A wife’s devotion to home, husband and God
Joshua and Hannah met when they were teenagers, and planned to marry. However, Hannah’s plans for a comfortable life in England were not shared by Joshua, and when the possibility arose for Joshua to settle in America, Hannah would not agree to his proposal of marriage until he promised her that he would never require her to leave her homeland. They married in 1791, and three years later they moved to Bristol for Joshua to start work as a teacher.
However, it wasn’t long before Joshua approached Hannah again with plans to go abroad, this time as a missionary to India. William Carey had sent an urgent request for more missionaries to join him in his work. Hannah was reluctant to leave her home and country. However her devotion to God was real and deep and eventually she consented to go to India with Joshua and their two small children, John Clark and Susannah.
The journey took 20 weeks, and they eventually arrived in Serampore, in Danish territory, on 13 October 1799.
Carey, who was then based further north, joined the new missionaries in January 1800 with his family (which consisted of his wife Dorothy, who by this time had become insane, and four sons), and announced the foundation of the Serampore Mission. Their group consisted of ten adults and nine children.
Hannah’s duties were primarily domestic, and included looking after her own children, as well as the orphaned children of her fellow missionaries who had died. In 1801, Carey was unexpectedly invited to take a teaching post away from Serampore, which left his four children and dependent wife under Hannah’s care in his absence. It has been said that she ‘was not unhappy for increase of this burden’. However, she was eager to do more for the mission work.
With Joshua’s previous experience as a teacher, he formed the educational work of the mission, with the view that education was vital for the spread of the gospel.
In 1800 the Marshmans started two boarding schools for European boys and girls — a very successful venture, which also brought in much needed income for the work of the mission. Joshua went on to expand the educational work by establishing a network of schools for Bengali children around Serampore. By 1818 there were 92 schools with a total of 10,000 pupils.
The years up to 1811 saw expansion of the activities of the Serampore Mission through the development of printing, translation work, preaching and education. During these years the Marshmans lost two more sons in infancy, but had five living children: John, Susannah, Benjamin, Rachel and Hannah.
New recruits, new conflicts
On 12 March 1812 there was a devastating fire in the Serampore Mission Press which resulted in the loss of both property and manuscripts. This had important repercussions, though, because it encouraged support for the missionary work from abroad, followed closely in 1813 by the lifting of the ban on missionaries by the East India Company.
This brought new, young, energetic missionaries to Serampore. However, as they adjusted to the community life and mission strategy set in place by the original missionaries, tensions began to develop. Conflict between the old and new grew, and became large enough to threaten separation. Unfortunately the Marshmans, especially Joshua with his sometimes obstinate nature, became the target of criticism from the new missionaries.
Despite all Joshua’s character flaws and the accusations thrown at him by the ‘younger brethren’, Carey was drawn to commend Marshman’s qualities:
Serampore College
With the vision for Indian Christians to go as missionaries to their own people, the mission needed a facility to train personnel. Marshman began work on a prospectus for a ‘College for the instruction of Asiatic, Christian and other youth in Eastern Literature and European Science’.
Serampore College was built in 1818, and in 1827 it was given the right to confer degrees, although this was not used until 1929.
1822-23: translation and tragedy
In 1822, Joshua completed his translation of the Bible into Chinese, which he had been working on for 15 years. However, the years 1822-23 also brought a series of tragic events: the Marshman’s eldest daughter, Susannah, died just after giving birth to her third child, a son, who also died; their son-in-law, Henry Williams, was hit hard by his wife’s death and he died in October 1823; William Carey’s eldest son Felix died in 1822; and the youngest of the Serampore trio,
William Ward, died in 1823. Also that year floods destroyed Carey’s house and the Marshman’s schoolhouses were heavily damaged.
Girls schools
After Ward’s death, Hannah had to take charge of Serampore’s female schools. Besides being affordable for the poor, the female schools taught elementary history, science, geography, Bengali and English grammar as well as training in handicrafts such as knitting and embroidery and scripture knowledge. But the success for these schools was to be short lived.
Trials and tragedy continue
In 1829, the European Agency Houses in Bengal collapsed and thus the Serampore College and mission lost all its funds. The ill will borne by the ‘junior brethren’ against Joshua particularly was still continuing, finally resulting in separation from the Home Committee. These indeed were hard times. In 1836 Joshua’s health began to fail, and in October of that year, tragedy struck again, when their daughter Hannah was nearly burned to death. Joshua never recovered from the shock, and died in December 1837.
Fears overcome
After her husband’s death, Hannah Marshman lived for a further ten years, in which time she also saw the death of their youngest son, Benjamin, in 1838. However, she still showed an interest in the work of the mission, attending the 7.30 am prayer meeting every Thursday morning and visiting the poor and suffering people in the district.
In the last days before Hannah died in 1847, when her daughter asked her if she was afraid, she replied emphatically, “no fears, child, no fears”. She had overcome her fear of a strange country and unknown environment, endured suffering and outlived her contemporaries; a truly remarkable, capable and energetic woman in every way.