Appendix C: Chronology of the Life and Times of C. T. Studd

“So teach us to number our days, That we may get us a heart of wisdom.”

— Psalm 90:12, ASV

The dates below are meant as orientation. Dates confirmed by published records, such as cricket scores, are given plainly. Where the sources disagree, the disagreement is noted. Where a date rests only on the family’s accounts, it is marked as approximate or traditional.

1819 - Edward Studd

Studd’s father is born in Bombay on 25 December. He later makes a fortune as an indigo planter in Tirhut, Bihar.

1856 - A Second Marriage

Edward Studd marries Dorothy Sophia (Dora) Thomas at Bedford. Their sons include Kynaston (born 1858) and George (born 1859).

1860 - Birth

Charles Thomas Studd is born on 2 December at Spratton, Northamptonshire, the third son of Edward and Dora Studd.

1865 - The China Inland Mission

J. Hudson Taylor founds the China Inland Mission.

1866 - Salamander

Edward Studd’s horse Salamander wins the Grand National.

1871 - Tedworth

Edward Studd takes the lease of Tedworth House, Wiltshire, where he lays out a racecourse and a cricket ground.

c. 1875 - Edward Studd Converted

Edward Studd is converted at one of D. L. Moody’s meetings in London, most probably during the London campaign of 1875 (sources give dates from 1874 to 1877). He gives up racing and opens Tedworth to evangelistic meetings.

1877 - Edward Studd Dies

He dies in July, most sources say on 27 July (one gives 1876).

1878 - Conversion

In the summer holidays a visitor at Tedworth speaks to the three eldest brothers; Charlie is converted, by family tradition on the same day as Kynaston and George.

1879 - Cambridge

He leaves Eton, where by his biographers’ account he captained the eleven, and goes up to Trinity College, Cambridge. He plays for Middlesex from 1879 and for Cambridge from 1880.

1882 - The Ashes

Cambridge University beat the Australians at Fenner’s at the end of May; Studd scores 118 and 17 not out. He scores a further century against the Australians for MCC. On 14 August he completes 1,000 runs and 100 wickets for the season, the second player to do so after W. G. Grace. On 28–29 August he plays for England at the Oval (0 and 0 not out); Australia win by seven runs. On 2 September The Sporting Times prints its mock obituary of English cricket.

1882-1883 - Australia

He tours Australia with Ivo Bligh’s team and plays in four Tests; England win the series against Murdoch’s side. His last Test ends in February 1883. Career Test record: five matches, 160 runs, three wickets.

1883 - Captain and Graduate

He captains Cambridge and takes his degree. In November his brother George falls dangerously ill and recovers.

1883-1884 - Restored

He hears Moody again in London and returns to wholehearted faith. During 1884 he offers himself to the China Inland Mission.

1885 - The Cambridge Seven

The Seven tour universities in England and Scotland. Farewell meeting at Exeter Hall, 4 February; they leave London on 5 February and reach Shanghai on 18 March. Studd travels west towards the Han River, and later works in Shanxi. On 2 December he turns twenty-five.

1885-1886 - Across the Atlantic

Kynaston Studd tours American colleges; John R. Mott hears him at Cornell in January 1886. The Student Volunteer Movement begins at Mount Hermon in 1886.

1886 - A Missionary Band

Benjamin Broomhall publishes the record of the Seven, enlarged in 1887 as The Evangelisation of the World.

1887 - The Gift

Traditionally on 13 January, he gives away the bulk of his inheritance, reported at between £25,000 and £29,000, including about £5,000 each to Moody, Müller, George Holland and Booth-Tucker. Priscilla Stewart arrives in China with “the Hundred.”

1888 - Marriage

He marries Priscilla Livingstone Stewart, most accounts say at Tianjin on 7 April, before a Chinese pastor. She gives the £3,400 he had kept for her to the Salvation Army. They settle at Lungan (Lu’an, now Changzhi), Shanxi.

