Annie Royale Taylor (1855–1922): A Missionary Adventurer in Tibet

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In 1894, The Scottish Geographical Magazine published an article, “My experiences in Tibet,” by Annie Royale Taylor. The article was derived from a paper that Annie Taylor read at meetings of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS) in Edinburgh and Glasgow in December 1893.

She began by saying that in addressing members of a learned society, she regretted that owing to her “lack of scientific knowledge and the want of instruments,” she was unable, during what had been her recent travels in Tibet, to make observations that carried scientific weight. However, she felt that because Tibet was so little known in Britain, her experiences had value. She wanted to make clear that she had appreciated the Tibetans as “hospitable, friendly, trustworthy, and by no means averse to intercourse with Europeans.” She described in some detail a gruelling journey of seven months in 1892–1893 in which she had hoped to reach Lhasa, with its Palace of the Dalai Lama. A Chinese man, Noga, who was part of her group, not only stole from her and threatened her life, but took defamatory information about her to Lhasa chiefs. This contributed to making her aspiration to reach Lhasa unachievable.¹

Various writers have found Annie Taylor a fascinating character. William Carey Jr (1788-1853), a son of the well-known William Carey who pioneered Baptist mission in India, was in Tibet in 1899 and subsequent to meeting Annie there was able to publish her diary of her 1892–1893 trek.² More recently, Jo Woolf, a Writer-in-Residence for the RSGS, wrote in 2016 about Annie’s spiritual ambitions, as well as commenting on all that was involved in her travels—with others—in the early 1890s, which included combatting sub-zero temperatures, wind-chill, and oxygen starvation. Jo Woolf said that “it is absolutely astonishing to think that she survived,” since there were occasions when she was equipped “with just a simple tent and a sleeping bag.”³

More than one biography covers Annie as a traveller but does not investigate the spiritual call at the core of her endeavours.⁴ However, as this study shows, Annie Taylor’s spiritual motivation was crucial to her travels. She was an adventurer and explorer, although as one commentator put it, her geographical knowledge was “of the vaguest character.”⁵ Yet, what was primary for her was to bear Christian witness where that had not happened before, notably in Tibet.

Formative Influences and Spiritual Initiatives

Annie (originally Hannah) Taylor told aspects of her own story of adventure and witness in a book, Pioneering in Tibet (1895).⁶ She was born in Egremont, Cheshire, UK, on 17 October 1855. Her father John Taylor, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, was himself a traveller. It was said by some that he spent the greater part of his life “wandering” in parts of the world. He was a director of the Black Ball shipping line. His wealth, as a result of his business, meant that his wife, who was Brazilian, and their ten children, enjoyed privileges; they travelled and lived in several countries.

In Annie’s case, her health was so poor in her early years that she was not expected to live. The medical diagnosis was valvular heart disease. At age nine she nearly died from an attack of acute bronchitis. One consequence of these health issues was she had limited early schooling, although she was able to have later education in England and in Germany, as well as studying art for a time in Italy. Another result of her situation was that she was left to her own devices to quite an extent. This produced a headstrong spirit which was helpful in moulding an intrepid outlook, but caused considerable tension at home.⁷

The spiritual journey that eventually took Annie to China and then Tibet began at age thirteen at a Sunday evening service in a Congregational Church in Kingston-on-Thames. She had been in the habit of going to church or chapel, but at the close of this particular service she seemed to hear a voice which spoke of Christ’s death as being for her. She came to a personal acceptance of Christ and resolved to read the Bible and follow God’s way for her life. It was not clear to her what she could do, but another turning point was at a meeting held by the leading evangelical, Lord Radstock. Among those at this meeting was Syrie Louise Emsley, who married and then worked alongside the Christian philanthropist and founder-director of homes for poor and deprived children, Thomas Barnardo. She bluntly asked Annie when Annie was going to work for Jesus. In a typical response, Annie went looking on the streets of Richmond-on-Thames to find a poor person to help, but failed to find anyone.

