Page 95 - All About History - Issue 12-14

All About
YOUR HISTORY

embassies in Beijing with the slogan ‘Support Christians being brought along by soldiers… Yu the province. The rebellion was eventually quashed
the Qing, exterminate the foreigners.’ Mr Pigott Hsien himself was standing at the main entrance, by the armies of several nations and many leaders
received a letter from the Shou Yang Mandarin and as soon as the missionaries appeared he called who had supported the Boxer Rebels were captured
(a local official) saying that he could no longer out in a loud voice ‘Kill!’… Immediately, Pastor and executed.
protect them as the governor had forbidden it. The Farthing stepped out… and his head was struck off It seems my relatives were calm and at peace
Pigotts and their community immediately set off by one blow. Then Pastor Pigott and his party were with the idea of death as this letter Thomas Pigott
for a nearby village, hoping to hide out at a friend’s led out. Yu Hsien asked Mr Pigott to what country had written to his brother after their mother’s death
home. But Christian houses in surrounding villages he belonged and on his saying ‘England’, he showed: “How strange and hardly to be yet realised
were regularly being pillaged and burned and the replied with a derisive laugh and uttered one word, the thought that now for two glad months… our
dwellers often killed. ‘Beat.’ The soldiers immediately fell upon them, own beloved sister and mother have been with
Eventually, riots broke out in Peh Lian Shang, wounding all of them, and causing two of their father… in the presence of the King! The joy of this
where the Pigotts were staying. They decided number to fall unconscious to the ground. The meeting and fellowship we can in part realise… Joy
they would be safer if they gave themselves up final order to kill was quickly given… The first to be to the Shepherd! Two more folded home!”
to the Shou Yang Mandarin, as they feared the led forward was Mr Robinson, who suffered death The Baptist Church at West Street, Rochdale, or
mob more than the government. They could not very calmly; then Mr Pigott, preaching to the last which Mrs Pigott had been a member, placed a
have predicted what would happen to them. The moment, when he was beheaded with one blow. As tablet on the wall, with this inscription: ‘The noble
prisoners were sent to the governor, Yu Hsien, Mrs Pigott went forward, she led her son Wellesley army of martyrs praise Thee. In loving memory
in Tai Yuan Fu. The following comes from an by the hand…” of Emily Jessie Pigott, a faithful servant of Jesus
eyewitness account: “I found it was the foreign In total, 45 foreigners were beheaded. By the Christ and a member of this church… suffered
pastors and their wives and children, the Roman summer’s end, more foreigners and as many as martyrdom in the city of Tai Yuan Fu, Shansi,
Catholic priests and nuns, and some Chinese 2,000 Chinese Christians had been put to death in China on 9 July 1900.’

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A photo taken for a funeral at
the time of the Boxer Rebellion

Many leaders of the Boxer
Rebellion were executed
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