Arthur Gostick Shorrock

Arthur Gostick Shorrock (1861–1945) was a Baptist missionary who worked in China for 40 years. Arthur was born in 1861 in Blackburn, Lancashire, England. He entered Spurgeon's College and as a student preacher took services at the Baptist Chapel in Wraysbury. There he met his future wife, Maud Doulton, a relative of both Henry Doulton the pottery manufacturer and William Thomas Buckland the Wraysbury auctioneer. Arthur then left to become a missionary in China before returning to live in Wraysbury after his retirement.

Missionary work in China Arthur joined the Baptist Missionary Society and went to China in 1887, firstly to Shandong. In 1897, he journeyed to India with one of China's most influential Baptist missionaries, Timothy Richard. Richard hoped to see the conditions of mission work in India and was pleased to have the "able and earnest" young missionary as a traveling companion. They visited Sri Lanka, Madras, Agra, Varanasi, Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, where Arthur "had a sharp attack of cholera, narrowly escaping with his life". founded the Sianfu Mission, in present-day Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. Arthur was responsible for the Baptist mission work in Shaanxi and became the Principal of the Shaanxi Bible College. In 1898, Moir Duncan and his wife returned to England on a furlough. Maud Doulton, who was attending the Royal Holloway College before graduating in 1890, was then engaged to Arthur. She left England in January 1900 accompanied by the Duncans. Arthur and Maud were married soon after arriving in Shanghai and they and the Duncans arrived back in Xi'an on 24 May 1900. They resolved to continue their opposition to the opium traffic, urging Christians in China to arouse public opinion against it. The desire of the missionaries that their ideas be carried out caused them to form "continuation committees" that were assigned tasks to assure that action would be taken on whatever matters had been approved by the conferences. He continued working with other missionaries opposed to the opium trade, including writing to Alexander Hosie about poppy cultivation and corruption associated with attempts to end the cultivation.

Anti-Christian movement

Arthur's contributions to China were rewarded with the awarding of the Order of the Excellent Crop, Third Class, conferred upon him by the President of the Republic of China in 1917. Popular sentiment in the 1920s in China was directed against missionaries, foreign merchants, Christian schools, churches and hospitals which were viewed as 'imperialistic'.

Arthur Shorrock helped organise the 1925 Shensi Baptist Conference, writing a book that argued that missionaries were not imperialist. At the time he wrote:

And so when the anti-Christian movement was at its height during the Christmas week, our reply to it was an effort in 'good deeds' visiting the prisoner in his prison, the orphan and the widow, and leaving with each a small gift in bread or cloth or some other useful gift. This is being repeated at the Chinese New Year, and so advantage is taken to show that Christianity is really the witness of a life touched with the feeling of brotherliness, rather than a force to bind the letters of Imperialism, or any other 'ism' It is encouraging to know that 21 have been baptized this year-not so many as we would have hoped, but considering the year, and all its opposition and propaganda, the result is good.

Evangelical methods The evangelical methods used at the time in Shaanxi were described as follows: After his retirement, he returned to Wraysbury and became the minister of the Baptist Chapel there. He died on 13 June 1945 in Windsor, aged 83, and is buried in Wraysbury together with his wife.