The call to become a missionary overseas came when she was sixteen. She was at a boarding school by that stage—Clarence House School, Richmond—and she heard a talk by John Moffat, the son of the pioneering missionary in Africa, Robert Moffatt.⁸ John Moffat addressed himself to the young men in the audience. He did not seem to see the need to encourage young women, despite his mother, Mary Moffat, being an outstanding woman who was fully involved in pioneering alongside her husband and who at times had greater faith than he had regarding the outcome of their work.⁹

Annie did not feel restricted by the call being directed towards young men. The mission to which she was attracted was the China Inland Mission (CIM), with its entrepreneurial “faith” principles and acceptance of women. She began to make plans to join CIM, with a view to Tibet. Her father was adamant that he would not support her. However, Annie was as strong-minded as her father, perhaps even more so, and although she did not find a way to go overseas at that point, she sold her jewelry and so was able to rent accommodation in London. This was especially so that she could undertake training as a nurse.

In 1884, she was accepted by CIM and sailed to China, to be located in Gansu Province on the border of Tibet. In her journey to China, she was accompanied by a friend, Nellie Barclay, who went on to marry another CIM missionary, Tom Botham, and served in China until 1927.¹⁰ Annie learned Chinese and worked for a time near the Tibetan frontier. In 1887 she visited the monastery where the French priests, Gabet and Huc, had learned Tibetan.¹¹ Her CIM service was, however, tumultuous and ended prematurely after three years. She was such a strong individualist that colleagues found her difficult. Nonetheless, Hudson Taylor, the founder of the CIM (no relation) appreciated her spirit and Annie spoke of the friendship of Hudson Taylor and his wife Maria as “one of the joys of my life.”¹²

Entering Tibet

The choice that faced Annie after her CIM period was either to return to Britain or to find a new direction to achieve her Tibetan goal. Her health was still an issue so she had a period of recuperation in Australia. Her father had by this time accepted her way of life and was giving her support, as was her mother, who had come to a new spiritual experience while in Italy.

On returning to Asia, this time to India, Annie was initially in Darjeeling and came to know missionaries, such as the Scottish Presbyterians, John A. Graham and his wife Katherine, in Kalimpong.¹³ Her father came out to India to see her. As a member of the Royal Geographical Society, he could bring back informed reports. Annie spent a year in the Indian state of Sikkim (West Bengal) and from there she could see snow-capped peaks that were the way into central Tibet, and to the holy city of Lhasa to the north. For Tibetan Lamaism, a form of Buddhism, the city was a shrine. Sikkim was a “gate” to Tibet.¹⁴ Annie lived in basic local accommodation to understand more of life in the region and learn the Tibetan language. As an outsider who was asking about Tibetan customs, she came under suspicion. At one stage there was an attempt to poison her by offering her eggs laced with aconite. During the time she spent close to the Tibetan fort of Khambajong, a Tibetan chief objected to her presence and ordered her back to Darjeeling. She then found a relatively safe space near a Tibetan monastery.¹⁵ Having endured considerable mistrust in her early days, it is to Annie’s credit that she later became accepted in the Tibetan context.

During the period Annie was in Sikkim, she learned to speak Lhasa Tibetan. Further, the training she had in London meant that she was capable of basic medical help. One person she treated was Pontso, a nineteen-year-old young man escaping from cruelty in Lhasa. In her subsequent travels, Pontso was her companion. Having embraced the Christian faith through Annie, he (and later his wife) became her firm support and fellow evangelist.

In 1891 Annie moved from India to China, together with Pontso and a small team she gathered. Gnatong was to be a longer-term base. China was seeking to keep anyone from Britain or Russia out of Tibet, as these political players in the “Great Game” discovered Tibet’s potential for trade.¹⁶ Despite the dangers, or perhaps because of them, Annie was determined to keep Lhasa firmly in view. Preparations for a journey into Tibet began. Cooking pots and pans, supplies of food, sleeping bags, cloth for barter, and gifts for any chieftains, were all gathered for the expedition. Annie adopted as much of the local way of dressing as she could. Her “library,” carried in the folds of her sheepskin gown, consisted of a New Testament and Psalms, a hymn-book, and Daily Light devotions. Six people and sixteen horses set off on 2 September 1892 for what would become the famous 1892–1893 trek, following a Tea or Silk Road used by merchants. Mary Russell described Annie, their leader, as a “rocklike and forceful woman.” These qualities were essential.¹⁷

At a later time, William Carey Jr, based at Serampore, India, visited Annie Taylor, after having read her Pioneering in Tibet. He regarded the claim to be a “pioneer” as unfortunate since the Moravians had been active in these regions since 1856.¹⁸ (Annie was well aware of this, and before producing Pioneering had paid tribute to “the heroic Moravians” and their translation of the New and part of the Old Testament into the Tibetan language.)¹⁹ On his visit, Carey was excited when Annie opened a drawer and took out a black, fairly dirty and wet, notebook. It was a diary she had kept during 1892–1893. He did not attempt to read it, as it was evidently written in a kind of shorthand, but he was intrigued, and later asked Annie if he could borrow the diary. He managed to decipher and transcribe the 162 pages and was then able to publish it along with other work on Tibet.

