Ulster missionary doctor who left lasting impression in Manchuria

When the Presbyterian Church in Ireland sent Dr Joseph Hunter and Elizabeth Jayne Smyth, his wife, to China in 1869 it marked the beginning of a sustained missionary effort in Manchuria.

Between 1869 and 1951 a total of 91 Irish Presbyterian missionaries worked in Manchuria, 31 were ordained, 49 were female and 25 were medically qualified.

They cooperated closely with missionaries from the United Free Church of Scotland and the Danish Lutheran Church.

Despite many trials and tribulations the efforts of these Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) missionaries continue to bear fruit to this day.

Today, the Christian Church is growing faster in China than anywhere else in the world and there may be as many as 150 million Christians in the country.

Many of the congregations started by PCI missionaries are now flourishing with, in some cases, membership numbering several thousands.

One of those missionaries who made a significant difference in China was Isabel Mitchell.

Born in 1879, she was the daughter of the Rev DK Mitchell, the minister of Crumlin Road Presbyterian Church, and his Scottish-born wife.

Isabel (Ida to her family) grew up in a home which predisposed her to a life devoted to evangelical outreach.

David, her brother, became a minister and served as a chaplain with the 36th (Ulster) Division during the Great War.

Her sister Janie married a missionary and another sister married a local clergyman.

In 1897, just before she was about to go to university, Ida heard Mrs Sara Greig, wife of Dr James Greig, a PCI medical missionary who served in Manchuria between 1889 and 1926, give a talk about missionary work in that country.

The lecture had a profound impact on Ida and inspired her to study medicine and to go to China as a medical missionary.

After a faltering start, Ida graduated from Glasgow University in July 1903, having won four medals and two prizes during the course of her university career.

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 delayed her departure to Manchuria but during this period she worked as a house-surgeon in Manchester.

On November 12 1905 she arrived in Fukumen where she worked alongside the Rev and Mrs Fred O’Neill and Miss Sara McWilliams.

Ida was instrumental in opening a new women’s hospital in Fukumen which opened on October 16 1909.

Annie O’Neill, a granddaughter of the Rev and Mrs Fred O’Neill, described it as “the first modern hospital” in Fukumen.

Ida was an excellent doctor and her reputation spread far and wide.

In 1910 she returned home on a year’s furlough but ill-health delayed her planned return. The exact nature of her illness remains obscure but she underwent an operation in Glasgow in early 1912.

To the surprise of many and to her own delight, she received medical permission to return to China in the autumn of 1912.

Ida possessed an iron will but a frail body. As a child she had not been robust. Her fragile health may well have been permanently undermined by her strenuous efforts in the years before the Great War.

On March 16, 1917 she complained of being tired. The next day she had a sore throat and was subsequently diagnosed as having diphtheria. She was expected to make a full recovery but she died on March 23.

At her funeral service Elder Shang, a local Christian leader, said: “Our doctor has given her life for us. For twelve years she has been at the call of any one who suffered.

“She was like a man in her strength, and rose at any hour of the night or day to help us. Her name is known and revered through all this country.”

Elder Shang acknowledged her contribution to the life of the church and expressed their sorrow at her passing but observed that “her work was done, and as a grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die, so she who did so much by her life, will do even more by her death, and we must bow to God’s will”.

She was buried at Kirin, the home of her sister Janie, who was married to Rev James McWhirter, another PCI missionary whose home church was also Crumlin Road and who served in China between 1908 and 1945.

Ida’s letters home to her mother and her poetry are preserved in an edited collection compiled by FWS O’Neill entitled Dr Isabel Mitchell of Manchuria (James Clarke & Co, London, 1917). The editor acknowledged the guidance of Helen Waddell in preparing the book for publication.

Ida Mitchell was not the only PCI missionary who died in the service of Christ in Manchuria.

Two other female PCI missionaries immediately spring to mind.

One is Miss Ruth Dickson, who grew up in the Eglish congregation and who was matron of the Mission Hospital in Newchang Port. She died of fever and malnutrition on December 24 1944 in a Japanese internment camp.

Another is Dr Annie Gillespie, who grew up in the Sandys Street congregation in Newry, went to China to assist her brother the Rev William Gillespie at Kwangchengtzu in December 1896, but died of dysentery only eight months later on July 5, 1897.