1900 - John Robinson

July 9, 1900

Taiyuan, Shanxi

John Robinson.

John Robinson was born in the English town of Doncaster on September 1, 1875. His father and both his grandfathers were Anglican clergymen. Many missionaries spoke at his father’s church also stayed as guests in the Robinson home. Their stories and the quality of their lives convinced John to become a missionary. He was a model student at school and participated in Bible classes whenever the opportunity arose. He was described as a diligent and serious-minded young man whose “natural disposition was retiring and reticent, but in his conduct he manifested something of the depth and reality of his religious feelings.”[1]

John Robinson graduated with a degree from London University in 1896. As a member of the Blackheath YMCA he engaged in open-air evangelism and gospel literature distribution. In the summer of 1898 Thomas Pigott invited Robinson to come to China for three years to teach the missionary children at Taiyuan. Although he did not feel a long-term call to missionary service, Robinson eagerly accepted the invitation, believing it presented a wonderful opportunity to see the world and study missionary strategies in a foreign land. He set sail for the Orient on January 2, 1899.

After arriving in Shanxi, the 23-year-old studied Chinese. His first mention of the Boxer troubles came in a letter home dated February 2, 1900: “The rising of men called Boxers in Shandong and Hebei is serious there, but I do not think there is any danger of their coming here. They have done it in the east before, but Shanxi men are more apathetic.”[2]

John Robinson, along with many other missionaries, was wrong in his prediction. Shanxi became the scene of the worst atrocities committed by the Boxers. Robinson was murdered on July 9, 1900. One eyewitness said that he “suffered death very quietly.”[3] On the following day,

“all the bodies were stripped of clothing, rings, and watches and were dragged to a vacant lot just inside the South Gate of the city. The heads…were put in cages that were slung from each of the city’s four gates. On the next day all the bodies were tossed on the execution ground outside the city, where wolves and dogs roamed, and soon their remains could not be distinguished from the remains of criminals who had been executed there.”[4]

1. Edwards, Fire and Sword in Shansi, 243.
2. Edwards, Fire and Sword in Shansi, 245.
3. Pigott, Steadfast Unto Death, 239.
4. Brandt, Massacre in Shansi, 232-233.