The diary had vivid accounts of warding off bandits and robbers, sleeping out in the open, and navigating frozen waters. There was much to create interest from a cultural standpoint; for example, Annie’s record of her encounter with members of a tribe, the Golok, known to be ferocious fighters with raiding parties 2,000 strong, who had never been subdued by either Tibet or China. The expedition fell into the hands of one of their clans, but as it happened, this clan was ruled by a female chieftain, Wachu Bumo. When Bumo heard that Annie’s group was led by a woman, she gave her protection.²⁰

The widely read evangelical paper, The Christian, which followed her activities, hailed Annie as opening the way into Tibet, as David Livingstone had done into Africa.²¹

However, it proved impossible for Annie to achieve her goal of reaching Lhasa, despite the fact that after travelling almost 1,000 miles only three more days of travel remained. The message from Lhasa was that officers would bar her entry. She protested, and although Lhasa remained prohibited, she was able to obtain a tent, horses, and provisions for the return to China^.22 The group was by then diminished, because one member had proved untrustworthy, and another had died due to the extreme conditions.

The remaining members turned east and reached the border town of Tachienlu (Kangding) in April 1893. Isabel Robson, a prolific and popular author of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century period, recorded that Annie “was most kindly received” by French Catholic missionaries there.²³ Annie now concluded that she needed to recruit a team from Europe for Tibet.

Recruiting a Team

In July 1893, back in London, Annie approached the CIM’s London Council about her vision. There was some logic in CIM including Tibet in its purview, as a protectorate of China, but the CIM view was that outreach to Tibet would need to be from India and the CIM could not make India part of its mission.²⁴ A suggestion was made that Annie might link with the International Missionary Alliance (later the Christian & Missionary Alliance, CMA), which was based in the USA and had an interest in Tibet.²⁵ The CMA in early years gave considerable space to women, but this lessened over time.²⁶ Unsurprisingly, Annie did not warm to the suggestion of being absorbed into a much larger body. She proceeded to set up her own Tibetan Pioneer Mission and the CIM expressed its full sympathy.²⁷

Meetings were set up across Britain, and these attracted large audiences, especially in Scotland. She was making her experiences in Tibet known in various publications.²⁸ She had avowed and able publicists on her side, such as Annie Marston, a missionary writer who produced a book, The Great Closed Land: A Plea for Tibet (1894).²⁹ At meetings, Pontso, with Annie as translator and with both in Tibetan dress, shared his story and experience of Christ, asking for help for “his brothers and sisters in Tibet.”

Annie, in her talks, appealed for twelve missionaries for Tibet. It seems clear that Annie’s “warm heart, her keen merry eyes, her manner full of engaging frankness, her light-hearted acceptance of the discomforts inseparable from the performance of her task” inspired her audiences.³⁰ Evan Mackenzie, from Dingwall in the north of Scotland, was among the first to respond. He was accepted to travel accompanied by his wife, Elizabeth, and their infant child.³¹ There were six others from Scotland—from Peterhead, Aberdeen, and Peterculter in the north, and Dunfermline, Lochgelly, and Greenock in Scotland’s central lowlands. Only two came from England (from London). Unusually for a small British-based initiative, four were Scandinavians who were seeking mission opportunities: Theodor Sørensen and Edvard Amundsen (Norway), Johan Johansen (Sweden), and Anders Jensen (Denmark). A public farewell meeting for the “Tibetan Pioneer Mission” band was held in London’s Exeter Hall, an evangelical centre that hosted many large events. The report in the CIM’s China’s Millions, stated that Annie regarded her mission agency as a “child” of CIM.³²

