1900 - Emma Thirgood

July 22, 1900

Quzhou, Zhejiang

Emma Thirgood.

Emma Ann Thirgood was a much-loved English lady who from the time she was a young girl displayed an intense interest in spiritual things. Later as a Sunday school teacher, she spent much time making sure each child under her care knew what it meant to be a born-again Christian. She also enthusiastically worked with the Christian Endeavour and Young Christians’ Band, an outreach operated by her local church.

After gaining a passion for missions, Thirgood sailed to China in 1889 and spent the first six months at the China Inland Mission training school in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, where she studied Chinese language and culture. She was then assigned to Jizhou in Anhui Province. The first year of her time in China was happy. She wrote home, “I feel I must write you a few lines to tell you how happy I am, and what great things the Lord has done for me. Is it not wonderful how he teaches us in China?”[1]

After the initial excitement wore off, the constant exertions and stress of being a foreign woman in a strange land started to take a toll on Thirgood’s health. By 1896, after seven years in China, she suffered a physical and emotional breakdown and returned to England where she was described as “at the point of death.”[2] After resting for two-and-a-half years, Thirgood was given a clean bill of health and in October 1898 she returned to China refreshed and ready for the challenge. On the final Saturday before departing England she said, “My heart is full of praise to the Lord for having, after two-and-a-half years of waiting, so strengthened me that, contrary to the expectations of my friends, I am now able to return to the work I love.”[3]

This time the mission placed her under the care of George and Etta Ward in Changshan, Zhejiang Province. She proved an able worker, and had formed many good and lasting relationships at the time of her martyrdom. Emma Thirgood joined Etta Ward and her son in an attempt to flee to safety. On July 22nd they arrived at the city of Quzhou. Emma watched in horror as the ruthless mob stabbed Etta and Herbert Ward to death. Seeing all this, “she knew there was no escape for her, and, kneeling in prayer, committed her soul to God, and while in this attitude received her death wounds, and thus obtained release from her cruel tormentors.”[4]

1. Broomhall, Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, 196.
2. Broomhall, Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, 197.
3. Broomhall, Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, 196.
4. Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 94.