Vyvyan Henry DONNITHORNE [1886-1968]

Vyvyan Henry Donnithorne was born in 1886.  He had an older brother and three sisters.  He was educated at Christ's Hospital, Clare College, Cambridge and trained for the ministry at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. 

A Chinese scholar and engineer dreaming of missionary work in China, Vyvyan enlisted in the army in 1914 at the start of the war.  However, a severe leg wound at Loos, France in January 1916, for which he received the Military Cross, ended his military career.

While he was recuperating back home in Twickenham, London, he was visited by Gladys Ingram, whose family lived close by.  The two became close, Vyvyan proposed, Gladys accepted, and they became engaged.  The couple were then separated for the next 3 years as Gladys went out to Egypt to work with Oswald Chambers in the YMCA at Zeitoun.

After Gladys returned in 1919 they married.  Also in that year Vyvyan was ordained and in 1920 they went out with the Church Missionary Society to Sichuan Province in China where for 20 years he served as pastor of the Gospel Church of Hanchow.  

In 1922 their one daughter Audrey was born in Santai, Sichuan.

In 1925 they were captured by Red Lantern bandits with 6 other missionaries for 3 weeks before they were ransomed and rescued.

From 1935 to 1949 he served as archdeacon of the Anglican diocese of West Sichuan.  Daughter Audrey says that also on offer at the time was a parish in Falmouth, which she feels her father might well have preferred in his home county of Cornwall, but her mother, missionary through and through, had strongly opposed it. During this period they left the CMS and formed their own group of like minded missionary friends called The West China Evangelistic Band.

During the War the Donnithornes returned to England (1943-45) but then went back to Sichuan Province to base themselves in Beipei for the next few years.

In 1949 when the Communists took over Sichuan Province, Vyvyan was in England, and had to wait two years for Gladys to be deported to Hong Kong to then join him in 1951.  

His final posting was as pastor of a church in the Canary Isles until 1953 when he and Gladys retired to Hong Kong. They lived in a flat in Kowloon Tong, and their church was St Andrews, Kowloon.

In Hong Kong, ‘advancing years did not deter them’ from lives of service and good works. 

When Audrey visited in 1967 she felt her father was feeling the weight of his years, whereas her mother remained busily active.  In December 1968 Vyvyan suffered a stroke, not his first, and he was admitted to the Matilda Hospital on the Peak, which offered free treatment for missionaries.  He died that same month.

Archdeacon Donnithorne was buried in the Hong Kong Cemetery.  Gladys remained busy until her death in 1977, and she was buried with him.

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Sources: Wikipedia;      MichelleUle.com

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