Arthur G. Nicholls

Arthur G. Nicholls, Chinese name 郭秀峰 Guō Xiùfēng, (1879-1956) was an Australian medical missionary of British nationality to the Miao people of Yunnan Province in China.[1][2]

He was one of the China Inland Mission group which followed Samuel Pollard in South West China.[3] Nicholls arrived in China in 1894 and lost his wife in 1903. In 1906 he was sent to study in Shimenkan. He had as colleagues in Yunnan Gladstone Porteous and his wife and George E. Metcalf. Pollard arranged for Nicholls to settle at Sapushan after some of the Christian Miao from Guizhou had made contact with relatives there.[4]

After Nicholls left in 1944 Wang Zhiming (commemorated among the ten 1998 Westminster Abbey martyrs statues) took charge of the church work in Wuding, Luquan, Fumin, Yuanmou and Lufeng, four villages with some 400 people.[5]

  1. ^ Samuel R. Clarke Among the tribes in south-west China (1984): "Arthur G. Nicholls, and his few colleagues, some Australian and some English, who are working like Trojans".
  2. ^ William Clifton Dodd, Isabella Ruth Eakin Dodd, The Tai race, elder brother of the Chinese: "...especially as our people did not know Chinese, which would be necessary in order to make the journey. A correspondence ensued between Mr. Porteous and myself, and Arthur G. Nicholls when Mr. Porteous was absent on furlong".
  3. ^ 基督教内地会英国籍澳大利亚牧师、医师及神学博士。 1894 年来中国， 1906 年被派到贵州石门坎学习
  4. ^ The Jubilee Story of the China Inland Mission: "Some seventy or eighty years earlier there had been a migration of Miao from the Chaotung district down towards Wutingchow, some two or three days journey north of the capital of the province, and intercourse between these two districts had been maintained throughout. Early in 1906 some of the Christian Miao from Chaotung, when visiting their relatives at Sapushan, north of Wuting chow, saw two men afflicted with leprosy, whom they advised to come over and see the Chaotung doctor Dr. Savin. This they did, and at the same time came into touch with Mr. Pollard, who at once put himself into communication with the C.I.M. workers in Yunnan. The result was that Mr. Arthur G. Nicholls was appointed to this work, and after a helpful time of study of the language and of the people, in company with Mr. Pollard, he took up residence among the tribes at Sapushan in October 1906. From this time onward the closest bond between the work and workers at Chaotung and at Sapushan has been maintained, in fact, it should be mentioned that when Mr. Nicholls left to start his work, the Chaotung Church appointed four evangelists to accompany him, these men to be that Church's representatives."
  5. ^ Joakim Enwall A myth become reality: history and development of the Miao written language (1995).