Frederick W. Baller

Following his conversion to Christianity at age 17, Baller was one of the first students of the Missionary Institute established in the East End of London by Henry Grattan Guinness.

Baller applied to the China Inland Mission (CIM) and left England on 3 September 1873 with Charles Henry Judd, M. Henry Taylor, and Mary Bowyer. They arrived at Shanghai on 5 November 1873. The following year, he and Mary Bowyer were married at Shanghai, on 17 September. Mary was a veteran missionary to China who had ventured out with Hudson Taylor on the Lammermuir (clipper) in 1866, at the beginning of the China Inland Mission. She had been baptised by Taylor, along with some others, en route at the Sunda Strait.

Baller studied the Chinese language in Nanking (Nanjing), then just recently liberated from the ravages of the Taiping rebels. Baller was then appointed superintendent of missions in Anhui and Jiangsu with the China Inland Mission. He went to Shanxi in 1876, with George King, to distribute famine relief. Due to the continued famine in 1878, he returned to Shanxi with Taylor's wife Jane Elizabeth Faulding and single women missionaries Horne and Crickmay. Baller took a China Inland Mission party through Hunan, facing anti-foreign opposition, to Guiyang in 1880, visiting the capital of Guizhou. He was appointed secretary to the first China Inland Mission China Council in 1885.

Image:MaryBaller.jpg

In 1896, he was appointed principal of the new training home for CIM male missionaries at Anqing and Sichuan. There he not only helped train missionaries in the Chinese language but also published his lectures in Letters, from an Old Missionary to His Nephew (1907).{{cite BDCC |url-id=baller-frederick-william |title=William Frederick Baller |last=Covell |first=Ralph R. |access-date=23 August 2023}}

In 1897, he began his extensive literary work. From 1900 to 1918 he served on the committee to revise the Mandarin Bible as a member of the Union Mandarin Bible Revision Committee at Beijing, for the New Testament in 1907, and the Old Testament 1907–1918. He was one of the translators of the Christian Union Version of the Bible, along with Calvin Wilson Mateer, Cheng Jingyi and George Owen.[https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/april-web-only/chinese-union-version-bible-translation-influence.html Christianity Today website, A Century Later, the Chinese Union Version Still Dominant, article by Kevin Xiyi Yao dated April 6, 2022]

Among his many books, the best known are An Anglo-Chinese Dictionary, The Mandarin Primer (at least 14 editions{{cite web|url=http://www.lib.tjfsu.edu.cn/tecang.html|title=Bibliography of the English Books about China Published from 1840s to 1949s|website=Library of Tianjin Foreign Studies University|access-date=6 July 2019}}), An Idiom a Lesson, An Analytical Vocabulary of the New Testament, Lessons in Wenli, An English Translation of the Sacred Edict, and The Life of Hudson Taylor.

After the death of his first wife, Baller married H. B. Fleming on 23 January 1912.

Due to his work with the Chinese language, in 1915 he was made a Life Governor of the British and Foreign Bible Society; he was also a vice-president of the National Bible Society of Scotland; and a Life Member of the American Bible Society.

In 1919, Baller went on furlough after nineteen years of uninterrupted service in China.

Baller died in 1922 and was buried in Shanghai shortly after completing his book on Taylor.

• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7bNDAAAAIAAJ&q=mandarin|title=Lessons in elementary Wen-li|author1=Frederick William Baller |year=1912|publisher=China Inland Mission|location=SHANGHAI|pages=128|access-date=15 May 2011}}
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tns0AQAAIAAJ|title=Mandarin primer: prepared for the use of junior members of the China Inland Mission|author1=Frederick William Baller |year=1900|publisher=China Inland Mission|edition=4|location=SHANGHAI|pages=350|access-date=15 May 2011}}
• {{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/anidiomalessona00missgoog|title=An idiom a lesson: a short course in elementary Chinese|author1=Frederick William Baller |year=1921|publisher=Morgan and Scott Ltd.|edition=3|location=SHANGHAI|pages=[https://archive.org/details/anidiomalessona00missgoog/page/n113 106]|access-date=15 May 2011}}
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=00Y8AAAAIAAJ|title=Kuoyü primer: progressive studies in the Chinese national language|author1=Robert Henry Mathews |author2=Frederick William Baller |year=1938|publisher=China inland mission|pages=5|access-date=15 May 2011}}
• {{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924023354743|title=An analytical Chinese-English dictionary|author1=Frederick William Baller |year=1900|publisher=China inland mission and American Prebysterian mission press|location=SHANGHAI|pages=637|access-date=15 May 2011}}
• Life of C. H. Spurgeon Translated into Mandarin
• A Retrospect by J. Hudson Taylor (translated into Chinese)
• [https://archive.org/details/analyticalchines00balluoft An analytical Chinese-English dictionary : compiled for the China Inland Mission (1900)]
• [https://archive.org/details/analyticalvocabu00balluoft 'An analytical vocabulary of the New Testament (1907)]
• [https://archive.org/details/mandarinprimer00balluoft A Mandarin primer (1911)]
• [https://archive.org/details/idiomlessonshort00ballrich An idiom a lesson; a short course in elementary Chinese (1921)]
• {{cite book

