Ethel Margaret Phillips

Early life

Ethel Margaret Phillips was born in England in 1876. Phillips had a difficult upbringing as a young girl. At about the time Phillips was four years old, her mother abandoned her family, taking Phillips’ youngest brother, Herbert, with her. Since Phillips’ father had developed TB, it was decided that Phillips and her siblings would leave Bridgnorth, a small town in England, and go to live with their grandmother. Spending less than a year at her grandmother's house, Phillips was then sent away to London to attend school. Much of Phillips' childhood was made up of living with unpleasant hosts and being passed from school to school. By age fifteen, Phillips began earning her living through teaching at Rushmore College, a private school located in Kidderminster, Shropshire. Phillips took on various teaching jobs for the next few years, while also continuing her own studies. Phillips passed the Cambridge examination and then became an Associate of the Royal College of Preceptors.

Education

In September 1898, Phillips took the college entrance exam. Upon passing the exam, she enrolled at the University of Manchester. Women were only recently allowed admittance into the University and were not yet allowed to enroll in the medical program. In her first term, Phillips took many science courses and when the medical school began accepting women, during Phillips' second term, she transferred right away. In 1905, Phillips graduated from the University of Manchester with a bachelor of medicine and surgery, making her the third woman to graduate from the University with a degree in medicine.

Calling

Around the time that Phillips was eleven, she heard a sermon given by a member of the London Missionary Society. After hearing the sermon, Phillips began to ponder the idea of becoming a missionary in the future. After she decided that she was too shy to preach, though, Phillips abandoned the idea. As a young woman, Phillips also developed many different medical conditions, including haemorrhages and fibroids, eventually needing a hysterectomy. Due to her frequent visits to the hospital, Phillips then developed the ambition to become a doctor. Both of Phillips aspirations came together when Phillips was short on money. A friend of Phillips advised her to apply to receive a scholarship from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge to help to pay for her school tuition. To qualify for the scholarship, Phillips needed to go abroad as a missionary doctor and apply to a specific mission. Phillips decided to take the offer and applied to the Society for the Propagation of Gospel (SPG). Originally wishing to go to India, Phillips instead got assigned to do her mission trip in China and arrived in China on 23 October 1905.

Political background

The Boxer Rebellion took place about five years prior to Phillips' arrival in China. The uprising was a response to the foreign religious influence brought over by traders and missionaries. Feeling threatened, China rebelled. Women missionaries were not well received in China at this time because of the unconventional role they took on, that is, working outside of the household. Though the rebellion had progressed into violence, in the end Western missionaries were not deterred from their mission work. Phillips arrived in China after the Boxer Rebellion had calmed down but still experienced the aftereffects. The local people in China were still not keen on accepting Western practices in religion or medicine, which made it hard for Phillips to get her patients to adhere to treatment.

Peking

When Phillips arrived in China, medical practices contrasted with Western practice. Instead of scientific methods, Chinese medicine was made up of mostly traditional methods derived from ancient times. Diagnosing patients was much different in China, where doctors diagnosed patients from observing them from the outside rather than using tests to examine internal parts of the body that may need attention (ARTICLE). As for overall well being, the Chinese believed that it had to do with a person’s internal harmony of yin and yang. The devil was blamed for all illness, but the real cause had to do with poor standards of hygiene. Phillips encountered many herbal medications in China; herbal remedies and acupuncture were both very popular treatments around this time. She also noted the practice developed by the locals in which they would simply hop from doctor to doctor if one did not provide an immediate cure.

After arriving in Peking, Phillips was immersed in Chinese lessons. Phillips worked under Dr. Aspland, another medical missionary, who put her in control of the women and children outpatients and the women's ward at the dispensary. Phillips stayed in Peking for six months to gain experience, working with Dr. Aspland as well as visiting multiple other mission hospitals in the area. During her time in Peking, Phillips developed an acute case of Tuberculosis and was advised by Dr. Aspland to leave Peking and go to the country for fresh air. Over the six weeks spent at the mission rest-house, Phillips idealistic view of mission work became slightly tarnished by the lack of friendliness displayed by her coworkers in Peking.

Pinyin Mission Station

After recovering, a Bishop from a nearby diocese requested Phillips' presence in Pinyin. Phillips arrived at the mission station on 9 March 1906. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel opened a mission station in Pinyin in 1979. During the time Phillips was there, there were no other mission stations present in the area. Phillips often did not see eye to eye with missionaries in Pinyin and wished to build a permanent hospital. In 1908, Phillips received permission to build the hospital that she had requested. Phillips opened St. Agatha's Hospital on 5 February 1909 and it was dedicated on 1 May.

