Harrison, Robert S.
1907-2001; e.m. 1929

Missionary in China, born on 25 February 1907. His first appointment was in the Hunan District, China from 1930 to 1943. Most of his first term was spent in Changsha, assisting the Chairman with administration. He started English classes for students from a local government secondary school and soldiers from the garrison, using the Gospels as a textbook. He spent a week each month at Liuyang reviving the work there which had been interrupted by Red Army activity; he walked the sixty miles each way until he got a bicycle, then a novelty in Hunan. In his last year before furlough, 1937-8, he taught English at Hunan University. Returning in 1939, he was posted to Lingling as New Testament tutor at the Central China Union Theological College, which had been evacuated from Wuhan ahead of the invading Japanese troops. A continual stream of refugees passed through Lingling and he was involved in relief projects, as well as in prison ministry and informal chaplaincy to a British military mission training Chinese in guerrilla tactics. In 1943 he took furlough in South Africa on health grounds and returned to Britain in 1945, serving in English, Welsh and Scottish circuits. In retirement he served in local government in Cumbria. He died on 4 May 2001.

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Entry written by: JRP
Category: Person
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