With the help of her CIM contacts, Annie had managed to assemble an impressive set of “referees” for her Mission including Hudson Taylor himself. An influential female supporter was Annie Macpherson, based in the East End of London. She offered food, shelter and various kinds of industrial or domestic training to children, initially to boys, and by the 1880s also to girls, wives, and mothers. She was also holding well-attended evangelistic meetings at the time when Annie Taylor knew her. Leading figures in the large interdenominational Keswick Convention, an annual evangelical gathering in the English Lake District, also lent their support, including Elder Cumming, a Presbyterian minister in Glasgow, H. B. Macartney, an Anglican clergyman in Melbourne, Australia, and Robert Wilson, of Cockermouth, a Quaker who was one of the founders of the Convention in 1875. With such support, by early 1894, the Tibetan Mission’s newsletter happily announced that sufficient money had been received to fund the team’s journey to India and their early months there.³³

On 23 February 1894, the team set sail from the Royal Albert Dock on the steamship Manora. The journey, the arrival in Sikkim, and then what proved to be the difficult move to Gnatong, were recorded by one of the team members, Henry Martyn Stumbles. He was only twenty when he volunteered to join Annie in the new mission. His home was Lewisham, in southeast London. His committed evangelical family had given him the name Henry Martyn, after the inspirational nineteenth-century missionary from Cambridge who went to India and then to Persia. Stumbles noted in his papers that to be involved in missionary service was the “realisation of a long-cherished desire.” He had begun medical studies. (Annie had wanted qualified doctors but did not manage to recruit them.) The reports by Stumbles on the Tibetan Band’s experiences were extracts that he took from his personal diary, and these were published in 1895–1896 in the newspaper, the Kentish Mercury, under the heading “A Lewisham Man in Furthest India.” On his return to Britain, Stumbles began to preach in Baptist, Methodist, and Free Church of Scotland congregations, communicating his interest in crossing cultures. He subsequently obtained his medical qualifications at the University of Edinburgh and had medical practices in England.³⁴ Annie’s influence continued.

Divergent Directions in Mission

Though Annie had recruited a gifted team, she probably did not have the gifts to lead such a large and diverse group. Divergence took place. Carey later records that within a few months of settling in Gnatong, an “inevitable” breakdown of relationships occurred. This was due to “incompatible elements” between Annie and her recruits “which ought to have been foreseen.”³⁵ Her CIM experience should have flagged this. On some issues, her views were markedly at variance with those of the team.

Annie found Gnatong a place of interest, while for Stumbles (and probably others) it was completely inhospitable. No accommodation had been arranged. It is also almost certain that a group of men at that time would not have previous experience being led by a woman.³⁶ In 1895, a notice in China’s Millions stated, somewhat ingenuously, that Annie Taylor, “notwithstanding her remarkable energy and endurance, has found the burden of leading the Mission too heavy for her.” She had requested “friends she knew” to invite Cecil Polhill-Turner, who had been a member of the famous Cambridge Seven who went to China with the CIM, to take responsibility for the Tibetan Band members. He and his wife had served on the Chinese-Tibet border. He was pleased to help, as he put it, in “setting free Miss Taylor for the more direct work of pioneering, a work which lies so near her heart and for which she is so especially suited.”³⁷

For her part, Annie was deeply disappointed. Only one of the team, Anders Jensen, wanted to remain with her, but sadly, he died of typhoid. In a letter to Hudson Taylor’s wife, Maria, in January 1895, Annie claimed that the men had wanted a mission “on a big scale like the established Church Missions,” and that they “did not understand trusting God & going forward.” This was clearly not the case, since most team members eventually accepted a transfer to the small scale CIM. One of them, William Soutter, from Peterhead in north-east Scotland, became a leading figure in CIM work on the Chinese-Tibetan border. Sørensen, who also joined CIM, was the first Protestant missionary systematically to compare crucial aspects of the Christian and Buddhist faiths.³⁸ In March 1896, Polhill-Turner and Hudson Taylor agreed that the Tibetan Mission would be officially affiliated with CIM.³⁹

Annie, meanwhile, told Maria that she was “asking for sisters” to go with her. She had concluded that the men “found hardships in things which the sisters in China would praise God for.”⁴⁰ Making her new appeal for women, Annie wrote that work in Tibet meant (as she knew) “suffering cold, privation and other hardships.” She asked for “women of God, who knowing the difficulties and counting the cost, will willingly give their lives to the work of God” in Tibet. She assured that they would find, as a blessing, that “Tibetans respect women.”⁴¹

For over a decade from the mid-1890s onwards, Annie was settled in Tibet, trading in a shop she set up. The Regulations regarding Trade, Communication, and Pasturage attached to the 1890 Sikkim-Tibet Convention had permitted British traders to reside in Yatung, in the Chumba Valley. The shop, dedicated to medicines and small items, was popular. Annie saw her work as “missionary” in character.

