William Sandford Pakenham-Walsh (;

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...

: ''Wàn Báwén''; Foochow Romanized: ''Uâng Bĕk-ùng''; 1868 – April 26, 1960) was a Christian clergyman,

educationalist Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Vari ...

and writer. He was most famous for his work ''Tudor Story''.

Life

W. S. Pakenham-Walsh was born in 1868 into a distinguished Irish clerical family. His

middle name In various cultures, a middle name is a portion of a personal name that is written between the person's first given name and their surname. A middle name is often abbreviated and is then called middle initial or just initial. A person may be ...

, Sandford, was given to him by his father,

William Pakenham Walsh William Pakenham Walsh (4 May 1820 – 30 July 1902) was a 19th-century Anglican priest and author. Born on 4 May 1820, he was educated at Trinity College Dublin and ordained in 1844. He held curacies at Ovoca and Rathdrum, after which he wa ...

who served as curate and later

Rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

of Sandford Parish in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

.Patrick Comerford: ''A Welcome Awaits You at Overseas House'' In 1897, W. S. Pakenham-Walsh went to China under the auspices of

CMS CMS may refer to: Computing * Call management system * CMS-2 (programming language), used by the United States Navy * Code Morphing Software, a technology used by Transmeta * Collection management system for a museum collection * Color manag ...

to work with the Dublin University Fukien Mission as Chaplain to the British community in

Foochow Fuzhou (; , Fuzhounese: Hokchew, ''Hók-ciŭ''), alternately romanized as Foochow, is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian province, China. Along with the many counties of Ningde, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute t ...

, where he labored as a pastor of

St. John's Church St. John's Church, Church of St. John, or variants, thereof, (Saint John or St. John usually refers to John the Baptist, but also, sometimes, to John the Apostle or John the Evangelist) may refer to the following churches, former churches or other ...

in Cangshan. In 1907, he opened "St. Mark's Anglo-Chinese College", later known as Foochow Trinity College, today the

Fuzhou Foreign Language School Fuzhou Foreign Language School is a public high school featured foreign language teaching in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China. Besides English teaching in general, it also has French, Japanese and German Departments. It is an accredited school for t ...

. W. S. Pakenham-Walsh retired in 1919, but he remained in China until 1921. On his return to England he became

Vicar A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pre ...

Sulgrave Sulgrave is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England, about north of Brackley. The village is just south of a stream that rises in the parish and flows east to join the River Tove, a tributary of the Great Ouse. The villag ...

, Northamptonshire, and also a keen scholar and educationalist. Rev Pakenham-Walsh 1930s

W. S. Pakenham-Walsh's most notable work is his ''Tudor Story'' that he completed at age 90. His strong interest in

Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and of her execution by beheading for treason and other charges made her a key ...

began in 1917 during his missionary trip in Foochow, when he found in the Foochow British Community Library books related to Anne Boleyn's life. Since then W. S. Pakenham-Walsh had been compiling a summary of her life. Motivated by his desire to unveil the true Anne Boleyn, he claimed to have experienced a series of spiritual experiences following a prayer at Boleyn's burial site that she might become his

guardian angel A guardian angel is a type of angel that is assigned to protect and guide a particular person, group or nation. Belief in tutelary beings can be traced throughout all antiquity. The idea of angels that guard over people played a major role in A ...

, which led him to seek

clairvoyants Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...

who helped to channel the spirit of Anne Boleyn. In his diary he said that for 30 years he had been in constant touch with

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and other figures of the Tudor Court. W. S. Pakenham-Walsh died on 26 April 1960.

Selected works

* ''Some Typical Christians of South China'' (1905)
''Nestorius and the Nestorian Mission in China''
(1908) * ''Chants in War'' (1916) * ''Anne Boleyn: or, The queen of May – A Play in Four Acts'' (1921) * ''Three Medical Missionaries: in Memoriam'' (1922) * ''The Church of St. James, Sulgrave (Notes on Famous Churches and Abbeys)'' (1925) * ''Fifty Miles Around Sulgrave'' (1929) * ''Through Cloud and Sunshine'' (1932) * ''Twenty Years in China'' (1935) * ''A Tudor Story: The Return of Anne Boleyn'' (1963),

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pakenham-Walsh, William Sandford 1868 births 1960 deaths Anglican writers Anglican missionaries in China Christian missionaries in Fujian Irish Anglican missionaries British Anglican missionaries British expatriates in China