Elwood Gardner Tewksbury

American Protestant missionary to China

Elwood Gardner Tewksbury (born 1865, West Newbury, Massachusetts d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1945) was a Protestant missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions who served in China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[1]

## Life and career

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Tewksbury graduated from Harvard College in 1887, and become one of the first missionary volunteers of the Student Volunteer Movement. He attended Hartford Theological Seminary, and received his degree in 1890,[1] and was ordained at the East Somerville, Massachusetts, Congregational Church in 1890. Elwood and Grace Holbrook Tewksbury were married in 1890 and began serving, first 1890 – 1898 and then 1899 – 1906, in the North China mission station at Tongzhou, now a district of Beijing but then a suburb.[1] Among other projects, he worked with the Tungchow Farm, a poor-relief program which produced foreign vegetables and fruits, taught physics and chemistry at the North China Union College.[2]

They had two sons. Gardner was also a missionary in China and a language scholar.,[2] while Donald George (1894- 1958) taught at Teachers College of Columbia University and was a scholar in history of American higher education.[3]

## Boxer uprising and aftermath

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In the early summer of 1900, as Boxer attacks on Christians and missionaries increased, Tewksbury drew criticism for flying the American flag at the mission compound in Tongzhou, which seemed to confirm the charge that missions were establishing an independent kingdom in China. The day after Chinese army units escorted the Tungzhou missionaries to the capital in June, the mission and college were destroyed, and more than a dozen missionaries killed in nearby Baoding. Elwood and Grace and their two sons, spent the siege in the British legation, which Tewksbury helped to defend. [4]

When Allied armies lifted the siege, his senior colleague, William Scott Ament enlisted Tewksbury's help in organizing food and housing for Chinese Christian families who had been attacked and left destitute by Boxers. With support from Chinese officials they took possession of an abandoned Mongol palace to use as headquarters, and followed the example of the British Legation, which had been holding auctions of looted goods and treasures they had confiscated or been given. Tewksbury demanded that American marines escort him to Tongzhou to settle claims for lost Christian property in 23 villages in which 166 Christians had been killed and 184 of their houses destroyed. Tewksbury took land to be used for future cemeteries or rented out to support widows and orphans. The amount of cash he collected represented the annual income of several hundred village families.[5]

## Later life

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Tewksbury returned to New York City in 1907, where he was executive secretary of the Laymen's and Young People's Missionary Movement from 1907 until 1910. [2] He then returned to China, where he was first secretary for the China Sunday School Union in Shanghai, under the auspices of the World Sunday School Association. He was musical co-editor of the Chinese Hymnal.[6] He traveled throughout China to share techniques of religious instruction and Sunday school management, encouraging the inclusion of athletics in Sunday schools, and supervised translation of a library of Sunday school books.[7]

During the Second Sino-Japanese War Tewksbury was imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp in Shanghai.[8] Shortly after being freed and returning to the United States, he died in Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia.[1]

## References

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* Brackney, William H. (1998), "Elwood Gardner Tewksbury (1865—1945)", Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity
* Thompson, Larry Clinton (2009). William Scott Ament and the Boxer Rebellion: Heroism, Hubris, and the "Ideal Missionary". Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-78645-338-2.

## Notes

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1. ^ a b c d "Rev. E. Tewksbury, China Missionary" (PDF). New York Times. 9 November 1945. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
2. ^ a b c Asen (2010).
3. ^ Renée Beville Flower & Brent M. Haddad, Reawakening the Public Research University. ( 2014 ISBN 9780615970134), p = 39
4. ^ Thompson (2009), p. 46-47.
5. ^ Thompson (2009), p. 198-201.
6. ^ Roeber, Daniel (2016). "Tewksbury, Elwood Gardner". Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781442244320. Retrieved 24 July 2022., p= 2287 Archived 2024-01-05 at the Wayback Machine
7. ^ Brackney (1998).
8. ^ Greg Leck, Captives of Empire: The Japanese Internment of Allied Civilians in China, 1941-1945. (Shandy Press, 2006 ISBN 9780977214105) p.566 Archived 2024-01-05 at the Wayback Machine

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Protestant missions to China

Background|

* Protestantism in China
* Protestantism in Sichuan
* Chinese history
* Missions timeline
* Christianity in China
* Nestorians
* Jesuits
* Protestant missions in China 1807–1953

People|

* David Howard Adeney
* Mary Ann Aldersey
* Roland Allen
* Thomas J. Arnold
* Gladys Aylward
* Joseph Beech
* John Birch
* William Jones Boone
* Pearl S. Buck
* John Burdon
* Thomas Cochrane
* Hunter Corbett
* Jonathan Goforth
* Frederick Graves
* Karl Gützlaff
* Francis Hanson
* Laura Askew Haygood
* Elizabeth G. K. Hewat
* Jennie V. Hughes
* Robert A. Jaffray
* Carl C. Jeremiassen
* Griffith John
* Walter Judd
* James Legge
* Eric Liddell
* Robert Samuel Maclay
* Lottie Moon
* Robert Morrison
* George Moule
* Gideon Nye
* David Paton
* Karl Ludvig Reichelt
* Timothy Richard
* Issachar Jacox Roberts
* Charles Scott
* Cambridge Seven
* George Smith
* Vincent John Stanton
* John and Betty Stam
* John Leighton Stuart
* Elwood Gardner Tewksbury
* Hudson Taylor
* Thomas Torrance
* William C. White
* (more missionaries)

Missionary
agencies|

* American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
* American Methodist Episcopal Mission
* Canadian Methodist Mission
* China Inland Mission
* Church Mission Society
* London Missionary Society
* National Christian Council
* US Presbyterian Mission
* Protestant Episcopal Church Mission
* List of Protestant missionary societies in China (1807–1953)

Colleges and
universities|

* United Board
* University of Shanghai
* Cheeloo University
* Ginling College
* University of Nanking
* Soochow University
* Yenching University
* St. John's University
* Hangchow University
* Fukien Christian University
* Lingnan University
* College of Yale-in-China
* Huachung University
* West China Union University
* Peking Union Medical College
* Methodist Episcopal Church
* Hwa Nan College
* English Presbyterian Mission
* Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui
* Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association
* Reformed Church in the United States

Impact|

* Bible translations into Chinese
* Medical missions in China
* Manchurian revival
* Chinese Christian colleges
* Chinese hymnody
* Chinese Roman Type
* Minnan Roman Type
* Foochow Roman Type
* Anti-footbinding
* Anti-opium

Pivotal
events|

* Taiping Rebellion
* First Opium War
* Second Opium War
* Unequal treaty
* Yangzhou riot
* Tianjin Massacre
* Kucheng Massacre
* Boxer Crisis
* 1911 Revolution
* Chinese Civil War
* Second Sino-Japanese War
* People's Republic

Publications|

* The Chinese Repository
* Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal
* The Christian Occupation of China
* Journal of the West China Border Research Society
* The West China Missionary News

## External links

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* Asen, Daniel (2010), "Finding Aid," Elwood G. and Donald G. Tewksbury Papers, 1872 – 1959 (PDF), Missionary Research Library Archives, Columbia University Libraries

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