Lucy Maud BAIRD [1888-1978]

When Lucy Baird was born in 1888 in Golftyn Lane, Connah’s Quay, on the River Dee, Flintshire, her father, James, was 45, and a foreman in the shipbuilding works. Her mother, Jane, was 42. Lucy had nine siblings, of which she was the youngest.  Some of them died in infancy.  It was in Connah’s Quay that she grew up as the census returns of 1891 and 1901 attest.

After leaving school she trained as a nurse and was enrolled on the register of midwives on 29^th October 1910, at the age of 22.

A year later the census found her working as a sick nurse in the infirmary connected to the Parish Workhouse, West Derby Union, Rice Lane, Walton on the Hill, near Liverpool. She was to be there for the next 16 years and it was while she was there that she felt the call to missionary service overseas.

She is recorded as starting with the BCMS in 1925 (which gives us an overlap of one year with the West Derby Union), and she was still serving in 1947 when the BCMS' First 25 Years Report was published.  She certainly would have left China by 1949 though, when the Communists took over. 

At the end of 1929 Miss Baird went out as a nurse to Nanning, Guangxi Province, China, where she managed Dr Lechmere Clift’s Medical Mission hospital there when he left in January 1930 until his successors, Dr Hugh Rice and Rev W Stott, took over in June. It was a turbulent time with rival factions fighting in the province, but she managed ‘ably and courageously’.  In July of that year she was removed to Wuchow with two other nurses for her personal safety, and in August the two men were also removed.  Their capture would have involved the Society in a heavy ransom.

Around October 1930 Miss Baird went home on furlough, arriving in Liverpool on 21^st November from Canada and heading for the parental home in Connah’s Quay.  By this time her mother had died but her father was still there.

While on furlough in Britain she had her first meeting with Mildred Dibden at the valedictory service of the BCMS at their headquarters in Westminster.  Miss Dibden had just completed her missionary training at Dalton House, Bristol.

In October 1931 they sailed out together from London to Hong Kong on the Corfu, being Miss Dibden’s first voyage there.  Miss Baird was 43 and Miss Dibden 26.  On the Corfu shipping list Miss Baird's address is given as Christ Church Vicarage, St Paul's Road, Bradford.

On the 5 week voyage Lucy Baird as was able to share much from her experience of China as well as give Mildred Dibden some helpful language instruction in Cantonese.

Lucy Baird knew Elizabeth Lucas, who was the experienced missionary superintendent of the BCMS Foundling Home that Mildred was going to serve in.  When they arrived in Hong Kong it seems Lucy went to the Foundling Home with Mildred as it served as a stopping off point for missionaries going up-country.  After that she went on to Nanning to continue helping in the work there.  The hospital had reopened there in April 1931 and a situation of peace prevailed. 

In May 1932 Miss Baird’s father, James, passed away in Treffynnon, Flintshire, at the age of 89.

From 1932-35 she managed the hospital in Nanning without a doctor in charge.

In 1935 another BCMS mission station at Sheung Sz was opened to the south of Nanning.  This became an important centre for refugee work in 1939.

Miss Baird went home on furlough circa May 1936 and returned in September 1937 on the Potsdam from Southampton with fellow missionary Iris Critchell.  Together with some Chinese workers she laboured in Sheung Sz until the advance of the invading Japanese made further work impossible.

In 1937 a new hospital was completed in Nanning.  Also completed was a larger church.  However the tide of war returned and Nanning fell to the Japanese in 1939, the hospital having sustained ‘severe’ bomb damage.  It seems the missionaries were permitted to stay.

In November 1943 most of the missionaries were flown out of Nanning.  Miss Baird stayed along with Mr Osborne​​​​​ and one other nurse.  In August 1944 they were compelled to leave and they made arrangements for Chinese staff to continue the work.

After the War Miss Baird went home on furlough again.  She was still based at Connah's Quay.   She returned to HK on the 14^th September 1946 on the Otranto from  London.  She was 58 and described as a  Missionary Nurse.

There was a return of 10 missionaries to the field early in 1947.  Miss Baird reopened Siu Tung in Canton (Guangdong).  

Almost certainly she left China in 1949 when the Communists came to power and expelled all foreign missionaries from the country, their purpose being to destroy the Chinese church completely.  The church not only survived but continues today.  Lucy Baird was 61 and may well have retired about this time, having lived a very full life.

She died in 1978 in Tonbridge, Kent, aged 90.  (I have some doubts about this as it's so far from home).

Sources: 

‘The First 25 Years of the BCMS’

The Yip Family of Amah Rock by Jill Doggett

Ancestry