | |
| Profession | Teacher, nurse and missionary |
Margaret Dryburgh (1890–1945) was born in Sunderland, England and trained as a teacher. She later became a missionary in Singapore, where she was captured in the Second World War. The plight of Dryburgh and her fellow inmates such as Betty Jeffrey in a Japanese prisoner of war camp inspired the 1996 film Paradise Road. She wrote The Captives' Hymn while imprisoned.
Margaret Dryburgh was born in Nelson Street, Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, UK in 1890. She was the eldest child of Reverend William Dryburgh, minister of St Stephen's Presbyterian Church, and his wife, Elizabeth Webster. The family moved to Swalwell, near Gateshead, when Dryburgh was a baby, where her father worked as minister at Swalwell Presbyterian Church from 1895. When he retired in 1906, the family returned to Sunderland, where their local church was St George's in Stockton Road.
Dryburgh trained as a teacher at King's College, Newcastle, after leaving school, later achieving a BA degree from Durham University with distinction in Latin and Education. She then joined the staff of Ryhope Grammar School in 1911, where she taught history, French and Latin for the next six years. She left teaching, however, to become a Presbyterian missionary in 1917, qualifying as a nursing sister to extend her skills. It is believed it was the influence of her mother, a leading light in the Women's Missionary Association, which persuaded her to volunteer for this role.
Dryburgh's first posting as a missionary came in 1919, when she was sent to Shantou in China. Quite by chance, the mission was supported by her family church of St George's, and she was affectionately "adopted" by the Sunderland congregation as "our missionary." It was a critical time in China's history, with a growth in anti-foreign feeling, but Dryburgh managed to learn the Shantou dialect in two years and then started work as a teacher at the Sok Tek Girls' School.
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