Meanwhile, her appeal for “sisters” elicited a response. In an 1897 booklet, Pioneering in Tibet, she named Bella Ferguson and Mary Foster as coworkers. Among their activities—alongside the shop—were giving out Gospels and illustrated “Text Cards” in Tibetan and Chinese. These amounted to several thousands over time. The cards, produced by Emma Grimké in Manchester, were translated into over fifty languages.⁴² Copies of the Gospels even found their way into monasteries. Merchants who passed through were among those who asked for literature. The three women were making friends with local people, and on Christmas Day 1896, a tree was lighted and over 200 Tibetans and Chinese came to have tea, cake, bread and jam, and receive gifts. Annie also gave a magic lantern show on New Year’s Day. (This is an early image projector, which used pictures on glass plates, a lens, and a source of light. Missionaries were among those who used them.) Some British soldiers who came to be stationed nearby began to attend meetings. On two evenings each week there were evangelistic meetings, with another evening devoted to Bible study and still another to a prayer meeting. Annie reported that “some of the men have decided for Christ,” and that one, John T. Collier, a former lance corporal from the Manchester Regiment, was her “right hand helper” in work among soldiers. He then left the army to study at the Methodist Cliff College, Derbyshire.⁴³ This was evidence that Annie could work with men.

The time with female coworkers was fruitful. Bella Ferguson reported being given a new name by the local women—Anni Saba. The term “Anni” was one given, out of respect, to single women. It was also a term for Buddhist nuns. Bella began to teach local children. She made local visits such as to a Tibetan chief who had rented a storeroom and housing to Annie. He was pleased, together with his wife, to meet Bella. At the local temple she and Mary also found a warm reception and were shown Buddhist prayer-wheels.

Annie, Bella, and Mary could all sing, and they had managed to procure a harmonium for musical accompaniment. The Tibetans were “enchanted with the playing and singing.” The ladies used hymns and songs to convey the Christian message. Some locals and itinerant travellers were coming back to meetings again and again. One notable visitor, who came with his wife on several occasions, was the Prime Minister of Bhutan. He took a copy of the Gospel of John. Bhutan, together with Nepal and Tibet, constituted “closed lands” and in his book on that subject, J. A. Graham drew attention to Annie as a trader at Yatung who was “working and witnessing” and whose “notable expedition” had taken her near to Lhasa.⁴⁴ Bella Ferguson concluded her report by saying that quite a few Tibetans “had been healed in the name of Jesus by the laying on of hands in answer to prayer.”⁴⁵ Trade, witness, medicine and prayer for healing all went hand in hand.

By 1899, however, despite her efforts, Annie was once again left without her British coworkers. They were denied extended permission to stay, presumably by the British authorities. Distribution of the Scriptures remained essential for her, and funds were available for that. But Annie spoke of being exhausted, and her sister Susette, who with another sister had visited Annie, wrote in 1904 about Annie as “the only Englishwoman in Tibet.”⁴⁶ In 1903–1904 there was a British invasion of Tibet, motivated by a fear of Russian influence. Initially, Annie sympathised with the British perspective and volunteered as a nurse to give medical help to the wounded. But as more and more Tibetans were killed, she found herself at odds with the British military. As always, her concern was for Tibetans. Her verdict in 1905, writing to The Christian, was that “the prestige of Britain has been weakened all along the border between Tibet and India, the only gain in this respect being on the part of China.”⁴⁷ Annie was feeling great strain and in 1907 she left the region for good: “Completely broken down by the stress of work, anxiety and disappointment, she returned to England where, her friends hoped, a prolonged rest would restore her to health.”⁴⁸ Restoration was at best partial.

