William Edward Macklin

William Edward Macklin was born in London, Ontario, Canada on 19 May 1860.[1] His grandfather was an Irish Methodist minister.[1] His father was a merchant.[1] His mother was a devout Christian of French and Irish descent.[1] He had a brother Alfred, who became a physician, and a younger sister Daisy, also a doctor and medical missionary (马芳), as well as three other siblings.[1][2][3]

In 1880 he graduated from the University of Toronto, where he majored in medical science.[1] In January 1886, Macklin was sent by the Foreign Christian Missionary Society and became the first missionary of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to China.[1][4] He settled in Nanjing in April of that same year.[1] Later he established three churches in Nanjing.[1] He started the Nanking Christian Hospital, also known as the Drum Tower Hospital, in 1890 and was completed in 1893, which is the first formal western hospital in Nanjing.[1][5] The hospital was locally known as "Ma Lin Hospital".[1] He often preached in Chuxian, Hefei and other places in Anhui province. In January 1914, Jinling University acquired the hospital as an affiliated hospital, which was renamed "University Hospital of Nanking".[1]

He was known as a public health reformer and follower of the social philosophy of Henry George.[6]

In 1927, with the onset of the Chinese Civil War, his life was threatened, and he and his family left Nanjing.[7] He and his wife settled in San Gabriel, California, where he died on 8 August 1947.[1]

In 2012, Jimmy Carter visited Nanjing to unveil a statue of Macklin and dedicate a new wing of the Drum Tower Hospital.[8]

He married Dorothy DeLany in January 1889.[1] The couple had eight children.[7]

• Liang Yanhong (梁燕红) (2014). 传教士马林编译〈富民策〉研究 [A Research on Fu Min Ce Compiled by Missionary William E. Macklin] (in Chinese). Changsha, Hunan: Hunan University: 45. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)