Hudson Taylor organized the China Inland Mission (CIM) in Britain to push Protestant evangelism beyond China’s treaty ports and into inland provinces. CIM’s early identity included being interdenominational and aiming to send workers to places with little prior Protestant presence. This founding set the basic strategy for later “inland campaigns.”
Taylor’s book China’s Spiritual Need and Claims was published to argue that China’s interior had far fewer Protestant missionaries than coastal areas. It functioned as a widely read appeal for volunteers and funding, supporting CIM’s inland focus. The publication helped connect CIM’s goals to a broader English-speaking Protestant public.
A large first wave of CIM missionaries—later known as the “Lammermuir Party”—reached Shanghai after sailing from Britain with Taylor. Their arrival marked CIM’s transition from planning and recruiting to sustained work on the ground. The group’s size and visibility also made CIM a prominent new player in China missions.
In Yangzhou, a large crowd attacked, looted, and burned CIM premises during an outbreak of anti-foreign and anti-missionary violence. The incident showed how rumors and local opposition could quickly endanger inland mission work. It also created diplomatic tension, highlighting how missionary expansion could affect international relations.
With improved access and growing recruitment, Taylor and CIM colleagues traveled and opened new mission stations in inland regions. This period emphasized building a network of bases rather than concentrating only in port cities. It laid practical foundations—routes, language learning, local contacts—for broader inland campaigns in later decades.
The Chefoo Convention became an important agreement between Britain and Qing China after the Margary Affair. Mission history accounts note that its provisions helped make missionary travel and residence in inland areas more legally possible than before. This change supported CIM’s core goal of moving beyond coastal treaty ports.
Protestant missionaries held a major inter-mission conference in Shanghai in May 1877, reflecting the growing scale and organization of Protestant work in China. Such gatherings helped coordinate approaches to language, training, and strategy as missions expanded. CIM’s inland efforts developed within this wider Protestant missionary network.
Seven well-known British volunteers, later called the “Cambridge Seven,” arrived in Shanghai to serve with CIM. Their public profile drew attention to CIM and encouraged additional recruits. This wave of support helped CIM expand its inland presence and strengthened its pipeline for trained workers.
CIM issued a bold call for a large new group of missionaries, aiming to dramatically increase staffing in a short time. The campaign reflected CIM’s confidence that inland openings required rapid reinforcement, not slow growth. It also demonstrated how CIM used organized recruitment drives to scale inland work.
In 1887, CIM sent roughly one hundred new missionaries, a major one-year increase compared with many other mission societies. The influx supported expansion into additional inland districts and reduced the risk of isolated stations having too few workers. This surge became a key turning point in CIM’s ability to sustain inland campaigns at scale.
By the end of the 19th century, CIM described a wide network of stations, out-stations, and Chinese helpers supporting the work. A 1902 retrospective report gives a snapshot for January 1900 (just before the major violence) that indicates hundreds of chapels and a large missionary force. This shows how far the inland campaign had grown in numbers and geographic reach by 1900.
During the Boxer Rebellion, anti-foreign and anti-Christian violence spread across North China, killing many Chinese Christians and missionaries. CIM suffered the largest losses of any single Protestant mission, including dozens of adult missionaries and children. The crisis disrupted inland stations and forced missions to rethink security, relationships with local communities, and how they were linked to foreign power.
China Inland Mission's inland campaigns in China (1866–1900)
