Alfred James Broomhall

Alfred James Broomhall (6 December 1911 – 11 May 1994), also known as Anthony James Broomhall, or A. J. Broomhall, was a British Baptist Christian medical missionary to China, and author and historian of the China Inland Mission (renamed as Overseas Missionary Fellowship in 1964, known today as OMF International based in Singapore).

Chinese roots "Jim" Broomhall was born in Chefoo (now Yantai), Shandong, China, in 1911, the son of Benjamin Charles Broomhall and his wife Marion, missionaries to China with the Baptist Missionary Society. The Broomhalls were a missionary family, and Jim was the third generation to be involved in such work. His grandfather, Benjamin Broomhall, had been the general secretary of the China Inland Mission for 20 years and had married Amelia, sister of the founder of the agency, James Hudson Taylor. His uncle, Marshall Broomhall was the most famous of Benjamin's sons as a missionary and historian - a professional pattern repeated in Jim's life.

Commitment to service Broomhall was educated in the city of his birth at the China Inland Mission Boy's Preparatory School (Chefoo School) at Yantai, and later at Monkton Combe School, Bath, England together with his older brother, Paul. When he was nineteen, he read a book about the Yi people (also called Nosu), an isolated people of the Liangshan mountains in China's Sichuan province. Intrigued, he made up his mind to tell them about Jesus. In preparation, like his great-uncle Hudson Taylor before him, he became a medical doctor receiving his training at the Royal London Hospital. Many local Yi came to bid farewell to the missionary family.

New focus Broomhall's investigations as to whether the CIM could undertake medical work in Thailand led to three hospitals being founded there; also a pioneering missionary among the Mangyan people of the island of Mindoro in the Philippines for 11 years from 1953 until he retired.

Writing career When he retired as a doctor, putting down his surgical knives, he started picking up his pen to record history. He spent over a decade going through the vast range of records regarding Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission. Consequently, he wrote a multi-volume biography of Hudson Taylor. Broomhall subsequently held a number of positions in the OMF's national office at Newington Green, London.

Last visit to China In 1988, although in ill health, he obtained permission to visit the Yi again. He returned to the region in Sichuan where he had first ministered to the Yi people. Knowing he could never return again, the teary-eyed doctor picked up a clod of earth to take home with him.

Broomhall died in 1994 in England at the age of 82. Strong Man's Prey (Fields for Reaping) (1953) Philippine Tribes (1955) Time for Action (1965) Hudson Taylor & China’s Open Century Volume One: Barbarians at the Gates; Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1982