Seventh Generation  

18. William Phillips DELANY [83307] (William Phillips DELANY⁸, Clementina PHILLIPS⁵, William⁴, Noblett³, Richard², Robert¹).

William married someone.

His child was:

+ 38 M    i. Thomas DELANY [83308] .

25. Arch-Deacon, Hugh Stowell PHILLIPS [98617] (Robert¹⁵, Robert (Capt)⁶, William⁴, Noblett³, Richard², Robert¹) was born on 14 Sep 1865 in Chorlton upon Medlock Manchester Lancashire England and died on 17 Mar 1940 in Guildford Surrey England at age 74.

Noted events in his life were:

• Graduation: from Corpus Christi College as a Bachelor of Arts [B.A.], 1886, Cambridge Cambridgeshire England.

• Ordination: as a Deacon of the Church of England, 1888, Diocese of Manchester and London.

• Graduation: from Corpus Christi College as a Master of Arts [M.A.], 1892, Cambridge Cambridgeshire England.

Hugh married Minnie Mary APPESON [98628], daughter of John APPERSON [98633] and Martha HEFFER [98634], on 4 May 1892 in 'The English Church' Foo Chow Fujian China. Minnie was born on 27 Jun 1868 in Wimbledon Surrey England, was baptised on 1 Oct 1869 in Parish Church Wimbledon Surrey England, and died on 17 Nov 1894 in Qiancheng Huitong Hunan China at age 26.

Marriage Notes: In a Document received from Michael Stowell Phillips in April 2013, he summarized Minnie's Life as follows:
Minnie's marriage to Hugh Stowell PHILLIPS took place at Foochow (Fuzhou) in the English Church, on 04 May 1892, as planned. She was given away by Inie Newcombe, the senior Zenana missionary for the province. Both bride and groom, and Miss Newcombe, wore Chinese dress, and the couple "looked calmly happy and trustful, as it became God's servants to look at such a time".

After their wedding they went to Shanghai, presumably on a sort of honeymoon, and were able to enjoy, as she put it, a little bit of English life, and to visit the dentist! By 23 May they were back in Foochow, and by early June were at Nang-ua but not allowed to go on to Kien-yang where there had recently been trouble. Instead, they went up to a village in the hills, to escape the summer heat.
In September 1892, Hugh went to see for himself how things were in Kien-yang, which was supposed to be his base, leaving Minnie behind. Later, she went back down to Nang-ua, where she was reunited with Hugh in early October and they both headed for Kien-yang. Before they got there they were warned of further trouble, but carried on. However, their new house was again attacked and they had to take refuge in the local mandarin's establishment (the yamen). The new house was burnt down, but their possessions, still in rented rooms, were not touched. A detailed description of the event, presumably from a letter which Hugh wrote, is given in another book about the Fuhkien misssion And so they had to go back to Nang-ua, and thence to Foochow. From January 1893 they were back in Nang-ua, waiting for the possibility of returning to Kien-yang, meanwhile working locally, and on 05 Apr 1893 their first child, Robert Stowell PHILLIPS, was born there. Minnie was very unwell, and again thought likely to die. But she rallied, and in June went up to A-Cue in the hills to escape the heat. She stayed there until the end of September, when she and the baby moved back down to Nang-ua for about a week and then on to Foochow and to the CMS sanatorium at Sharp Peak on the coast. At the beginning of December they were back on the river on their way up to Nang-ua, which they reached on 22 Dec. Finally, in January 1894 they were in Kien-Yang, where Robert's first birthday was celebrated.

By the summer of 1894 Minnie was back at the CMS sanatorium at Sharp Peak, and in very poor health. Hugh joined her there, and on 12 Aug their daughter Mary Cecilia PHILLIPS was born. Minnie rallied sufficiently to return to Foochow, to a bungalow on the hill, and was making preparations to return to England with the two children. However, that was not to be, and on 17 Nov 1894 she died. She was buried in the Anglican cemetery in Foochow, destroyed.

