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In December 190l Robert Lamont McIntyre set out from Brisbane aboard the SS Changsha with a small group of young men intent on ministering to the millions in China . Born in Dumbarton Scotland, where his father had run an iron foundry, the family sailed to Brisbane because of his mother's health when he was eight, she died soon after . His father remarried when he was 10 and his stepmother , a devout woman with whom he formed a great attachment, influenced his outlook. He became deeply involved with the Windsor Road Baptist Church in Brisbane .
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Early jobs did not appeal to him in the printing trade and boot-making , where in the latter he was vexed from day to day by the " filthy conversation of the wicked ". Taking a stand on the side of purity , he was nicknamed "The Parson".
In 1899 , the visit to Brisbane of missionaries Doctor and Mrs Howard Taylor directed young McIntyre's thoughts to service in the China Inland Mission , founded by Dr Taylor's father . While he was attending the new Missionary Training Home at Stanmore, Sydney , which included much time spent in the Sydney Hospital casualty section learning medical procedures, the 1900 Boxer Rebellion against foreign interests took place . Undeterred , McIntyre continued his studies , said to have been " a born doctor."
At the end of two years, not a qualified doctor , described as a timid young man , he presented himself to the Council of the China Inland Mission in Melbourne , who accepted him for duty in China . In Shanghai , the young missionaries experienced " the fun and merriment " of getting into local clothing , attending the Mission Language School at Ganking.
Left to run the mission station at Luchow , he made a name for himself when , through his medical knowledge, he saved a family who had eaten poison mushrooms ; fixing a man's broken jaw enabling him to speak added to his reputation ; apart from spending all the money he could get on medicines to establish a large dispensary , he also studied and used " native drugs ."
A young woman, Miss Emma Spiller , from Gympie, Queensland , joined the mission work and she and McIntyre married at Chungking, January 9,1906. Soon after the brief and unusual wedding, they set out on the honeymoon journey , stopped at a prison with a chapel fitted out by inmates, the walls decorated with scrolls and pot plants, where they were entertained and given wedding presents .
The above book , written by Mrs McIntyre a few months after her husband's death , printed by W.R.Smith & Paterson Limited, Brisbane , 1922 , was unearthed on Magnetic Island , North Queensland . In it she described how she often accompanied her husband in a sedan chair as he trekked on foot carrying out his work ; with the arrival of children , they also rode in the conveyance , which was carried by supporters .
When civil war broke out , her husband was in the thick of things .The American Baptist Hospital filled to overflow and he was put in charge of a kindergarten converted into a ward . Serious fighting broke out at Lachihsien , an outstation of Luchow, well known to McIntyre , so he felt he should go there and help .
In a letter , he wrote that he was going through the horrors of war. On coming from a building on the Sui-fu hills cannon was roaring almost all around , the "doctoring business " brisk . After a few days , the fighting moved away towards Luchow . There the China Inland Mission centre - church , school and guest halls - was converted into a hospital . Fashionable, sterilised doctors , McIntyre said, would have had ten fits had they stepped in , the place looking more like a pig sty than a hospital at its busiest.
The patients, mainly soldiers ,were packed so close on the floor it was hard to walk between them , the sight nauseating , about 800 treated in a short space of time . He spoke of patients shot through the abdomen , an interesting brain case on the way to recovery . Some wounded soldiers had not been found for days and there were signs that some were " tinkered with by Chinese doctors".
The warring parties were the Imperial army (the Northerners) and the Republicans ( the Southerners) . McIntyre wrote that the good conduct of the Republicans had won the hearts of the people ; the evil conduct of the Imperial army caused great fear , especially among women and girls .
Looting , burning , murder and rapine was the order of the day when the Imperialists entered a city . The trouble was due to one *Yuin-Shi-Kai ( see footnote ), wanting to be king against the will of the people , hence the so called revolt . The book account continues :
A throne set up on the foundations of which we have been eye-witnesses during the past fortnight is a throne that will soon crumble and fall . The worst Manchurian rule was never so bad as the present . Fortunately, we foreigners are immune . Yuin-Shi -Kai is a now hated by the people here .
The presence of foreigners , he added, had saved the city from destruction by fire , six blazes started the first night the Imperialists were in the city , but extinguished . He wondered what newspaper reports were saying about the "revolt ". If the world at large could have seen what had been going on , they would hiss Yuin-Shi-Kai from his throne .
During his teachings McIntyre gave gospel lessons using lantern slides about mission work in New Guinea . His hospital and out patient clinic was a hive of activity, some of the many wounded he treated , said to have been dumped upon him , their condition indescribable . Helping a man off the dressing table in the hospital , McIntyre complained of an acute pain in the stomach . Brought home in a chair , he was put to bed and "never rose again. " He was 42 . There was a memorial service at the Windsor Road Church in Brisbane .
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The McIntyre family, nine months before he died .
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A previous owner of the book , long ago , had been G. M. Howlett, the name penned in .
FOOTNOTE : Yuan Shikai , above , military general who rose to power during the late Qing Dynasty , first formal president of China, once titled Emperor of China , had nine concubines .
