Elsie was born into the working-class family of John and Florence Hume on 2 June 1913 in Newcastle upon Tyne, the second child of four. After attending Benwell Secondary Girls' School and Heaton Secondary School, she went on to Elsiedy at Armstrong College, a forerunner of Newcastle University, graduating in 1937 with a Bachelor of Arts. From 1937 to 1947 she was a schoolteacher in Halifax, where, during the Second World War, she was a Civil Defence volunteer.
Hume converted to Christianity in 1932 during her first year at university. In 1946 she married William Elliott, and went with him to China as a missionary with an organisation called the Christian Missions in Many Lands in 1947, and stationed in Yifeng.
Hume was among the last group of missionaries moving from Nanchang to Hong Kong after the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949 and expelled all foreign missionaries from the mainland China. She lived in an illegal apartment in a squatter community in Wong Tai Sin area, known as Kai Tak New Village. She soon learned about corruption because squatters had to pay triad gangs protection money.
Shocked by the poverty and injustices there, and due to her sympathy for the poor of Hong Kong society.
In 1954, she founded and worked in Mu Kuang English School for poor children in an old army tent at a squatter area near Kai Tak. She started with 30 pupils in the tent. For a year, she lived on little else but bread and water until being employed at the Hong Kong Baptist College, teaching English.
She also met her colleague, Andrew Tu in the school, who became her husband 30 years later. The Mu Kuang English School is now on Kung Lok Road in Kwun Tong, serving 1,300 children of Hong Kong's low-income families. She remained as the school principal until 2000.
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Elsie Elliott - A Legacy
Elsie was born into the working-class family of John and Florence Hume on 2 June 1913 in Newcastle upon Tyne, the second child of four. After attending Benwell Secondary Girls' School and Heaton Secondary School, she went on to Elsiedy at Armstrong College, a forerunner of Newcastle University, graduating in 1937 with a Bachelor of Arts. From 1937 to 1947 she was a schoolteacher in Halifax, where, during the Second World War, she was a Civil Defence volunteer.
Hume converted to Christianity in 1932 during her first year at university. In 1946 she married William Elliott, and went with him to China as a missionary with an organisation called the Christian Missions in Many Lands in 1947, and stationed in Yifeng.
Hume was among the last group of missionaries moving from Nanchang to Hong Kong after the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949 and expelled all foreign missionaries from the mainland China. She lived in an illegal apartment in a squatter community in Wong Tai Sin area, known as Kai Tak New Village. She soon learned about corruption because squatters had to pay triad gangs protection money.
Shocked by the poverty and injustices there, and due to her sympathy for the poor of Hong Kong society.
In 1954, she founded and worked in Mu Kuang English School for poor children in an old army tent at a squatter area near Kai Tak. She started with 30 pupils in the tent. For a year, she lived on little else but bread and water until being employed at the Hong Kong Baptist College, teaching English.
She also met her colleague, Andrew Tu in the school, who became her husband 30 years later. The Mu Kuang English School is now on Kung Lok Road in Kwun Tong, serving 1,300 children of Hong Kong's low-income families. She remained as the school principal until 2000.