Maria Jane Taylor

Maria Jane Dyer was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China, and Mother of the China Inland Mission with her husband, founder James Hudson Taylor. She was a pioneer missionary and educator there foryears . In 1858, she married Taylor and was an invaluable assistant and influence to him. In her time with the CIM she was instrumental in training single women to be missionaries in China, when opportunities for women to serve had been previously dependent on having a missionary husband.

Maria was the youngest daughter of the Rev. Samuel Dyer and his wife Maria Tarn of the London Missionary Society, who had been pioneer missionaries to the Chinese in Penang, Malaysia and Malacca, where she was born. Both of her parents died before she was ten. Maria was the second surviving daughter. Born in Malacca, she did not see England until she was two years old. Even then the stay was brief and she called China her home. Her father died while away at Macau in 1843 when Maria was only six years old. Her mother married again but she also died in the mission field at Penang in 1846. Maria and her brother and sister lived in England after the death of their parents. All three children were raised in England by their mothers brother and they all eventually dedicated their adult lives to missionary work in China.

Source: Wikipedia