To China in 1886

Sister Eileen John Austin OCD tells the extraordinary story of Inie Elizabeth Newcombe (pictured left) (1857-1936): a member of the Church of Ireland, she responded to an appeal from the Church Mission Society (CMS) and was sent to China in 1886. Some years later she joined the Salvation Army and spent several years as a missionary in Japan. She was converted to Catholicism and ended her extraordinary journey as a Carmelite Sister in Dolgellau Monastery in Wales.

Our Carmel in North Wales was founded in 1929, and in those days to receive a picture postcard was quite an event. Such cards were passed around at recreation and then found their way into a special wooden box. Over the years the box filled up, layer upon layer until eventually it was forgotten at the back of a cupboard. When it came to light in 1993, many of the older cards had become valuable and were gladly accepted by a charity.

Right at the bottom of the box we found a Columban calendar picture under the 1929 post-cards. Although not dated it probably was as old as 1931. This would mean that the image used was probably a copy of the original mural painting of Our Lady of China at Dong Lu before it was bombed in 1941. A copy is venerated in Our Lady of China chapel in New York. A third version was enshrined in Dong Lu when it was rebuilt in 1992 (see page 3).

A strange story began to unfold as soon as the postcard box was discovered. Next to the calendar picture was a small album full of photographs of a Chinese mission station and dated 1912. We realised that this album and the calendar had belonged to our Sister Mary of Jesus, a veteran of the Protestant missions in China and Japan. She had become a Catholic in 1927 at the age of 70, and a Carmelite in 1931. She died in 1936. Since 1993, when we found the album, information about her life has been constantly coming to light.

Details of her childhood were remembered by our oldest Sisters from stories told at recreation. Her father, a minister of the Church of Ireland, was assigned to St Mark’s, a chapel-of-ease of St Peter’s, Drogheda. Inie was born in 1859, the second of nine children. Both parents died when she was very young and her aunt Lily, who lived in Blackrock, Co. Dublin, volunteered to rear the family. She gave them permanence and security, made a truly happy home for them, and taught them by word and example to be kind and unselfish with each other. Inie later wrote of her aunt, "She often explained to us that she looked on this charge as a life-work given her by God Himself. Hers was real religion lived out in the details of everyday life before us children, and it is to her that I owe the strong hold God has had on my whole life."

We wrote to the Church Mission Society and enquired about Inie Elizabeth Newcombe 1857-1936. They replied with a certain amount of data and added that there were three other Newcombes on the Fujian mission who could have been her sisters. They gave permission to research their archives kept in Birmingham University Library. These archives produced some very interesting information: Inie and her sisters were the first single women who volunteered to evangelise the women of China’s Fujian Province . Her sisters had all died in China: Hessie a martyr in 1895, Maude and Benjamina in 1910 and 1915.

In 1893 Inie’s life took another turning. She describes how a meeting with a young Dominican missionary made her question the anti-Catholicism in which she had been brought up in Ireland. During her first home-leave that same year, she joined the Salvation Army and was sent as a pioneer to Tokyo. An enquiry to the Salvation Army archivist produced an abundance of information, including extracts from her letters and photos of her which had appeared in the Army’s mission magazine.

Subsequently we found a bundle of letters she wrote in 1931 telling the extraordinary circumstances of her vocation to Carmel. She wrote, "It is truly very wonderful how God has led me on and opened His way for me...I feel my soul has truly found a resting place and when God has called and opened the way He will give the necessary strength both of body and soul." Some months later she wrote, "I feel that I am beginning to get light in and on this new life so different to anything I have ever before experienced. New habits may be difficult to acquire, but what of that when it is God who asks them of us, and even if things were were more difficult, I would not exchange the life here for anything the outer world could offer." So, finally the jigsaw pieces of her life were fitted together and an interesting and inspiring biography emerged. It reveals a life of extraordinary trust in God by one who only wished to follow her Master in the work of saving souls.

Inie: A life of mission and prayer by Sr Eileen John Austin OCD, Dolgellau Carmel, pp. 158. This is the story of a remarkable Irishwoman who worked a s a missionary in China twenty-five years before any Columbans reached there. The many quotations from her letters reveal a woman of extraordinary faith, leadership and courage.

Copies of the book may be ordered direct from Carmelite Monastery, Cader Road, Dolgellau, Gwynedd LL40 1SH.

Price: £7.50 including postage.

A shorter pamphlet is available for £2.50

[Far East Magazine]