Bishops Baker And TSU, China Service Vets, Die
Episcopal News Service. May 8, 1986 [86102]
NEW YORK (DPS, May 8) -- The Rt. Rev. John Gilbert Hindley Baker and the Rt. Rev. Andrew Yu Yue Tsu, colleagues from the building of the Burma Road during World War II, died within a few weeks of each other on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
Tsu, the elder, died April 13 at the age of 100 in Wilmington, Del., where he had lived for the past 17 years. As a young man, he won a scholarship to Columbia University here, from which he received a master's degree in 1910 and a doctorate in 1912, the same year in which he also received a B.D. from the General Theological Seminary. He had been ordained deacon in Shanghai in 1907 and was ordained to the priesthood here in 1911. He returned to China and was later consecrated Bishop of Kunming (Assistant Bishop of Hong Kong and South China) at Holy Trinity Cathedral Church in Shanghai on May 1, 1940, a position he held until 1951.
Tsu was particularly known for the aid, both spiritual and material, he gave during World War II to the U.S. engineers and Chinese laborers who struggled through some of the world's most difficult terrain to build a road from Lashio in Burma to Kunming, the capital of Hunan Province in China.
From 1945-50, Tsu served as General Secretary, National Office of the Chinese Church. When forced by the Communists to leave China, he came to this country, where, for a number of years, he served as assistant bishop in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. A memorial service for Tsu was held May 3 in Delaware, and among those attending were his son, the Rev. Robert (Tao Hung) Tsu, rector of St. Anselm's Episcopal Church in Lafayette, Calif., and another son who now lives in Germany.
Baker, who was 75 when he died on April 29 at his home in Dorking, Surrey, England, had originally gone to China as a layman with the student Christian movement. A 1932 graduate of Christ Church College, Oxford, he was ordained to the diaconate in 1935 and to the priesthood in the following year. He served the Church of Our Saviour, Canton, 1935-39, and St. John's, Kunmlng, 1939-45. It was during the latter period that he was associated with Tsu.
In 1946, Baker was given permission to officiate at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London. 1947 saw him back in China, where he served as chaplain of St. John's University and tutor at Central Theological College in Shanghai. In 1949, he moved to Canton, where he was tutor at Union Theological College until 1951. His was the last non-Chinese family with children left in Canton when they were given 24 hours' notice to leave by the Communists. They returned to the United States, native land of his wife, Patty Sherman, daughter of the Rev. Arthur Mason Sherman, then head of the Episcopal Church's overseas department. Raker served at Christ Church, Guilford, Conn., and they remained in this country until 1955, when he was called to England by the Archbishop of Canterbury. There, he served as General Secretary, Overseas Council of Churches Assembly, from 1955-63. Baker also served as vicar of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, London, 1955-66, and commissary, Kuching and Jesselton, 1963-66.
Baker was consecrated Lord Bishop of Hong Kong in St. John's Cathedral, Hong Kong, on Dec. 6, 1966. During his tenure there, he was one of the first bishops in the Anglican Communion to ordain women to the priesthood. He is survived by his second wife, Joan, whom he married when both were widowed; four children and several grandchildren; as well as his first wife's brothers, the Rev. Arthur Mason Sherman, Jr. and the Rev. Levering Bartine Sherman.