Constance Bryant (June 22, 1887–May 12, 1975) was an English missionary who served for the Fukien Mission under the

Church Missionary Society The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British mission society working with the Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission ...

(CMS). Bryant worked for over thirty years in East Asia. Her work led to founding the Fukien Christian University in 1916 that merged with the Fujian Superior Normal School and the Hua Nan Women's College to form today's

Fujian Normal University Fujian Normal University () is a public university in Fuzhou, Fujian Fuzhou (; , Fuzhounese: Hokchew, ''Hók-ciŭ''), alternately romanized as Foochow, is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian province, China. Along with th ...

Early life and education

Constance Bryant was born to Alfred Charles Edward Bryant (1849-1895) and Eliza Weller (1850-1921) in

Kent, England Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

.Ancestry Library Edition She had three sisters. The family held residence in Chatham, Kent when she was born. Bryant's educational training began at Christ's Hospital Girls' School of

Hertford Hertford ( ) is the county town of Hertfordshire, England, and is also a civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of the county. The parish had a population of 26,783 at the 2011 census. The town grew around a ford on the River Lea ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. Bryant then attended

Westfield College Westfield College was a small college situated in Hampstead, London, from 1882 to 1989. It was the first college to aim to educate women for University of London degrees from its opening. The college originally admitted only women as students and ...

from 1907 to 1911, an institution founded to educate women for the University of London. She graduated with Class 3 Honors in Modern European History - a major in the Faculty of Arts. In 1911, Bryant enrolled in the London Day Training School program of the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degre ...

and passed the Examination of

Pedagogy Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

in 1912. She obtained her

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four ye ...

and became a Life Member of Convocation with the university.

Career

On June 17, 1913, Bryant accepted her admission into the missionary program of the

. She was sent on the Fukien Mission in the now

Fujian Province Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its cap ...

of Southeast China. Directly before Bryant's arrival, the CMS established eleven

dioceses In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

across districts within Fukien (in 1912) to work in close unity with one another. Bryant, one of the first female missionaries of the Fukien Mission to do so, assumed an administrated position as the designated liaison between the CMS correspondents in England and the mission in Fukien. Bryant wrote annual letters to England as an overview of the affairs with the Fukien Mission and was occasionally published in the Fukien News newspaper for her written articles about her experiences as a missionary. She expressed the hardships of running the mission hospitals and schools during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and the Japanese occupation in China. In Bryant's 1938-1939 annual report, she highlights the shared anxieties of the World War crises in the West. In 1939, Bryant traveled throughout the Fukien province to the modern day capitol of Fuzhou, Lienkong, Dong Muong, and Gwang Tau to report on the work of the dioceses. Bryant reported that roads were torn up, ports were closed, and extensive destruction of diocese property and great life losses occurred. Military threats and dangerous conditions continued through the end of the second world war, and in addition to frequent bombings, Bryant worked through evacuations of the Fukien Normal School in which she worked, high inflation prices and undersupply of rice, a lack of available Christian teachers, and government pressure to raise qualifications for instructors at the Normal School. On October 6, 1941, Bryant's mission school was looted by Japanese occupiers, leaving the students and instructors without equipment and in dire need of money. In response, she developed a financial report, following the looting, for the Church Missionary Society. The report resulted in the shipment of resources to help maintain the hospitals and schools in Fukien.

Death

Following her retirement from the Church Missionary Society in 1947, Bryant returned to her residence in Kent, England and died May 12, 1975.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bryant, Constance Female missionaries 1887 births 1975 deaths Anglican missionaries in China Alumni of University of London Worldwide