Minnie and Hugh's two children, thus left motherless, must have been returned to England, though when and with whom is not known. Possibly they went with Hugh when he returned in 1895 having become engaged to marry Alice Maud HANKIN

General Notes: In a Document received from Michael Stowell Phillips in April 2013, he summarized Minnie's Life as follows:
Minnie attended Wimbledon High School under its first head mistress Miss Edith Hastings and was just the 64th name on the register when she was admitted on 03 May 1881.She left the school in July 1887, having spent two years in the Sixth Form, the first which the school formed, and taken her Higher Certificates, as they then were, in 1886 and 1887, which would have entitled her to go to university. However, she also attended Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon, an evangelical Church of England proprietary chapel where she seems to have had a born again type of experience during a mission on 19 Apr 1883 when she was only 14. Thus, on leaving school, she threw up a chance of a college scholarship and, after a brief period of teaching in Wimbledon, took up work in connection with the Irish Church Missions, going to Dublin and later to Cork and staying in Ireland for the best part of two years .
In 1889, Minnie must have answered or obtained some kind of invitation to go to China, and was accepted by the Church of England Zenana Society. A large party of missionaries sailed on 17 October 1889 on the SS Chusan of the P&O, arriving in Colombo on 11 Nov, and departing thence on the SS Thames on 15 Nov for Hong Kong which they reached on 25 Nov. Finally they travelled to Foochow (Fuzhou) on the SS Haitan, arriving on 30 Nov 1889, where they were welcomed at " The Olives", the Zenana base there
Once in China, she did not hang about, but moved into the interior almost straight away, adopting Chinese clothes as in her photograph below. In thus going straight into the mountains, she was noted as being unusual. She headed for Kucheng (Gutian), where she arrived on about 12 December. This involved taking a boat up the Min River for some 80 km then north through the mountains. On the frequent journeyings through the mountains there seems to have been a combination of going on foot and being carried in a sedan chair, depending on the state of the path and the mood of the poor chaps doing the carrying.
Most of Fujian province is mountainous, and the climate sub-tropical with hot humid summers and the missionaries generally had a lot of health problems. Being ordered home on health grounds seems to have been quite common. Minnie's first task was to learn some Chinese, and she seems to have had a talent for this as she passed her examination within seven months, where most took a year. By the end of her brief life she had acquired a working knowledge of three dialects and some knowledge of a fourth. The book edited by Clara Millard gives, through Millie's extensive letters, a picture of a dedicated and evangelical person working with village women, the purpose for which the Zenana society was formed, though often the men hung about outside and wanted to know what was being said. Whatever one may think nowadays of such bible-quoting zeal, one cannot but admire the guts of the people who took on the job. They founded not only churches, but schools and orphanages, and were of course seen as a threat by the establishment. But for most of the time, as they trudged or were carried from village to village together with their beds and bedding, they seem to have been greeted courteously and listened to with interest.
In early April 1890 Minnie had her first bad, but unspecified, illness, to the extent that she did not expect to survive, and was taken down to Foochow. But by the middle of the month she was on the way to recovery, and it had been decided that she would go back to Kucheng, after going to a missionary conference at Shanghai. So, in early September, Minnie returned to Kucheng, only to be sent back to Foochow in December. In May of 1891 she went south to visit the American Methodist mission at Hing Hua. Later, Alice Maude HANKIN, who was to by Hugh Stowell PHILLIPS' second wife, was stationed there. Minnie was back at The Olives in Foochow by the end of the month. In the summer of 1891 she seems again to have been unwell, and spent two months at Kucheng resting, but she was back in Foochow for the autumn conference. In a letter of 18 Nov 1891 she first mentions her engagement to Hugh Stowell PHILLIPS
December, she went with a relatively large group of Zenana ladies to Nang-ua, more in the north-west of the province, seemingly the whole way by river. This was the general area where Hugh Stowell PHILLIPS was working, based at Kien-yang, and Minnie was studying Mandarin in preparation for her move to that place. Hugh was in Nang-ua for a while at the end of January, 1892, a planned tour through the adjacent Kiang-si (Jiangsi) province for the CMS not, it seems, taking place.
It seems that Hugh married twice. His first wife was Minnie Mary APPERSON , the daughter of John APPERSON and Martha. Minnie was born in Wimbledon in 1868 . In 1871 she is aged 2, and the youngest of six children of John APPERSON, Parochial Schoolmaster at the National School for Boys, Wimbledon. There seems to be no census record of the family after this. As an adult, Minnie was a Zenana Missionary in Fukien, China, and wrote Victory. She must have met Hugh in China.

Children from this marriage were:

+ 39 M    i. Rev., Robert Stowell PHILLIPS [98629] was born on 5 Apr 1893 in Nang-Ua [Hunan] China and died on 18 Jul 1967 in Guildford Surrey England at age 74.

