Missionary was original Celtic Tiger

The life of a Victorian Irish missionary in pre-Communist China is remembered with the auction of a Belfast family heirloom.

AN UNUSUAL medal given to an Irish Presbyterian missionary by the government of pre-Communist China has turned up in a London saleroom.

The Order of the Striped Tiger was awarded to Dr Frederick W S O’Neill, a native of Dungannon, Co Tyrone, who went to China in the late 19th century to convert residents of Manchuria – a region in northeast China – to Christianity.

The silver-gilt medal, featuring an enamelled colour image of a tiger, has been consigned to sale by his one of his grandchildren.

It will go under the hammer next Thursday, August 25th in Hong Kong in an auction of Asian coins, medals and banknotes organised by Baldwin’s, a leading British numismatics firm. Bidding will be in US dollars and the medal has an estimate of $5,000- $6,000 (€3,470-€4,166). In a catalogue note, the vendor writes: “My grandfather FWS O’Neill, went to Manchuria in 1897 as a missionary of the Irish Presbyterian Church, at the age 27.

In 1900 he could speak fluent Chinese and was not molested during the Boxer Rising, which aimed at expelling foreign influence.”

He helped to establish a school and church in the city of Fakumen which reputedly still exists.

An original Victorian Onwards, Christian Soldier type, he somehow survived the ensuing turmoil in China which saw the collapse of the Qing imperial dynasty and the establishment of a Republic. Dr O’Neill was one of a group of some 70 Presbyterian Irish men and women – from North and South – who served as missionaries in Manchuria.

Dr O’Neill left China and travelled to France during the first World War in 1917, when the Allies shipped thousands of Chinese labourers to the Western Front to provide support services to British and French troops. He apparently served as a chaplain to the Chinese serving in the trenches.

After the war, the new Chinese government awarded medals to military and other personnel who had overseen the Chinese Labour Corps.

Known in China as the Order of Wen-Hu, the Order of the Striped Tiger medals were struck and issued in 1920. The honour had nine different classes and Dr O’Neill received the Order of the Striped Tiger: Fifth Class Neck Badge.

After the war, he returned to China. In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria but he was allowed to continue his missionary work until 1941 when Japan entered the second World War.

Dr O’Neill and his wife – also a Presbyterian missionary from the North – were then arrested, taken to Japan and interned in Kobe. The following year they were allowed to return home in an exchange of diplomatic and religious prisoners.

He published a book titled Call of the Eastwhich described, in often lurid detail, the adventures and considerable challenges experienced by the "Irish Mission to Manchuria, 1869-1919". Dr O'Neill retired to East Belfast where he died, aged 82, in 1952.