James Laidlaw Maxwell Senior (

Pe̍h-ōe-jī ( ; , , ; POJ), also known as Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Hokkien Southern Min, particularly Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwanese and Amoy dialect, Amoy Hokkien, and it is widely employed as one of the writing syst ...

: ''Má Ngá-kok''; zh, c=馬雅各; born 18 March 1836 in Scotland – March 1921) was the first

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

Formosa Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The island of Taiwan, formerly known to Westerners as Formosa, has an area of and makes up 99% of the land under ROC control. It lies about across the Taiwan Strait f ...

( Qing-era Taiwan). He served with the

English Presbyterian Mission English Presbyterian Mission was a British Presbyterian missionary society that was involved in sending workers to countries such as China during the late Qing Dynasty. English Presbyterian Mission work in China The Presbyterian Church of England ...

. Maxwell studied medicine at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

, completing his degree in 1858 with the thesis ''The Chemistry and Physiology of the Spleen''. He worked in London at Brompton Hospital and at the Birmingham General Hospital. He was an elder in the Broad Street Presbyterian Church, Birmingham before being sent to Taiwan by the

Presbyterian Church of England The Presbyterian Church of England was a late-19th-century and 20th-century Presbyterianism, Presbyterian denomination in England. The church's origins lay in the 1876 merger of the English congregations of the chiefly Scottish United Presbyterian ...

(now within the

United Reformed Church The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2024 it had approximately 44,000 members in around 1,250 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers. The URC is a Trinitarian church whose theolog ...

) in 1864. He donated a small printing press to the church which was later used to print the '' Taiwan Church News''. On 16 June 1865, at the urging of missionaries H. L. Mackenzie and Carstairs Douglas, he established the first Presbyterian church in Taiwan, this date now celebrated by the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan as its anniversary. First his mission centred in the then-capital Taiwan Fu (now

Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a Special municipality (Taiwan), special municipality in southern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and commonly called the "Taiwan Prefecture, ...

City); in 1868 he moved near Cijin (now part of

Kaohsiung Kaohsiung, officially Kaohsiung City, is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Kaohsiung City has a population of approximately 2.73 million p ...

) where his work, both medical and missionary, became more welcomed. In early 1872 he advised Canadian Presbyterian missionary pioneer

George Leslie Mackay George Leslie Mackay (偕瑞理 or 馬偕 ''Má-kai''; 21 March 1844 – 2 June 1901) was a Canadian Presbyterian missionary. He was the first Presbyterian missionary to northern Taiwan (then Formosa), serving with the Canadian Presbyterian Mis ...

to start his work in northern Taiwan, near

Tamsui Tamsui District () is a seaside district in New Taipei City, Taiwan adjacent to the Tamsui River and overlooking the Taiwan Strait. The name of the district means "fresh water" in Chinese. Although modest in size (population 189,271), Tamsui ...

. He married Mary Anne Goodall (died January 1918) of Handsworth on 7 April 1868 in Hong Kong. They had two sons, John Preston and James Laidlaw Maxwell Jr., both of whom later also became medical missionaries. He retired in London in 1885 where he formed and became the first secretary of the Medical Missionary Association. He and his sons oversaw the construction of in

, the first western-style hospital in Taiwan. The younger J. L. Maxwell served in the Tainan hospital from 1900 to 1923, during Taiwan's Japanese era.

References

External links

entry of James Laidlaw Maxwell at Mundus

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maxwell, James Laidlaw 1836 births 1921 deaths Presbyterian missionaries in Taiwan Scottish Presbyterian missionaries English Presbyterian missionaries British expatriates in Taiwan Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Christian medical missionaries

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