Elsie May DADDOW

DADDOW, ELSIE MAY (b. 1882; d. Adelaide, SA, 1966). A member of the first party to establish Salvation Army work in China in 1917.

Elsie Daddow's parents, of Cornish mining stock, were among the earliest fruits of Salvation Army work in Australia, on the Wallaroo and Moonta copper mining fields 150 km north-west of Adelaide, and she grew up in the Kadina Corps. The family took up farming at Boor's Plains, 12 km distant, and the pioneering conditions, family piety and evangelistic environment prepared her well for a Christian commitment which was also missionary. 'My consecration means foreign service for me.' By 1917 she held the rank of Captain SA and supplemented her evangelistic work in a succession of locations, with evangelistic writing, e.g. 'Saved in the Eleventh Hour' in the June 1913 issue of The Victory.

In 1916 the Salvation Army General realised a long delayed plan for the Army to enter China, sending a Pioneer Party. The strategy was to concentrate on the training of native converts who would themselves undertake the evangelisation of China. Pioneer parties of officers from Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia and North America were nominated, and Elsie was among the 10 Australian volunteers who left Sydney for Beijing on 23 Feb 1917, arriving in April. Overseas Chinese converts gave much encouragement, for they felt that the Army had a distinctive contribution 'that the news of salvation will be proclaimed to my fellow countrymen'.

Some of the party soon became seriously ill including Ensign Daddow with heart trouble, but the condition healed over the next twelve months. In Oct 1919 she wrote 'it is now 1 1/2 years since God healed me ... I daily praise Him for this fresh and specially given opportunity to fight for Him against the powers of sin and darkness in this great land'.

Fight she did. The country was politically unstable, with war lords, a Japanese invasion from 1936 and endemic poverty. Fortunately Elsie Daddow was an interesting correspondent, and examples of her writing appear in the War Cry and the Adelaide secular press. Accounts of decisive commitments feature largely. At times she worked a 'floating mission' to the boatmen on the Yellow River in the Henan and Shandong provinces, on occasion continuing living in premises taken over by soldiers—who provided a ready-made congregation—and gaining converts. At other times as 'Angel Adjutant of China' she was set apart as 'Spiritual Special' to give particular attention to the Chinese officers, moving from corps to corps giving instruction in Bible, doctrine, Bible history, and evangelism.

A tall woman, the by-now Commandant Daddow was not always amenable to an Army command system centred on the other side of the world in London. For a time she operated independently, thereby indicating to her Chinese fellow Christians concepts which were to stand them in good stead when the Communists expelled all expatriate missionaries in 1949.

Her obituarist wrote 'she felt compelled to evangelise the Yellow River area. God mightily blessed her with provisions, particularly a boat and co-workers. Over long years the outreach she launched was continued from a marine headquarters'.

By 1947, aged 65, Sister Daddow was back in Sydney with a lively testimony for her fellow Salvationists. Later she moved to Adelaide and at her death it was recorded 'many people living in Adelaide have been wonderfully helped by the stirring testimony and audacious prayers of this staunch warrior', 'China was the land of her first-love'.

War Cry, various issues in 1917, 1930, 1957, April 1966

L M ABBOTT