Methodist International Church

Like a mustard seed the Methodist community had a small beginning. None of those involved then could possibly see what a dramatic future would face the church in Hong Kong and China. It was the vision of a few people who saw the possibilities ahead but faced, initially, negative responses from the counsels of the Methodist Church. That said, in the 1840s the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (MMS) was already overcommitted across many of the countries of the expanding British Empire. The first person to bring the request for a missionary to the attention of the MMS was Rowland Rees, attached to the Royal Engineers and stationed in Hong Kong. He held a Class Meeting in his own home in Stanley for soldiers stationed here. Seeing the need he wrote, as early as 1844, requesting that Methodist Missionaries be sent to all the five treaty ports including Hong Kong, and he sent a subscription for the work. At the Conference of 1846 the Methodist statesman, Revd Dr Jabez Bunting, noted the impossibility of such a new and great venture. It was George Piercy who broke down the reluctance of the committees. A local preacher from England with a heart for China, he was determined to go at his own expense. Piercy had grown up in a farming family in Pickering, a small market town in Yorkshire, and could turn his hand to many things. He wanted to become a mariner but this did not work out. He spoke of himself as coming fresh from the plough, and threw himself into this great adventure. He had few qualifications, except a believing heart, a firm spirit, and an inflexibility of spirit not to be thwarted by absolute impossibilities. Undaunted, he set himself to study Chinese and sailed for Hong Kong in the autumn of 1850, probably working his passage. He arrived on the 31 January 1851. This fragrant harbour had, by then, been a British protectorate for ten years and Piercy found service men and government officials who had Methodist roots and wished to join in worship. It seems that a small society was formed almost as soon ...