St. Agatha's Hospital

St. Agatha's Hospital was the first hospital that was built in the diocese of Shandong. The hospital was also the first women's hospital to be opened in the entire district. Patients were admitted to the hospital on 15 November, but Phillips had a policy that only necessary cases would be admitted. Upon admission, patients had to pay a fee. Patients also had to pay for their food if they decided to leave before their treatment was over, this encouraged patients to stay their full treatment and also prevented people from coming only for free food. On 27 December 1909, the hospital welcomed the first infant to be born there.

Furlough

Phillips seldom left China but did take a furlough starting on the Fourth of July following the opening of St. Agatha's Hospital. She sailed to America, going to Hawaii, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and then proceeded to Canada. After that, Phillips travelled to London. While in London, Phillips was diagnosed unfit to return to China for health reasons by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. In March 1913, Phillips decided that she felt well enough to return to her work in China and requested to work at the Canadian Church Mission in Henan Province. Her request was accepted and Phillips prepared for her return.

Kaifeng and St. Paul's Hospital

In Kaifeng, at the Canadian Church Mission, Phillips was considered a senior missionary due to her prior experience and ability to speak Chinese. The Bishop in charge of the mission placed Phillips in command of the women's work, the supervision of the boys' orphanage, and the construction of the new hospital. St. Paul's Hospital opened in November 1914. Not long after the opening, the mission began to deteriorate; two missionaries had already resigned. At this time, the mission was ordered to close the hospital until World War I was over. After closing down the hospital, Phillips did not wish to join any more missions, for her initial view of missionary work had been ruined.

Going-back to Peking

Back in Peking, Phillips translated nursing training material into Chinese. Then, in September 1915, Phillips taught medicine in Chinese at the Union Medical College for Women. The classes she taught varied from hygiene to public health. Phillips also attended classes with her students at the Peking Union Medical College to translate the curriculum for them. Phillips also agreed to be the visiting physician for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, but when asked to officially join the mission again, Phillips declined, no longer wishing to affiliate with a specific mission. Phillips also rented a house for herself so that she could open her own private practice. To make some extra money, Phillips rented out rooms to paying guests. Along with teaching and her medical practice, Phillips was also made the unofficial physician for the YWCA, in which Phillips worked to help Chinese women medically and socially. At age 45 while in Peking, Phillips adopted a boy baby since she could not have children due to her previous hysterectomy. The baby was from England and she named him Clifford. After spending time in China, Clifford returned to England as a young man to continue his education.

Phillips and the YWCA

The YWCA was brought to China at the start of the twentieth century to provide a support system and to help Chinese women to move away from their original roles in the household. Phillips was consistently concerned with the betterment of women and children throughout her work in China. While working with the YWCA, Phillips wanted to create mother's clubs. Peking's YWCA successfully established a mother's club for women coming from lower income families. At the same time, Phillips pushed the creation of a Home Training School in which students would learn care for the sick, cleanliness, and a number of other simple tasks. Phillips was very firm in her beliefs of serving others.

Late life

Phillips had not experienced extreme influence from the political turmoil that was taking place in China for the most part until World War II began. As World War II was starting, Phillips was running a Tuberculosis sanatorium that was growing quickly. When the Japanese began the occupation of Peking, though, the clinic was shut down. Along with the sanatorium, the Anglican Mission Girls' School was closed, the school that Phillips had been doing health inspection work for. On 7 December 1941, Phillips was declared by the Japanese to be an enemy alien because of her British ties. Subsequently, Phillips was put under house arrest for a short while. Not long after being released, Phillips was ordered to evacuate Peking and was then taken to the Weixian Internment Compound in the Shandong Province. After spending a considerable amount of time there, American liberators came to free the people in the camp on 17 August 1945.

Upon her release from the compound, Phillips was reunited with her son Clifford, and became a grandmother in 1946. Feeling that it was impractical to try to recover her private practice, Phillips instead took a position with Radio Peking, broadcasting a half-hour program three times a week. With the Chinese Civil War looming overhead, Clifford convinced his mother that it was time to leave China and, after 43 years, Phillips left China behind. She suffered aftereffects from the Weixan Internment Compound and died of congestive heart failure on 17 May 1951.