A ROMANTIC CAREER

Taranaki Daily News, 1 August 1931, Page 9

A ROMANTIC CAREER

CRICKETER AND MISSIONARY.

THE LATE MR. C. T. STUDD.

London, July 26.

Mr. C. T. Studd, one of a once-'fainous cricketing trio, who died in the Belgian Congo, where he was a missionary, closes a remarkable career of. a distinguished missionary. He came of a well-known and wealthy English family, and in his youth at Cambridge he achieved fame as an'all-round cricketer. He was a member of the Hon. Ivo. Bligh’s team which took back the “ashes” from Australia nearly 50 years ago. At the age of 23 he and six others of the foremost young athletes of his day formed the famous Cambridge Seven, who left their university for Christian missionary work in China. Mr. Studd had not been long in that land when he inherited a fortune of over £30,000, but he resolutely refused it all, handing it over to an attorney for distribution among charitable causes. He married in China in ISBB and laboured for many years in North China until his wife was invalided home.

In defiance of medical warnings, Mr. Studd then took up missionary service in India until nearly 20 years ago, when he conceived the idea of placing a missionary in the most neglected spot on tho earth. He was no longer young when, with one youthful companion, he niade his way to the heart of the Belgian Congo, and there established the Heart of Africa Mission, which has since steadily expanded and developed. So intense was his devotion to this work that he could never be persuaded to leave on furlough. He has left a large chain of mission - stations, not only in the heart of Africa, but in Amazonia and Arabia.

Mrs. Studd, who died about two years ago, toured New Zealand in the interests of the mission in 1924. The World Evangelical Crusade, as it is now known, has active branches in New Zealand. As a cricketer, Mr. Studd played for England in 1882. His two brothers were Mr. J. B. Studd and Mr. (later Sir) Kynaston Studd, an ex-Lord Mayor of London. They each captained the Cambridge XI. in three successive years.