   40 F    ii. Mary Cecelia PHILLIPS [98630] was born on 12 Aug 1894.

Hugh next married Alice Maud HANKIN [98631], daughter of Devid Bell HANKIN [99194] and Emily WILSON [99195], on 18 Feb 1896 in St Jude & St Paul's Islington Middlesex England. Alice was born on 11 Feb 1869 in Ware Hertfordshire England, was baptised on 23 Dec 1869 in Ware Hertfordshire England, and died on 24 Jul 1947 at age 78.

General Notes: In a File of Information received from Michael Stowell Phillips in April 2013, he included the following Summary on the life of Alice Hankin:
Alice Maud HANKIN was born on 11 Feb 1869 at Ware, Hertfordshire, and died on 24 July 1947. The same source names her parents as Daniel Bell HANKIN (1834-1912) and Emily WILSON (1837-1927). Alice was baptised on 23 Dec 1869 at Ware the entry naming her father as Daniel Bell HANKIN and her mother as Emily. It looks as though she was the fourth of seven children.

1871 the family was living at New Road, Ware, Hertfordshire, where her father was Vicar of Christ Church By 1881, her father is Vicar of St. Jude's, Islington, London, though at the time of the census he is, presumably on holiday, in the Isle of Wight, and Alice is not with her parents She, together with most of her siblings, was at 114 Grosvenor Rd., Islington, all recorded as children of the head of household, who, in the computer transcription, is mistakenly identified as a 42 year old widow Jane TYACK, of no occupation Actually Jane TYACK was at 112 Grosvenor Road, and I think the HANKIN children were being looked after by the two servants at 114. In 1891 Alice is 21, single, and described as a deaconess. She was a visitor in the household of Thomas F Buxton, a Justice of the Peace, at his house Easnye, Stanstead, Hertfordshire Thomas BUXTON could have been a family friend from the time Alice's family lived at Ware. Also, Alice's career in the Church looks to have started.
At some stage Alice must have joined the Zenana Missionary Society, and have gone out to the missions in Fukien province. Her presence in Hing-Hua, in the south west of the province, in 1895 is noted by Clara Millard, who also mentions many interesting letters from Alice which are probably now in the CEZS archives at Birmingham University Presumably she arrived in the province some time before going to Hing Hua, and had studied some Chinese dialects before going into the field.
In November 1895, her engagement to Hugh Stowell Phillips is mentioned, and their marriage took place in London on 18 Feb 1896 In a letter dated 25 Jan 1896, Hugh mentions that the CEZS have asked for a payment of for Alice's failure to fulfil her 5 year contract ! So clearly her Zenana career was cut rather short and she may have been little more than a year in China before heading back to England and getting married. A daughter, Constance Kathleen PHILLIPS was born in Manchester in 1897, and in 1901 was in the household of her widowed grandfather Robert PHILLIPS I don't know of any other children, and suspect that there were none. Alice must have returned to China, at some date unknown and whether accompanied by her daughter and step-children is also unknown. In a letter dated 05 May 1900, it is noted that she was ordered home for complete rest, as she could hardly use her eyes. Hugh went with her, and they hoped to return in the autumn
Little else is known, though presumably she spent much of the time with Hugh in China until his resignation in 1929. In 1915 permission was given for her to return home owing to her daughter's ill health And there is a record of another journey, when on 17 May 1918 she arrived in Liverpool on the SS Transylvania from New York, together with her daughter Constance, giving their country of last permanent residence as China. date of death is given as 25 Jul 1947 . She was 78, and despite bouts of ill health, at least she survived China.

The child from this marriage was:

   41 F    i. Constance Kathleen PHILLIPS [98632] was born on 8 Feb 1897.

General Notes: In a Document received from Hugh Stowell Phillips in April 2013, he stated:
In 1911 Constance K. PHILLIPS is a pupil aged 14 at a boarding school at 57 Edgar Road, Margate, Kent.

On 17 May 1918 Alice M. PHILLIPS, aged 46, a missionary, and Constance K. PHILLIPS, aged 18 and of no occupation, arrived in Liverpool on the SS Transylvania from New York, giving their country of last permanent residence as China. This suggests that Constance was indeed Alice's daughter.

As Miss Constance Kathleen PHILLIPS she was commissioned a Sister in Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve on 30 May 1941. She was released on grounds of ill health on 09 Oct 1942. I don't know where she served in the interim, or what happened to her afterwards.