Conclusion

Annie Royale Taylor’s pioneering endeavours and reports thereof did a great deal to raise the profile of Tibet in evangelical missionary thinking. Her early life, with her health limitations, did not hold out promise of what she became, but her powerful faith, sense of missionary calling, and her spirit of adventure led to achievements that were remarkable. After her trek of 1892–1893 she was able to mobilise a team for Tibet, and although she largely failed to retain their allegiance, a number of them continued to serve in the region, several with CIM. William Soutter and Theodor Sørensen served long-term with the CIM. So did James Moyes. (Interestingly, he eventually had a rose native to western China, Rosa moyesii, named after him.) Edvard Amundsen, too, was with CIM before joining the Bible Society. Evan and Elizabeth Mackenzie stayed in Kalimpong in the service of the Church of Scotland mission.⁴⁹

Annie was able to live in Tibet for over a decade and her missionary witness, for a time with two other women, was significant. But it seems evident that from the 1880s to the early twentieth century she had overstrained herself, physically and mentally. The hoped-for full recovery in England did not happen, despite care from sisters and brothers in her large family. In later life Annie lived in Otto House, a psychiatric hospital in Hammersmith, London. She died there. Like many of her contemporaries she was “a sincere and zealous missionary,”⁵⁰ and uniquely, a missionary adventurer.

