ELIZABETH JEAN
GILLETT |
Eliza Jane
Gillett, daughter of Canfield Gillett president of the Derby Fishing Company,
was born in Derby on May 6, 1805 and worked toward a career in education
eventually rising to become a school principal. Her dream was to become a
missionary.
After the death of her mother, she she was appointed as a missionary in China with the Protestant Episcopal Church and sailed for China in 1844. She was only one of three unmarried women to obtain such an appointment.
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She arrived in Hong Kong in 1844 where she met and married Dr. Reverend Elijah Coleman Bridgman (1801-1861), the first American missionary in China, on June 28, 1845. He had been in Canton since 1830.
She transferred her ministries to the Congregational Church and, with her husband, began missionary work in Canton. They adopted two young girls and moved to Shanghai where she started the first Protestant girls' school there in 1850.
After her husband died,
her health failed and she returned to the U.S. for a short time and returned
to Peking in 1864 and opened the Bridgman
Girls’ College in Peking in 1864. The college became the Women’s College of Yenching University where a large number of female Chinese leaders were
educated.
Her writings include Daughters of China (1853) and The Life and Labors of Elijah Coleman Bridgman (1864).
She died on November 10, 1871 and was buried alongside her husband in Shantung Road Cemetery in Shanghai.
Sources: Dana L. Robert, “Bridgman, Eliza Jane (Gillett),” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 90 and This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright (c) 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of The Gale Group; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan. All rights reserved
