1870 — 1958
Charles Wilfrid Allan
Translator and author of books on China
Life
Having been appointed to missionary service in 1895, Charles Wilfrid Allan arrived in China in 1898 and served in Hanyang, one of the three cities comprising Wuhan, Hubei Province.
In 1913, he began participating in the Mandarin Version of the Union Version Bible translation project. Sadly, ill health forced him to resign from the committee a few months later.
During World War I, he worked with Chinese laborers in France. Returning to China in 1922, he taught at Union Theological College, Changsha, and from 1930 served with the Christian Literature Society.
He produced several translations and historical works.
In 1936, he became director of the Christian Literature Society.
Allan, his wife, and his daughter were interned by the Japanese in 1943.
In 1946, after the war, he and his family returned to England.
He died in Hull on May 12, 1958.
Publications
Two Chinese Pastors: Lives of Chu and Lo. Shanghai, 1906.
The Makers of Cathay. Shanghai, 1925.
Jesuits at the Courts of Peking. Shanghai, 1935.
Our Entry into Hunan. London, 1909.
He edited an enlarged edition of William Scarborough’s 1875 Collection of Chinese Proverbs (Shanghai, 1926).
Sources
Dictionary of Methodism. https://dmbi.online/index.php?do=app.entry&id=28
Leeb, Leopold. Missionaries to China: A Historical Dictionary. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2025.
Peng, Cui’an Ann. The Translation of the Bible into Chinese: The Origin and Authority of the Union Version, in G. Wright Doyle and Carol Lee Hamrin, eds. Studies in Chinese Christianity. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2021.
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Library Special Collections, University of London. https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/locations/286a0dc5-b9a7-3f59-8752-bb27436f4e81
About the Author
Dr. G. Wright Doyle is the director of Global China Center. He also serves as General Editor of the Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity and editor of the GCC website. He also serves as General Editor of the Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity, co-editor of the series Studies in Chinese Christianity published by Wipf & Stock, and editor of the GCC website. He has contributed to Western and Chinese academic journals, and has published a number of books (reachingchineseworldwide.org/books).
