Lammermuir Party


The Lammermuir Party was a British group of Protestant missionaries who travelled to China in 1866 aboard the tea clipper Lammermuir, accompanied by James Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission. Mission historians have indicated that this event was a turning point in the history of missionary work in China in the 19th century. This was the largest party of Protestant missionaries to date to arrive at one time on Chinese shores. It was also noteworthy that none of the members of the mission were ordained ministers, and only two had any previous overseas experience. In addition to this, there were among them nine unmarried women traveling to a place where single European women were rare for many reasons.

Departure

On the morning of 26 May 1866, the 34 sailors, 18 missionaries and four children boarded the Lammermuir, which lay tied up at London's East India Docks. Lammermuir was a two-year-old clipper ship with three masts and square-rigged sails. Grace Stott was to have sailed but she was left behind for medical reasons. The ship's frame was built of iron, and she was a first-class sailing vessel. A voyage halfway around the world would only take four months; a fast trip compared to the six-month duration of some of the older ships of the previous decade.
Henry Grattan Guinness wrote a hymn in honor of their departure that echoed Hudson Taylor’s 1865 book China's Spiritual Need and Claims:

Two typhoons

The Lammermuir was nearly wrecked by two typhoons before limping into the Shanghai harbour in late September.
Hudson Taylor, the missionary, recalled the most perilous time in the voyage:
Taylor wrote after twelve days of this experience:
The badly damaged ship caused a local stir in Shanghai. Emily Blatchley noted:
Even more so, the intent of the passengers to wear native Chinese clothes and embark into the interior of China with single women among them caused a greater consternation among the “Westerners” in port settlement. This led to the agency being referred to by some Westerners as "The Pigtail Mission".

List of missionaries and children