|url=https://archive.org/details/analyticalvocabu00balluoft

|title=An analytical vocabulary of the New Testament

|year=1907

|author=Frederick William Baller

|publisher=China Inland Mission and American Presbyterian Mission Press

|edition=2

|location=SHANGHAI

|pages=[https://archive.org/details/analyticalvocabu00balluoft/page/418 418]

|access-date=10 February 2012 }}(Harvard University)

• {{cite book

|url=https://archive.org/details/analyticalvocabu00ballrich

|title=An analytical vocabulary of the New Testament

|year=1893

|author=Frederick William Baller

|publisher=China inland mission and American Presbyterian mission press

|location=SHANGHAI

|pages=[https://archive.org/details/analyticalvocabu00ballrich/page/264 264]

|access-date=10 February 2012 }}(Harvard University)

• {{cite book

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EhstAAAAYAAJ

|title=The A.B.C. of Chinese writing ...

|year=1913

|author=Frederick William Baller

|publisher=China inland mission

|page=70

|access-date=10 February 2012 }}(Princeton University)

• {{cite book

|url=https://archive.org/details/sacrededict01kang

|title=The Sacred edict

|year=1892

|author=Frederick William Baller

|publisher=American Presbyterian Mission Press

|location=SHANGHAI

|pages=[https://archive.org/details/sacrededict01kang/page/216 216]

|access-date=10 February 2012 }}(Columbia University)

• {{cite book

|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924022994457

|title=A vocabulary of the colloquial rendering of the Sacred edict

|year=1892

|author=Frederick William Baller

|publisher=American Presbyterian mission press

|location=SHANGHAI

|pages=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924022994457/page/n240 217]

|access-date=10 February 2012 }}(the University of California)

• {{cite book

|url=https://archive.org/details/sacrededict00ballgoog

|title=The sacred edict: with a translation of the colloquial rendering

|year=1907

|author=Frederick William Baller

|publisher=American Presbyterian Mission Press

|edition=2nd, reprint

|pages=[https://archive.org/details/sacrededict00ballgoog/page/n234 216]

|access-date=10 February 2012 }}[https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Baller%2C%20F%2E%20W%2E%20%28Frederick%20William%29%2C%201852-1922 University of Pennsylvania website, Library section, Online Books by F. W. Baller]

• {{cite book

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BJfWAAAAMAAJ

|title=The Sacred edict: Shen yü kuang hsün, with a translation of the colloquial rendering

|year=1924

|author=Frederick William Baller

|publisher=China Inland Mission

|edition=6th

|pages=216

|access-date=10 February 2012 }}(the University of Michigan)

• Christianity in Anhui
• Christianity in Jiangsu
• Protestantism in Sichuan

• {{cite book | first = Alfred | last = Broomhall | author-link = Alfred James Broomhall | year = 1985 | title = Hudson Taylor and China's Open Century: Assault On The Nine | publisher = Hodder and Stoughton | location = London}}
• {{cite book | first = Marshall | last = Broomhall | author-link = Marshall Broomhall | year = 1915 | title = The Jubilee Story of the China Inland Mission | url = https://archive.org/details/jubileestoryofch00broo | publisher = Morgan and Scott | location = London}}
• {{cite book | first = Mary Geraldine | last = Guinness | author-link = Mary Geraldine Guinness | year = 1893 | title = The Story of the China Inland Mission vol II | publisher = Morgan and Scott | location = London}}
• {{cite book | first = Dr. and Mrs. Howard | last = Taylor | author-link = Frederick Howard Taylor | year = 1918 | title = Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission; The Growth of a Work of God | url = http://worldinvisible.com/library/hudsontaylor/hudsontaylorv2/hudsontaylorv2tc.htm | publisher = Morgan and Scott | location = London}}

{{reflist}}

• Historical Bibliography of the China Inland Mission

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080113182859/http://www.omf.org/omf/us OMF International (formerly China Inland Mission and Overseas Missionary Fellowship)]

{{Protestant missions to China}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Baller, Frederick William}}

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