Helen B K Maclean (known as Nell), (United Free) Church of Scotland missionary in China, was born in a village in the highlands of Scotland. Her father was a schoolmaster and elder in the village church and she graduated from Edinburgh University (MA) in 1916. She was accepted for China by the by the mission in 1921 and spent her first six months in Beijing learning Mandarin. Further language training and an introduction to evangelising followed in Kaiyuan in Manchuria where she first met Fragrant Tree (Wang Sufen) who was to become her lifelong friend.
In 1923 she moved to Shenyang to teach in the mission's girls school, became the school's principal missionary in 1925 and was also involved in developing youth work in the area. She remained at the school for the rest of her time in China, appointing a Chinese principal, encouraging the Church to take more responsibility from the mission and seeing the school through a difficult period when the Japanese occupied Manchuria.
After Pearl Harbour in December 1941 Maclean was put under house arrest for six months and the school was closed. With other colleagues she was sent to Japan for internment but was returned home as an exchange prisoner before the end of 1942. The Church of Scotland sent her to work in Ghana from 1944 until 1946 when she was able to return to Manchuria and the school. When the communists entered Shenyang in November 1948 her position became more difficult, she suffered from bouts of dysentery and after the school was closed in 1949 she was ordered home. From 1951 until 1954 she worked in Jamaica then returned to Inverness in Scotland. She kept in touch with Fragrant Tree who secured permission to leave China in 1963 and joined Maclean in Scotland. Fragrant Tree looked after Maclean during her final illness and after Maclean's death moved to an old people's home where she died.
From the guide to the Papers of Helen B K Maclean, 1935-1984, (Centre for the Study of World Christianity)
