[Updated 22/Sept/2026]
Charles A Hayes was a Southern Baptist medical missionary who served in China at the beginning of the 20th century.
Born in Odell, Illinois in 1872, he went to California as a young man. In 1896, he felt the call to serve as a medical missionary abroad. He began medical training at the University of California, was appointed as a medical missionary to China in 1901, and graduated in 1902.
That same year he married Alice Johnson, who had also trained in medicine as well as at Missionary Training School (Baptist Women’s). One month later, they sailed to China as missionaries and served for many years, starting in Wuchow. They did medical and evangelistic work.
In 1909 Dr Hayes was a member of the South China Medical Missionary Association and that year at the Annual General Meeting of the West River Branch (SCMMA), he was tasked with contacting doctors across South China with a view to forming the South China Medical Association. One advantage of this group would be the ability to make large group drug orders from England and elsewhere.
While in this group, Dr Hayes worked with American Presbyterian Mission Doctors Kate McBurney and Ida Scott, who owned a holiday property on Cheung Chau (House #2). He was certainly on Cheung Chau with them during the typhoon of 1908, as Dr Scott talks of it in a letter back home, saying that while no life was lost, Dr Hayes of Wuchow was the only one injured (Olive Trees 1908).
In 1910 the South China Medical Missionary Association held its annual conference on Cheung Chau (Olive Trees 1910).
In 1913 they were still serving in Wuchow.
In the 1938 list of European owners of holiday properties on Cheung Chau, we have a Mr C A Hayes as the owner of House #8, who may be this Dr Hayes.
Dr Hayes did dispensary and general hospital work and medical evangelism during the early years. Later he qualified as a specialist in diseases of eye, car, nose, and throat. He was head of that department in Leung Kwong Baptist Hospital in Canton. His wife also did medical work in Canton.
During the Japanese military occupation of Canton, the responsibility for medical work fell largely upon Dr. Hayes' shoulders. In 1942 he and Mrs. Hayes were repatriated and returned to California on the Gripsholm.
Charles Hayes died in 1946, leaving his widow and a son, Arthur who became a professor at the University of North Carolina.
Sources:
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Photos that show this Person
