The WFMS Quarterly Review, a publication of the Methodist women’s missionary organisation, contains some interesting stories of the work of Methodist women missionaries in the early 20^th Century. This piece describes how the Malacca Methodist Girls’ School was started to provide an education for the girls in this then “sleepy hollow”.

How Methodist Girls’ School in Malacca was started

The Rebecca Suydam School – Picture from Woman’s Conference of Malaysia Mission, Jan 1914.

‘IN THE year 1904 Dr and Mrs Shellabear were sent to open a Methodist mission in Malacca, under the supervision of the General Methodist Board. There they found Miss Ada Pugh working for the British Bible Society, and visiting among the homes.

The story of the opening of the girls’ school in Malacca reads like a romance. One day several Chinese women came to the home of Miss Pugh to visit a lady missionary from Singapore in whose school one of them had been a pupil 20 years before. Before leaving one of the Chinese women said she had a daughter who could read and speak English, and added, “She would like very much to see you. Will you come to my house and talk to her?”

A few days later, Miss Pugh went to visit this Chinese home and met Bsar (Siok Kim), the eldest daughter of the house. In spite of the old customs, her father had sent her to school and she was the first Straits-born Chinese girl in Malacca to go to school.

Her father 25 years before had been sent to America and on his way met a missionary who was kind to him and took him to church and Sunday School in New York City. When he returned to Malacca he had no more to do with the family idols, although he did not announce his belief in the God of the Christian.

Bsar was eager to know what “Jesus” meant and to learn of him. She was converted and immediately wanted to teach her own people of Christ. When Mrs Shellabear learned how eager she was to teach, and knowing that young girls were not allowed to go out, she suggested that with her father’s permission, she might gather some children into the house with her sisters and teach them about Jesus and also teach them to read and write Romanised Malay and English.

This was the beginning of the Protestant Girls’ School. Its nine pupils increased in three months to 20. In 1905 Miss Pugh was appointed to this school and it had grown to 90 pupils by the end of the third year. The school soon grew too large to be held in the home of Bsar’s father and a larger house was found, the rent being paid by a fund left by earlier missionaries. 

But then came the question of a missionary to take charge of the school. Miss Pugh on the spot with the knowledge of the people and their language was just the one for the place, but where could we find her support?

Our good friends (of the Minneapolis Branch of the WFMS), Mr and Mrs James Suydam, assumed this burden. Under Miss Pugh’s care the school has had a phenomenal growth and a suitable building has become an imperative necessity. There are 16,700 girls under 15 years of age whose only chance for a Christian education is in this school.

A piece of land has been secured and $3,000 of our Thank Offering will be used for this building. Because of what our good friends have done for this work it will be named The Rebecca Suydam School. – WFMS Quarterly Review, Vol. XVIII, No.1, Jan. 1911. Slightly edited.

Earnest Lau, the Associate Editor of Methodist Message, is also the Archivist of The Methodist Church in Singapore.

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