Harriett Urmston

Harriett Urmston born Harriett Elizabeth Hughes (20 January 1828 – 4 September 1897) was a British missionary in India who preached to the British wives and soldiers in Rawalpindi. She spent years talking in the UK in support of the Zenana Bible and Medical Missionary Society.

Life Urmston was born in Clapham Common in 1828, but she was brought up in Ryde on the Isle of Wight. This was her family's home as her father was a member of parliament in London. Her parents were Maria (born Field) and William Hughes Hughes.

Harriet sailed for India in 1850 in September. In November she married Henry Brabazon Urmston who had been working for the East India Company since 1847.

She still worked to support the missions and she encouraged support for the Zenana Bible and Medical Missionary Society. This mission was aimed at women in India who could not normally meet a male missionary. It would have been unusual to hear a woman preach in Britain at that time, but on her return she continued to preach. The Temperance advocate Frederick Charrington invited her to preach thirteen times in East London at the Assembly Hall, Mile End. Less formally she spoke in mission halls. She addressed over 32,000 people in 1877 by speaking 276 times at different events.

Private life Urmston and her husband had eight children and six of them outlived their mother; namely Henry Brabazon (1851–1888), Mary Grace (1853–1933), Herbert Edwardes (1855–1885), Gertrude Elizabeth (1858–1916), Arthur Brabazon (b. 1861), Robert Bruce Brabazon (b. 1862), Beatrice Brabazon (b. 1864), and Florence Macan (b. 1866).