Mary Ann Aldersey

Mary Ann Aldersey (, 24 June 1797 – September 30 1868) was the first Christian missionary woman (married or single) to serve in China proper (excluding Macau & Hong Kong, where Henrietta Shuck had been working earlier). She founded a school for girls in Ningbo, Zhejiang. She was the youngest of four children of Joseph and Elizabeth Aldersey; they belonged to a Church of England congregation led by the Rev. John Eyre (one of the founders of the London Missionary Society), but they later joined a Congregational Church under Rev. John Pye-Smith (a fervent abolitionist).

Aldersey was a native of London from a wealthy nonconformist family. Her father, Joseph, was considered a social leader amongst the small episcopal congregation of Dr. Pye Smith. Aldersey joined the congregation as a member at the age of twenty-one and worked as the financial secretary of the Ladies’ Bible Association. When her mother, Elizabeth, died in 1822, she was required to fulfill twice her usual domestic duties.

Language training

In 1824, Robert Morrison moved to East London and taught English women who were interested in missionary work (usually as partners to their husbands) to speak and read Chinese.

Honourable mention Aldersey is not be confused with Mary Ann Aldersey (1825–1906), an English botanist who also lived in McLaren Vale.