John Lloyd--Unsung Father of Amoy Dictionary

Bill Brown ... Amoy Mission
Although Carstairs Douglas is famous for his Amoy Dictionary (Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy),he wrote in his preface that he based it on the manuscript of Rev. John Lloyd, of the American Presbyterian Mission of Amoy. Little is known of Lloyd, other than that he came to Xiamen in December, 1844, and died here just four years later, on December 5th, 1848. But it was Lloyd's brief two years of labor that made possible much of the work that followed. Douglas wrote in the Dictionary preface, "When I arrived at Amoy in 1855 I copied it for iny own use, adding the additional words in Doty's Manual,* and have been constantly enlarging and re-arranging the collection of words and phrases ever since [14 years!] A few years after copying Lloyd's Vocabulary I collated the manuscript dictionary written by the Rev. Alexander Stronach of the London Missionary Society...."

On the 6th of December Rev. John Lloyd, of the American Presbyterian mission, died of typhus fever after an illness of two weeks. Mr. Talmage makes this record of him:

"Dec. 8, 1848. Rev. John Lloyd was born in the State of Pennsylvania on the first of Oct., 1813, which made him thirty-five years, two months, and five days at the time of his death. He was a man of fine abilities. His mind was well stored with useful knowledge and was well disciplined. He was most laborious in study, very careful to improve his time. He was mastering the language with rapidity. His vocabulary was not so large as that of some of the other brethren, but he had a very large number of words and phrases at his command, and was pronounced by the Chinese to speak the language more accurately than any other foreigner in the place. They even said of him that it could not be inferred simply from his voice, unless his face was seen, that he was a foreigner. He was a man of warm heart, very strong in his friendship, very kind in his disposition, and a universal favorite among the Chinese. I never knew a man that improved more by close intimacy. His modesty, which may be called his great fault, was such that it was necessary to become well acquainted with him before he could be properly appreciated. But it has pleased the Master of the harvest to call him from the field just as he became fully qualified to be an efficient laborer. What a lesson this, that we must not overestimate our importance in the work to which God has called us. He can do without us. It seems necessary that He should give the Church lesson upon lesson that she may not forget her dependence upon Him."

American Presbyterian Board of Amoy
* Doty: Arrived in Amoy in 1844, had two wives die here, and died within 4 days of reaching shore when he returned to the U.S. in 1864 to visit his family. Read the Memoirs of Mary Doty,his daughter, who was born here in Gulangyu in 1851 and lived here until 1859.
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