13 Facts About Theodore Hamberg

Theodore Hamberg was a Swedish missionary and author active in China.

Theodore Hamberg is known for his role in having authored an important account on the early Taiping rebellion and for his role in establishing Christian missions in Guangdong province.

Theodore Hamberg laid the foundations for the study of the Hakka dialect in the West.

Theodore Hamberg's father died in 1830 when Hamberg was 11 years old.

Theodore Hamberg began working in the office of British consul George Foy and maintained a close relationship with the family.

Theodore Hamberg became a member of an association to support the Swedish Mission Society in 1835.

Theodore Hamberg's conversion came in 1842 through the preaching of Pietist revivalist preacher Carl Olof Rosenius, whom he became close friends with and introduced to Mathilda.

Theodore Hamberg spent the following two years in training at a missions school in Switzerland.

In 1846, Theodore Hamberg was sent to China, where he arrived on 19 March the following year and started to work in the Guangdong mission, where he worked to convert members from the Hakka community.

Theodore Hamberg worked out a draft of the first description of the Hakka dialect, which provided the foundation to D MacIver's Hakka dictionary.

Theodore Hamberg initially worked under the influential German missionary Karl Gutzlaff, but Theodore Hamberg gradually grew skeptical of Gutzlaff's strategy of mass conversions; instead he advocated a more cautious approach, which in due course would bring him into conflict with Gutzlaff and with the Basel Mission.

In 1852, Theodore Hamberg met Hong Xiuquan's cousin Hong Ren'gan, who had been separated from the rebellion and fled to Hong Kong.

Theodore Hamberg died in Hong Kong on 13 May 1854 after contracting dysentery.