Theodore Hamberg () (25 March 1819 – 13 May 1854) was a Swedish

missionary A missionary is a member of a 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.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

and author active in China. He is known for his role in having authored an important account on the early

Taiping rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It laste ...

and for his role in establishing Christian missions in

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

province. He also laid the foundations for the study of the

Hakka dialect Hakka (, , ) forms a language group of varieties of Chinese, spoken natively by the Hakka people throughout Southern China and Taiwan and throughout the diaspora areas of East Asia, Southeast Asia and in overseas Chinese communities ar ...

in the West.

Early life

Hamberg, born Knut Theodor Hamberg, was the son of sea captain Nicholas Hamberg and his wife Magdalena Lovisa Löfvenberg and the younger brother of the Swedish chemist Nils Peter Hamberg. His father died in 1830 when Hamberg was 11 years old. He began working in the office of British consul George Foy and maintained a close relationship with the family. Daughter

Mathilda Foy Mathilda (or ''Mathilde'') Foy (or ''Foj''), also known as ''Tante Esther'', (10 November 1813 – 1 November 1869), was a Swedish philanthropist and writer, known for her charitable work. She is known as a pioneer of the Sunday school, and as ...

, a writer, wrote about Hamberg frequently. After graduating from school, Hamberg worked as a commercial bookkeeper in Stockholm. He became a member of an association to support the

Swedish Mission Society The Swedish Mission Society (Swedish: (SMS), later ), was a Swedish Christian organization to promote mission work among the Sámi in Sweden. History The Swedish Mission Society was founded in 1835 by George Scott, Samuel Owen, Johan Olof ...

in 1835. Hamberg's conversion came in 1842 through the preaching of

Pietist Pietism (), also known as Pietistic Lutheranism, is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christianity, Christian life, including a social concern for ...

revivalist preacher

Carl Olof Rosenius Carl Olof Rosenius (February 3, 1816 – February 24, 1868) was a Swedish lay preacher, author and editor of the monthly ''Pietisten'' (The Pietist) from 1842 to 1868.''Twice-Born Hymns'' by J. Irving Erickson, (Chicago: Covenant Press, 1976 ...

, whom he became close friends with and introduced to Mathilda. He and Foy were also godparents of Rosenius' first child. In 1844, he left the bookkeeping trade to join the

Basel Mission The Basel Mission was a Christian missionary society based in Switzerland. It was active from 1815 to 2001, when it transferred the operative work to , the successor organization of ''Kooperation Evangelischer Kirchen und Missione'' (KEM), found ...

under the influence of

Peter Fjellstedt Peter Fjellstedt (17 September 1802 – 4 January 1881) was a Swedish '' Nyevangelist'' missionary and preacher who founded the Fjellstedt School and Evangeliska Fosterlands-Stiftelsen. Biography Upbringing Fjellstedt was born to carpenter ...

and with the support of the Swedish Mission Society. Hamberg spent the following two years in training at a missions school in Switzerland.

Missionary work in China

In 1846, Hamberg was sent to China, where he arrived on 19 March the following year and started to work in the

mission, where he worked to convert members from the

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...

community. He also worked out a draft of the first description of the

, which provided the foundation to D. MacIver's Hakka dictionary. Hamberg initially worked under the influential German missionary

Karl Gützlaff Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff (8 July 1803 – 9 August 1851), anglicised as Charles Gutzlaff, was a German Lutheran missionary to the Far East, notable as one of the first Protestant missionaries in Bangkok, Thailand (1828) and in Korea (1 ...

, but Hamberg gradually grew skeptical of Gützlaff's strategy of mass conversions; instead he advocated a more cautious approach, which in due course would bring him into conflict with Gützlaff and with the

. After the death of Gützlaff, Hamberg was vindicated and he continued to work under the Basel Mission.

Hamberg and the Taiping Rebellion

In 1852, Hamberg met

Hong Xiuquan Hong Xiuquan (1 January 1814 – 1 June 1864), born Hong Huoxiu and with the courtesy name Renkun, was a Chinese revolutionary who was the leader of the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing dynasty. He established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdo ...

's cousin Hong Ren'gan, who had been separated from the rebellion and fled to

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 Delta i ...

. Hong Ren'gan also provided Hamberg with important information on the

, which formed the basis of a book Hamberg later published on the rebellion. The book was the first extensive account on the Taiping rebellion in a Western language and remains an important source on the early life of Hong Xiuquan. Hamberg also instructed Hong in Christianity and baptized him. Hamberg died in Hong Kong on 13 May 1854 after contracting dysentery.

Works

*''Report regarding the Chinese Union at Hongkong.'' Hong Kong: Printed at the Hong Kong Register Office, 1851. *''The visions of Hung-Siu-tshuen, and origin of the Kwang-si insurrection.'' Hong Kong: The China mail office, 1854.

References

*Hannich, Gustav. ''Treue bis ans Ende. Erlebnisse des schwedischen Missionars Theodor Hamberg in China.'' Basel: Basler Missionsbuchh., 1941. *MacIver, D. ''A Chinese-English dictionary. Hakka-dialect as spoken in Kwang-tung province.'' Revised by M.C. MacKenzie. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1926. *Schlyter, Herman. ''Theodor Hamberg: Den förste svenske Kinamissionären.'' Lund: Gleerup, 1952 *So Kwan-wai, Eugene P. Boardman and Ch'iu P'ing. "Hung Jen-kan, Taiping Prime Minister, 1859-1864." ''Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies'', Vol. 20, No. 1/2. (Jun. 1957), 262-294.

External links

Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon (in Swedish)Biography from Ricci Roundtable
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamberg, Theodore 1819 births 1854 deaths Swedish Protestant missionaries Protestant missionaries in China Swedish expatriates in China