Francis Hanson

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Francis R. Hanson (March 27, 1807 – October 21, 1873) was an early Episcopal missionary to China. He was born in Durham County, Maryland, and graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1833. He was ordained a deacon on May 19, 1833, and a priest on May 30, 1834. In 1834, under the Protestant Episcopal Church Mission, he and Rev. Henry Lockwood sailed from New York to Canton to serve as Episcopal missionaries in China. Because China was too dangerous for a permanent mission and for learning Chinese, they moved that year first to Singapore and then to Batavia (Jakarta) to study the language and establish a mission school for Chinese speakers. Their early work laid the groundwork for later missionaries such as William Jones Boone, the first Bishop of Shanghai, and Emma Jones. Ill health forced Hanson to return to the United States in 1838. He served as rector of Trinity Church in Demopolis, Alabama from 1839 to 1851, and then as rector of St. Andrew's Church in Macon Station, Alabama from 1851 to 1863. He died on October 21, 1873, in Baltimore, Maryland, at age 66.