Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 39:2 (Spring 2025)
Article: Annie Royale Taylor (1855–1922): A Missionary Adventurer In Tibet
Author: Ian Randall

PP 39:2 (Spring 2025) p. 19

Annie Royale Taylor (1855–1922): A Missionary Adventurer In Tibet

Ian Randall

Ian Randall is a Baptist minister who has had local church pastorates, was a hospital chaplain, and for twenty years was a lecturer in church history and spirituality at Spurgeon’s College, London, and in Prague. He has written extensively in these areas. He is a Senior Research Associate of the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide.

In 1894, The Scottish Geographical Magazine published an article, “My experiences in Tibet,” by Annie Royale Taylor. The article was derived from a paper that Annie Taylor read at meetings of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS) in Edinburgh and Glasgow in December 1893.

She began by saying that in addressing members of a learned society, she regretted that owing to her “lack of scientific knowledge and the want of instruments,” she was unable, during what had been her recent travels in Tibet, to make observations that carried scientific weight. However, she felt that because Tibet was so little known in Britain, her experiences had value. She wanted to make clear that she had appreciated the Tibetans as “hospitable, friendly, trustworthy, and by no means averse to intercourse with Europeans.” She described in some detail a gruelling journey of seven months in 1892–1893 in which she had hoped to reach Lhasa, with its Palace of the Dalai Lama. A Chinese man, Noga, who was part of her group, not only stole from her and threatened her life, but took defamatory information about her to Lhasa chiefs. This contributed to making her aspiration to reach Lhasa unachievable.1

Various writers have found Annie Taylor a fascinating character. William Carey Jr (1788–1853), a son of the well-known William Carey who pioneered Baptist mission in India, was in Tibet in 1899 and subsequent to meeting Annie there was able to publish her diary of her 1892–1893 trek.2 More recently, Jo Woolf, a Writer-in-Residence for the RSGS, wrote in 2016 about Annie’s spiritual ambitions, as well as commenting on all that was involved in her travels—with others—in the early 1890s, which included combatting sub-zero temperatures, wind-chill, and oxygen starvation. Jo Woolf said that “it is absolutely astonishing to think that she survived,” since there were occasions when she was equipped “with just a simple tent and a sleeping bag.”3

More than one biography covers Annie as a traveller but does not investigate the spiritual call at the core of her endeavours.4 However, as this study sh...