| Administrative History | James Legge, the missionary whose work inspired this conference, was born in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, in 1815, and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and at King's College, Aberdeen, whence he graduated MA in 1835. He had always felt himself to be destined for missionary work, and studied in London to join the London Missionary Society in 1839, the year in which he married his first wife. He was sent by them to Malacca, Malaysia, and taught there at the Anglo-Chinese College, of which he became principal in 1840. Three years later the College was converted, under his auspices, into a theological seminary and moved to Hong Kong. Ill health prevented him from taking up permanent residence in the Far East, and he moved back and forth between England and Hong Kong until 1873, when he finally settled in England. A special fund was raised to support a Chinese chair at Oxford, and Legge was the first appointed to it in 1875. He wrote copiously on China and on missionary work, including books explaining Chinese religious beliefs to westerners, advice on translations of religious texts, and editions of the Chinese classics. His theological teaching was influential in style. He died in Oxford in 1897. |