Letters of and to Rev James Watson, missionary in China.

Papers of Reverend James Watson (1878-1954), Baptist Missionary Society (BMS), originally from Wishaw, Lanarkshire. The papers consist mostly of Watson’s correspondence relating to his service in China from 1906 to the 1930s, but especially concerning his experiences during the siege of Xi`an, Shaanxi province, April-November 1926. The collection also contains other papers relating to Watson and his family.

A number of leading BMS missionaries in Xi`an and elsewhere also appear as correspondents or mentioned in letters, including A.G. Shorrock, John Shields, Clement Stockley, E.L. Phillips, Frederick Russell (also brother of Evelyn), William Mudd, and Jennie Beckingsale.

Watson studied at the East London Missionary Training Institute in London, 1901-1905, before joining the BMS and being sent to Shaanxi in 1906. He worked at the village of Sui Te Chow, and in Xi`an itself, where by 1926 he was the Principal of the Secondary School, the local BMS Secretary and a leading member of the missionary community.

It was in China that he met Evelyn Russell, who had been there with BMS since 1903, and they married in 1908. They spent most of their married life in and around Xi`an, except for a period in the late 1920s-early 1930s when Evelyn lived in Edinburgh while their children were at senior school. Evelyn died in Xi`an in 1936. James Watson married again in 1951.