1901 - Joseph Stonehouse

March 23, 1901

Luofa, Hebei

Joseph Stonehouse.

Joseph Stonehouse was born in the English town of Middlesborough in 1854, and set sail for China in 1882. Two years later he married Gertrude Randle, a union that produced four children, all of whom managed to survive the Boxer wrath by sheltering inside the walls of the British Legation in Beijing. Following the ordeal, Gertrude and the children returned to England for rest and recuperation, but her husband decided to remain in China to help re-establish the work of the mission.

The last report Joseph Stonehouse ever sent to his mission headquarters gave an account of a memorial service he had led in honour of Chinese martyrs. He began his report with these words: “It is not given to many Christians to suffer martyrdom for the cause of Christ.” On March 23, 1901, Stonehouse was crossing a river near the small town of Luofa, Hebei Province. He was “crossing the river…in a small Chinese ferry-boat, when a band of robbers appeared on the opposite bank, and, after several shots had been fired, Mr. Stonehouse was mortally wounded, and died some hours afterwards.”[1] Another account says he was “on his journey of compassion, carrying relief to the district in which he had so long laboured. It was a perilous task, but one which he gladly undertook to relieve their necessities. He was shot down, pierced with many bullets, giving his life for the people he loved.”[2]

British troops recovered the body, which was buried at Beijing on March 27, 1901. The deep love and respect that Joseph Stonehouse’s fellow Christians had for him was evident by the number of glowing obituaries offered after his death. The Rev. T. Biggin wrote, “The Chinese Christians were his children, and he loved them as he did his own…. At last, when the work is almost done, the Master called him away suddenly, strangely. Do not pity him; he died at his post, as a man may wish to die.”[3]

1. Robert Coventry Forsyth (ed.), The China Martyrs of 1900: A Complete Roll of the Christian Heroes Martyred in China in 1900, with Narratives of Survivors (London: Religious Tract Society, 1904), 477.
2. Mary I. Bryson, Cross and Crown: Stories of the Chinese Martyrs (London: London Missionary Society, 1904), 19.
3. Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 477-478.