Notes

1. The Scottish Geographical Magazine, 10/1 (Jan 1894) 1–8.
2. William Carey, Travel and Adventure in Tibet: Including the Diary of Miss Annie R. Taylor’s Remarkable Journey from Tau-Chau to Ta-Chien-Lu Through the Heart of the Forbidden Land (Hodder and Stoughton, 1902). Annie’s diary is reproduced in pages 137–285.
3. Jo Woolf, “Annie Taylor: Breaking into Tibet, with Cold Tea and a Christmas Pudding” (unpublished, 2016). I am grateful to Jo Woolf for this text, which began as a blog. The title refers to Annie making tea which had to be drunk before ice formed, and at Christmas, making a pudding.
4. For example, Luree Miller, On Top of the World – Five Women Explorers in Tibet (The Mountaineers, 1984); Jane Robinson, Unsuitable for Ladies: An Anthology of Women Travellers (Oxford University Press, 1994).
5. Graham Sandberg, The Exploration of Tibet (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co., 1904) 211.
6. Annie R. Taylor, Pioneering in Tibet (London: Morgan & Scott, 1895).
7. Isabel Robson, Two Lady Missionaries in Tibet (London: S.W. Partridge & Co., 1910) 11–13. This book looked at Annie and at Dr. Susie Carson Moyes.
8. For one account of Robert Moffat, see William Walters, Life and Labours of Robert Moffat (London: W. Scott, 1883).
9. John himself wrote about his parents: John Moffat, Lives of Robert and Mary Moffat (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1885).
10. See the book by her daughter, A Life Worth Living: Nellie Botham of North China (London & Edinburgh: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1939).
11. For their work, M. Huc, Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China, During the Years 1844–5–6 (London: National Illustrated Library, 1852).
12. Ruth A. Tucker, “Unbecoming Ladies,” Christian History, 52 (1996) 30–33; Taylor, Pioneering in Tibet, 6.
13. Some missionaries in the Darjeeling/Kalimpong region hoped to move into Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal. See J. A. Graham, On the Threshold of Three Closed Lands (Edinburgh: R. & R. Clark, 1897).
14. See L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism (Cambridge: W. Heffer, 1895); J. A. H. Louis, The Gates of Tibet (Calcutta: Catholic Press, 1894).
15. Annie R. Taylor, Tibetan Pioneer Mission: The Origin of the Tibetan Pioneer Mission Together with some Facts about Tibet (London: Morgan & Scott, 1894) 2–3. I am indebted to John Bray, “Stumbling on the Threshold: Annie R. Taylor’s Tibetan Pioneer Mission, 1893–1907,” Bulletin of Tibetology 50/1–2 (2014) 91–116.
16. Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game (London: John Murray, 1990).
17. Mary Russell, The Blessings of a Good Thick Skirt (Coogee, Australia: Flamingo, 1994) 46.
18. Hermann G. Schneider, Working and Waiting for Tibet: A Sketch of the Moravian Mission to the Western Himalayas (London: Morgan & Scott, 1891); John Bray, “Christian Missionaries on the Tibetan Border: The Moravian Church in Poo (Kinnaur), 1865–1924,” Tibetan Studies (1892) 369–75.
19. Taylor, Tibetan Pioneer Mission, 4.
20. William Carey, Travel and Adventure in Tibet: Including the Diary of Miss Annie R. Taylor’s Remarkable Journey from Tau-Chau to Ta-Chien-Lu Through the Heart of the Forbidden Land (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1902). Annie’s diary is in pages 137–285.
21. “Miss Annie R Taylor. Chinese Missionary and Traveller in Tibet,” The Christian (17 August 1893).
22. Jo Woolf notes that the first European woman to enter Lhasa was a Frenchwoman, Alexandra David-Néel, in 1924.
23. Robson, Lady Missionaries in Tibet, 78. For early Catholic mission, see Filippo de Filippi, ed., An Account of Tibet: The Travels of Ippolito Desideri of Pistoia, S.J., 1712–1727 (London: George Routledge, 1937).
24. Bray, “Stumbling on the Threshold,” 96, citing School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Library Archives and Special Collections. China Inland Mission archives: Minutes of 18 July 1893, London Council Minute Book [LCMB], vol. 7, 141–42.
25. Wenwen Li, “Kansu-Tibetan Border in the Eyes of American Christian and Missionary Alliance Missionaries,” Ching Feng: A Journal on Christianity and Chinese Religion and Culture 14/1–2 (2015) 71–90.
26. Klaus Fiedler, The Story of Faith Missions (Oxford: Regnum, 1994) 301.
27. Bray, “Stumbling on the Threshold,” 96, citing Minutes of 5 Sept 1893, LCMB, vol.7, 153; Minutes of 2 Oct 1893, LCMB, vol. 7, 164.
28. For example, Annie R. Taylor, “An Englishwoman in Tibet,” National Review (September 1893) 19–35.
29. Annie Marston, The Great Closed Land: A Plea for Tibet (London: S.W. Partridge; New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1894) 107–8. This was publicised in The Spectator (1 Dec 1894).
30. For this, see Robson, Lady Missionaries in Tibet, 79–81; D. Middleton, Victorian Lady Travellers (London: Routledge, 1965) 124.
31. Taylor, Tibetan Pioneer Mission, 7.
32. “The Tibetan Pioneer Mission,” China’s Millions (1894) 46–48.
33. Taylor, Tibetan Pioneer Mission, 9, 10.
34. See Henry Martyn Stumbles Papers, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, HS/1–HS/11. My thanks to the librarians. The letters can also be searched through the British Library Newspaper Archive.
35. Carey, Travel and Adventure, 143–44.
36. Inbal Livne, “The Many Purposes of Missionary Work: Annie Royale Taylor as Missionary, Travel Writer, Collector and Empire Builder,” in Protestant Missions and Local Encounters in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, ed. H. Nielssen, I. M. Okkenhaug and K. Hestad-Skeie (Brill, 2011) 59 full page range, 43–70.
37. China’s Millions (1895) 6. For Polhill-Turner see John Usher, Cecil Polhill: Missionary, Gentleman and Revivalist, Vol. 1 (1960–1914) (Brill, 2020).
38. Published later as The Difference between Christian and Buddhist Teaching Concerning God, Creation, Man, Sin, and Salvation (Kalimpong, India: World Mission Prayer League, 1962).
39. Annie Marston, With the King (London: Marshall Brothers, 1905) 171–72.
40. Bray, “Stumbling on the Threshold,” 107, citing Annie Taylor to Mrs. Hudson Taylor, 19 Jan 1895. SOAS CIM archives. CIM/JHT Box 15/412–419/Letters 1895–1899.
41. Bray, “Stumbling on the Threshold,” 108, citing Annie Taylor, May 1895, a printed letter included in Tibet Pioneer Mission pamphlet. SOAS CIM archives. CIM/JHT, Box 15, letters 1895–1899.
42. These cards were also used by Susie Carson Rijnhart (later Moyes). See her With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple (London: White Lotus, 1902) 202, 212.
43. Annie Taylor, report and letter dated “Gnatong, 1895,” in Pioneering in Tibet (London: Morgan & Scott; Delhi: Pranava Books, 1897) 52–57.
44. Graham, On the Threshold, 44.
45. Bella Furguson report, Pioneering in Tibet (1897) 58–70.
46. Susette M. Taylor, “The Only Englishwoman in Tibet,” Wide World Magazine 13 (1904) 391–401, 440–44, 528–34.
47. “The Present Position in Tibet,” The Christian (20 July 1905) 16.
48. Robson, Lady Missionaries in Tibet, 112.
49. Bray, “Stumbling on the Threshold,” 113. For a wider picture of Mission relating to Tibet see Paul Hattaway, Tibet: The Roof of the World (SPCK, 2020).
50. Livne, “The Many Purposes of Missionary Work,” 68–70.