Gladys Aylward was born in Edmonton, north London in 1902. She was an evangelical Christian missionary in China and her story is told in the book The Small Woman by Alan Burgess. (She was 4 foot 10 inches tall).
The census of 1911 finds her aged 9 and living in a small Victorian terrace in Edmonton with her parents and a younger brother and sister. Her father was a postman. The house now carries a blue plaque in her honour.
After leaving home at 14, she worked for several years as a parlourmaid. The census of 1921 finds her working in Eccleshall, Sheffield for a retired Wesleyan minister and his wife.
In 1920 she went to a Revival Meeting at which she gave her life to God and His service. She started reading books in her employer's library which told stories of missionaries in China like James Hudson Taylor. She felt a calling to go to China herself as a missionary.
In 1928 she enrolled with the China Inland Mission (it was founded by Hudson Taylor), but she failed in her exams and her attempts to learn the Chinese language. Her low level of education was against her. Undeterred, she went back to work and started saving.
She heard of an older missionary Mrs Jeannie Lawson, working in China, who had been wanting a younger woman to take over her work. Gladys saved enough to purchase a train ticket to China in 1930, which involved a huge and complicated journey by train, bus and mule through Europe, Russia, Japan and China, but it was cheaper than going by ship. This was against prevailing advice, but she was determined. The journey and its ins and outs was a miracle in itself.
Once there (Yangcheng, Shanxi Province) she worked for a while with Mrs Lawson. Together they set up an inn (the Inn of the Eight Happinesses) for passing muleteers who carried coal, cotton and iron goods, whom they entertained in the evenings with stories about a man named Jesus. Having to speak for hours each day helped Gladys to pick up the Chinese language (Mandarin). But then Mrs Lawson had a bad fall and died a few days later, leaving Gladys to manage the inn with the Chinese cook/ translator.
Not long afterwards Gladys hosted the Mandarin of Yangchen in her inn, who told her that the government had decreed an end to the practice of foot-binding of young girls and was looking for a candidate for the job of ‘foot inspector’. It had to be a woman, as the Chinese had strict views on association between men and women, and it had to be a woman with unbound feet. Gladys realised this would be a perfect opportunity to help implement this new law and also to pass on the gospel message that was so important. She was very successful in this work.
During her second year in Yangchen, the Mandarin summoned her to quell a riot in Yangchen (men's) prison (she had told the Mandarin that those who trust in Christ have nothing to fear!). With huge courage, the small Mandarin-speaking European woman went in, spoke with the inmates and heard their grievances, and came out with recommendations for changes in the prison system. Things improved and she wasn't needed again.
The people began to call Gladys Aylward Ai-weh-deh, which sounds like her surname, but means Virtuous One. It was her name from then on.
In 1936, she adopted Chinese nationality and was a revered figure among the people. She was the first missionary to do this. She lived frugally and dressed like the people around her and found that helped greatly in being accepted by them.
During her travels as foot inspector, she came across orphaned children, whom she took back with her to her inn and mothered.
Then war came. When the region was invaded by the Japanese in 1938, she had accumulated about 100 orphans, and hearing there was a price on her head if captured, (she had been secretly passing information to the Chinese when behind Japanese lines), she led them to safety without supplies over the mountains and the Yellow River on a miracle 12-27 day* march to Sian. She then collapsed with typhus fever.
Her health was permanently affected by her illness and injuries she received during the war in a bombing raid, and she returned to England in 1947/49* for a badly needed operation.
She stayed for a while, with speaking and preaching engagements, but after her mother died, she sought to return to China. She was unsuccessful. The Communists had triumphed in the Civil War and had thrown out all the missionaries in 1949.
In April 1957, aged 55, she boarded ship, the Chusan, and sailed out to Hong Kong, where she lived for a time and worshipped at St Andrew's Church. While in Hong Kong, she helped start The Hope Mission, which served the needs of refugees from mainland China.
In the same year Alan Burgess’ book The Small Woman came out. Hollywood made a film of her story, ‘The Inn of the Sixth Happiness’, which caused her much distress as it rode roughshod over sensitive personal details and, she felt, damaged her reputation with untrue Hollywood-embellished love scenes.
In 1958, she settled in Taiwan, still adopting children. She started another orphanage, (the Gladys Aylward Orphanage), and (ironically in view of her early failure) taught Mandarin Chinese. She lived and worked here until her death in 1970.
*Sources vary
Sources:
Ancestry
Wikipedia
Comments
Footbinding in China in the 1920s
In her autobiography, China in Life's Foreground, Audrey Donnithorne mentions the practice of footbinding when talking of her younger years in China around 1926.
I quote, 'Much of my care devolved upon our two amahs, kindly country women whom I remember as Wang Wang and Gu Gu. Like most Chinese women of their generation, they had bound feet, and I fear I took advantage of this when, at my bedtime, they tried to catch me as I dashed furiously away from them in my little pedal car, which someone, probably my father, had improvised from tin cans!'
See also this account of Alicia Neve (nee Berwicke) and her campaign against footbinding at the end of the 19th century.
Ancestry Records
1902 24th Feb Born
1902 20th April - Baptised - St Peter’s Church, Enfield, first child of Thomas & Rosina Aylward, Father's Job: Postman; 6 Sunningdale Cottages, Bury Street, Lower Edmonton.
1911 Census – Thomas 33, Postman, and Rosina Aylward 32, Gladys 9, 1 sister Violet 6, 1 brother Lawrence 3 mths, at 67 Cheddington Road, Upper Edmonton.
1921 Census – Gladys Aylward 19, Domestic Servant. 142 Graham Road, Sheffield, detached property, Eccleshall. Rev Rutland Spooner 73, retired Wesleyan Minister, wife Eliza Spooner 71, plus son George and daughter-in-law and grandson, (visitors) and one other domestic servant.
1928-29 – Living at 19 Carburton Street, Westminster, London Electoral Registers.
1932 – Living at 67 Chedington Road, Ealing, London Electoral Registers. Some doubt as she was in China at this time.
1952 – Living at 35 Gloucester Place Mews, W1, British Phone Books. Back in Britain.
1957 4th April - Passenger Lists – Gladys May Aylward 55, Missionary, on the Chusan, dep London for Hong Kong, from 2 Bryanston Mews West, London W1. Intended residence China.
1970 3rd Jan - Died Taipei, Taiwan. Find a Grave Index.