Audrey Gladys Donnithorne (27 November 1922,

Santai County Santai County ( zh, t=三台縣, s=三台县, w=San1-t῾ai2 Hsien4, p=Sāntái Xiàn; formerly known as Tungchwanfu) is a county under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Mianyang, in the northeast of Sichuan Province of China. It ...

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

– 9 June 2020,

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

) was a British-Chinese political economist and

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

, prominent in her efforts to rebuild the

Catholic Church in China The Catholic Church in China (called Tiānzhǔ Jiào, 天主敎, literally "Religion of the Lord of Heaven" after the Chinese term for the Christian God) has a long and complicated history. John of Montecorvino was the first Roman Catholic ...

after the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

Early life and education

The daughter of

evangelical Anglican Evangelical Anglicanism or evangelical Episcopalianism is a tradition or church party within Anglicanism that shares affinity with broader evangelicalism. Evangelical Anglicans share with other evangelicals the attributes of "conversionism, a ...

missionaries

Vyvyan Donnithorne The Venerable Vyvyan Henry Donnithorne, MC, MA (8 January 1886 – 12 December 1968) was Archdeacon of Western Szechwan from 1935 to 1949. Biography Vyvyan Donnithorne was of Cornish descent. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, Clare Col ...

and Gladys Emma Ingram, born in 1922 at a Quaker mission hospital in Santai, Audrey grew up in

where she and her parents were kidnapped by bandits when she was two years old. They and six others were led into the mountains with their necks in a halter. In 1927, the family was forced to leave China as

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

forces pushed northwards. When

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

broke out, she headed from the UK, where she received education, to France and sailed to China to her family in 1940. She converted to

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

in 1943, and was baptised at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Chengdu. However, when Japanese forces advanced on Sichuan, she went to India by plane. Back in the UK, Donnithorne worked for the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

. She then moved to

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

where she studied philosophy, politics and economics (PPE), where she babysat for

G. E. M. Anscombe Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (; 18 March 1919 – 5 January 2001), usually cited as G. E. M. Anscombe or Elizabeth Anscombe, was a British analytic philosopher. She wrote on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, ...

and was a contemporary of

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...

Career

Donnithorne then became a successful academic at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

and in 1969 she moved to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

to work at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

where she was head of the Contemporary China Center. Her

magnum opus A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, ...

was ''China's Economic System''. She was in Israel when the

Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egy ...

broke out in 1973. In Australia she received

Vietnamese boat people Vietnamese boat people ( vi, Thuyền nhân Việt Nam), also known simply as boat people, refers to the refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. This migration and humanitarian crisis was at its h ...

in her house. After her retirement in 1985 she moved to

. In 1997, the Chinese government expelled her from the

mainland Mainland is defined as "relating to or forming the main part of a country or continent, not including the islands around it egardless of status under territorial jurisdiction by an entity" The term is often politically, economically and/or dem ...

for her activities; she remained in contact with church leaders there. She worked with the 2008 Sichuan earthquake victimsestablishing a fund for the rebuilding of churches and Catholic facilities with the backing of Hong Kong cardinal

Joseph Zen Joseph Zen Ze-kiun SDB (, born 13 January 1932) is a cardinal of the Catholic Church from Hong Kong, who served as the sixth Bishop of Hong Kong. He was appointed cardinal in 2006, and has been outspoken on issues regarding human rights, ...

and with the Church in China. She also became an honorary member of the Centre of Asian Studies at the

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, it is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong. HKU was also the fi ...

. She later wrote memoirs, entitled ''China, In Life's Foreground''. The

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

awarded her the ''

Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice ''Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice'' ("For Church and Pope" in Latin) is a decoration of the Holy See. It is currently conferred for distinguished service to the Catholic Church by lay people and clergy. History The medal was established by Leo XIII o ...

'' medal in 1993, and in 1995, she became an honorary member of the

Paris Foreign Missions Society The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (french: Société des Missions Etrangères de Paris, short M.E.P.) is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons ...

(MEP). She died in Hong Kong on 9 June 2020. Her funeral Mass was celebrated by Cardinal

John Tong Hon John Tong Hon (born 31 July 1939) is a Chinese prelate of the Catholic Church. A cardinal since 2012, he was auxiliary bishop of Hong Kong from 1996 to 2008, then coadjutor bishop of the diocese for a year, and Bishop of Hong Kong from 2009 ...

and Cardinal Emeritus Joseph Zen on 26 June at ,

Garden Road, Hong Kong Garden Road is a major road on Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong, connecting the Central and Mid-Levels areas. It was formerly known as Albany Nullah. At its lower (Central) end, Garden Road forms a grade-separated intersection with Queensway. For m ...

. A memorial Mass was held in Sichuan's Nanchong Diocese on 10 June, the day after her death, conducted by Bishop .

Selected works

*''China in Life's Foreground'', Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2019, *''Centre-Provincial Economic Relations in China'', Contemporary China Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1981 *''The Budget and the Plan in China: Central-Local Economic Relations'', Australian National University Press, 1972 *''China's Economic System'',

Praeger Publishers Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...

, 1967;Book review by Theodore Herman
/ref> Reprint edition (2016):

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in England that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, Routledge, F1000 (publisher), F1000 Research or Dovepress. It is a division of Informa ...

, *(with

George Cyril Allen George Cyril Allen (28 June 1900 – 31 July 1982), published as G. C. Allen, was a British economist and academic. He was Brunner Professor of Economic Science at the University of Liverpool from 1933 to 1947, and then Professor of Political E ...

) ''Western enterprise in Indonesia and Malaya: a study in economic development'', 1957; Reprint edition (2021): Creative Media Partners, *(with George Cyril Allen) ''Western enterprise in Far Eastern economic development: China and Japan'', 1954; Reprint edition (2015):

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Donnithorne, Audrey 1922 births 2020 deaths Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford 20th-century English women English Roman Catholic missionaries Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism People from Mianyang British women economists 20th-century British economists Academics of University College London Australian National University faculty English expatriates in China English expatriates in Hong Kong Anglicanism in Sichuan Catholic Church in Sichuan

Early life and education

Career

Selected works

See also

References