1900 - Annie King & Elizabeth Burton

July 16, 1900

Ji Xian, Shanxi

Annie King.

S. Annie King and Elizabeth Burton were two single British women. Both were strikingly attractive, and left many frustrated potential suitors back home when they decided to serve the Lord in China.

Annie King was born on March 16, 1870. Although she was raised in a Christian home, it wasn’t until she was about 20-years-old that she entered into a relationship with God. She flung herself into Christian work, being a key member of the Ragged Schools initiative of the time, which provided education for the poorest children in Britain. Despite her success in this work, King’s heart was set on fields further away. The lure of the mission field led her to Bible school in 1896. She graduated two years later, and on September 22, 1898, Annie King set sail for China. Soon after arriving in Shanxi she wrote home:

“Praise the Lord, I am really in China. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but, whatever comes, I know I have obeyed the will of our God…. Often I wish I could have come before…. It is so nice to be in this village, where the people trust us, and love to hear of Jesus, for whose sake and the Gospel’s we have come. There are numbers of villages where the name of Jesus is unknown, all in heathen darkness, without a ray of light.”[1]

Elizabeth Burton.

Elizabeth Burton was a school teacher from Manchester, England. From a young age she had a strong desire to make Christ known to as many people as possible. She applied to be a Sunday school teacher at her church, but was told there were no vacancies available at the time. The minister jokingly told her that if she wanted to teach a Sunday school class, she would have to make a class of her own. Next Sunday the determined young lady marched into the church with five children that she had gathered together. “I’ve made my class,” she told the pastor.

Burton sailed for China in September 1898. On board the ship she wrote,

“Just imagine, after nearly six years’ waiting I am on my way to China. I still feel as though I am dreaming…. It is an honour! but oh, I feel so inadequate, so weak, and yet I hear Him say, ‘Go in this thy might, have not I sent thee?’ Yes, He has sent me; if ever I felt God has called me in my life, I feel it to-night…. Jesus is very real to me out in this land, and I would not change my present lot in spite of loneliness and occasional hardships. Truly, He more than makes up. And now I can understand the people, and they me a little, the joy is very great. Ease and luxury cannot make up for the real and lasting joy one has in this land.”[2]

On July 16, 1900, Annie King and Elizabeth Burton were among a group of missionaries slaughtered by soldiers on the banks of the Yellow River near Ji Xian. The soldiers said they had come to protect the Christians as they sought to flee across the river into Shaanxi Province. When their true intent became clear, Annie King “besought the murderers to desist, saying, ‘We have come to do you good’; and seeing that the men were relentless, she embraced Miss Burton, and, clasped in one another’s arms, they were put to death.”[3]

1. Hefley, By Their Blood, 21.
2. Broomhall, Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, 39.
3. Broomhall, Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, 30.