Isabelle Williamson

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Isabelle Dougall Williamson , also Isabel or Isabella Williamson, née Dougall, († 1886 ) was a Scottish missionary in China. She left a travelogue from her travels in northern China, particularly dedicated to the life of women in China.

Isabelle Williamson was the wife of the Scottish Protestant missionary Alexander Williamson (1829-1890), who also published travelogues from China, Mongolia and Korea (Journeys in North China, Manchuria, and Eastern Mongolia, with some account of Corea, 2 volumes, 1870 ). He was a representative of the National Bible Society of Scotland and later secretary and founder of the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese (SDCK).

Isabelle Williamson came to China with her husband, who worked for the London Missionary Society, shortly after their marriage and arrived with him in Shanghai in 1855. Her husband became seriously ill two years later and they did not return to China until 1863 (this time he worked for the National Bible Society of Scotland). In the early days of her stay in China, Isabelle Williamson traveled with her husband to Zhejiang Province (Chekiang), where she reported on her observations of women in China. In 1864 she and her husband moved to Shandong Province, which was just opened to foreigners, and got to know the customs and language of the inhabitants in Yantai (Chefoo). There she went on four major trips to study the country and especially the Chinese women and their lives, to spread the Christian message and, as she said, to get the Chinese women in the country used to meeting European women in order to make it easier for their successors do. She made the first trip in 1873 to Weihien, Tsi-nan-foo and Tai Shan , Mung, Yiu hien and Tsingchow-foo, the second in 1875 to Weihien and Tsi-nan-foo, the third in 1881 from Yantai to Beijing, and the fourth in 1882 in the east of Shantung.

Her daughter Margaret Williamson King (Veronica King, 1861-1949) was a writer (her husband Paul Henry King was a member of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service) like her son Louis Magrath King (1886-1949), the British consul on the border with Tibet .

Fonts

  • Isabelle Williamson: Old highways in China, The Religious Tract Society, London 1884, reprint at Cambridge University Press 2010
    • German edition: On Chinas Heerstraße, Basel: Spittler 1888

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ She published her book under the name Isabelle Williamson
  2. ↑ Isabel Dougall in: Entry Alexander Williamson, Dictionary of National Biography
  3. ↑ Year of death according to Jesse Sloane, Confucian Pilgrimage in late imperial and republican China, Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies, Volume 17, October 2017, p. 176
  4. ↑ Alexander Williamson, Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity , from Gerald Anderson (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan 1998
  5. ↑ In a series of articles Our Sisters in China , Leisure Hour 1863
personal data
SURNAME Williamson, Isabelle
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dougall Williamson, Isabelle (full name); Dougall, Isabelle (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish missionary
DATE OF BIRTH 19th century
DATE OF DEATH 1886