1889-1894 - Daughters and Sons

Grace (1889), Dorothy (9 July 1891), Edith (1892) and Pauline (10 February 1894) are born. Two sons die in infancy.

1894 - Home

With their health broken, the family returns to England, handing over their Lungan property to the Mission.

1896-1897 - America

He tours American universities for the Student Volunteer Movement for about eighteen months.

1900 - The Boxer Year

Missionaries and Chinese Christians are killed in Shanxi; the China Inland Mission loses 58 missionaries and 21 children. The Studds go to India.

1900-1906 - Ootacamund

He is pastor of the Union Church, Ootacamund (one account says seven years).

1906 - England

He returns to England in poor health and speaks at meetings.

1908 - Liverpool

He sees a notice about Africa and hears Karl Kumm speak.

1908 - The Belgian Congo

The Belgian state takes over the Congo Free State after an international campaign against its atrocities.

1910-1911 - The Sudan

He travels to the southern Sudan, concludes that the north-eastern Congo has no Protestant witness, and returns in 1911.

1912 - The Heart of Africa Mission

He applies to the Africa Inland Mission in November; the membership is ended by agreement within weeks of his departure. At the end of the year the Heart of Africa Mission is formed, with headquarters at 17 Highland Road, Upper Norwood. The Chocolate Soldier is usually dated to this year, though its published text refers to the Great War.

1913 - To the Congo

He sails with Alfred Buxton, most accounts say on 30 January, and travels through East Africa and Uganda to Lake Albert. They reach Niangara on 16 October. Four stations are opened in the next year and a half.

1914 - War

Quaint Rhymes for the Battlefield is published in London. News of the European war reaches Niangara on 19 August. Late in the year he leaves for England because of Priscilla’s illness.

1915 - Christ’s Etceteras

He holds meetings in England and publishes Christ’s Etceteras.

1916 - Return to Africa

He sails for the Congo with Edith and new recruits. So far as the record shows, he never returns to England.

1917 - A Wedding

Edith Studd marries Alfred Buxton in the Congo. The first baptisms are recorded around this time.

1919 - Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade

The mission becomes the Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade; Gilbert Barclay becomes Home Overseer. Pauline marries Norman Grubb.

1920 - The Grubbs

Norman and Pauline Grubb go to the Congo.

c. 1921-1922 - Ibambi

Studd moves his centre from Nala to Ibambi, in Budu country (sources give both years).

1920s - Expansion

New work begins in Amazonia (the Heart of Amazonia Mission), and workers are sent to Arabia and India. Conflicts grow within the Congo field.

c. 1927-1928 - Buxton Dismissed

Alfred Buxton visits America in 1927 to repair relationships; Studd later dismisses him as disloyal.

1928 - D.C.D. and a Visit

He publishes the D.C.D. booklet. Priscilla makes her only visit to the Congo, a short one; it is their last meeting.

1929 - Priscilla Dies

She dies at Málaga, Spain, on 15 January.

1930 - Kingwana

Luke and Acts in Kingwana, begun by Studd with Stapleton and Lowder, are published. The crisis with the London committee deepens.

1931 - Crisis and Death

Stanley Smith dies in China in January. The home committee seeks to remove Studd; Norman Grubb and David Munro take the mission’s records. Thirty-six missionaries from the Congo and Brazil fields form the Unevangelized Fields Mission. Studd dies at Ibambi on 16 July (one record gives 15 July), aged seventy, and is buried there.

1931-1965 - Grubb

Norman Grubb leads WEC, which grows from about thirty missionaries to some eight hundred in twenty countries.

1934 - Ibambi Bible School

Jack Harrison begins a Bible school at Ibambi for Congolese pastors and evangelists.

1960 - Independence

The Congo becomes independent. A complete Bible in the Swahili of eastern Congo is published.

1964 - The Simba Rebellion

Missionaries and Congolese Christians in the north-east suffer violence and captivity; the church survives.

2013 - Centenary

The Congolese church that grew from the mission, CECCA 16, celebrates a hundred years since Studd’s arrival at Niangara.