In late 2010, we launched the book ‘Our Secretary in China: from 1930-1945, The Story of Agnes M Moncrieff, YWCA of New Zealand International Secretary’ at Parliament.
Letters written by Agnes Moncrieff (also known as Nessie) to her mother, a friend and the YWCA of New Zealand have been compiled by Barbara Francis, a good friend of Agnes. Our Secretary in China creates a picture of the life of Agnes when she was a YWCA International Secretary in China from 1930 -1945. For all of those 15 years, her salary was paid by YWCA associations in New Zealand.
To purchase your copy, fill in the YWCA online book order form today! Paperback book price: $35.00 plus $5 postage and handling.
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A KIWI HEROINE RESURRECTED
Reviewed by Elspeth Preddey
“Miss Moncrieff” (1898 – 1988) is a name from my childhood days when my mother was involved in the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) of Wellington and deeply impressed by all she achieved.
The YWCA of Greater Wellington was deservedly most warmly congratulated on their enterprise at the launch in October 2010 of OUR SECRETARY IN CHINA in Parliament Buildings by the Minister of Ethnic Affairs and Women’s Affairs, Hon Pansy Wong. The book of letters and other material tells, mostly in her own flowing, highly readable words, of 15 years in China spent by the woman referred to by the YWCA as Our Secretary in China: Agnes M Moncrieff. She was known to her friends as “Nessie”.
The letters, articles, reports and amazing photos have been skilfully put together from archival material dug out from many sources by Barbara Francis, who as a student boarded with Nessie and was a friend for over thirty years.
By the time I’d read it through, I felt that I too, now know her as a friend, as well as an inspiration in the way she devoted her life to serving others both in war-torn China and in NZ.
When she died the YWCA of NZ obituary noted:
Nessie took and made opportunities for serving girls and women. In effect she empowered them, both by inspiration and by practical help.
Back in 1933, Nessie had already recognised this role of the YWCA, as shown in her report on a convention of the YWCA leadership in China:
There was an interesting quote from the industrial delegation of factory girls from Shanghai, Wusih and Tientsin who said, ‘We did not know we were oppressed until the YWCA showed us’.
ANZACs have a reputation for generosity to others in need. The YWCA of NZ has a proud record in contributing to that through its support for an International Secretary to work in China right through the depression and World War II, a period of great need among the Chinese people that included the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45).
The Secretary developed a deep admiration for the Chinese and their courage under oppression. She told the rest of the world about the situation there whenever she had the opportunity. The YWCA welcomed the way she fulfilled its commitment to fostering international understanding and goodwill. For example the article she wrote in September 1939 for the YWCA Week of Prayer:
‘….we may learn from the Chinese. Not one, but hundreds of observers have remarked on the complete lack of hatred and bitterness on the part of those who have suffered cruelly in this war.’
True to YWCA philosophy, the work in China was inclusive, helping people irrespective of cultural, ethnic or faith background.
In one of many lighter touches that a set of letters is likely to reveal, Nessie writes of an occasion when she did draw the line at providing YWCA help to one refugee: a young woman claiming to be a Russian princess wanted YWCA endorsement for her “bar work”.
Personal touches in Nessie’s letters home give us glimpses of the ordinary deprivations and constant pressures of her life in China. There is her delight in the taste of some ‘real butter’ and chocolate (“It is a perfectly wicked price, but it tasted awful good.”). Life was so hectic: “not even time to darn my stockings”. There is ample evidence of her courage and tenacity in carrying on through the terror of air raids and of her many travel sagas to visit the far-flung (and expanding) YWCAs of free and occupied China. Understatement of the travails she endured is a constant, partly because of censorship and to protect those she was writing to, and for.
A map is helpful in guiding the reader. A future edition could well include an index to aid reference to the many remarkable people, events and places we meet in passing.
What did Nessie actually do?
A 1941 report says that alongside the emergency projects (because of war), the ‘normal’ programmes emphasised:
Industrial cooperatives; mass education and production of material for mass education; work for business and professional women and work for women in the home; industrial work, eg, girls’ work in rural areas, school, and cities; student programmes and student relief work; rural work in interior provinces; leadership training, professional and volunteer.
Did NZ know anything of her work?
Apparently yes, as on her furloughs every 3-4 years, Nessie spoke to packed meetings the length and breadth of the country.
The YWCA in China asked Nessie to work with other women’s organisations, and she was able to broadcast about the work they were all doing on such occasions as International Women’s Day.
She did us proud all right, but Nessie’s health suffered. On her return to Wellington she was not able to maintain the same pace but her commitment remained. She was on the YWCA Board and a member of the National Council for Equal Pay and Opportunity.
The women of China’s YWCA honoured her in 1940 with a Gift Scroll for the YWCA of NZ in appreciation of her first two terms of work, hoping to secure her services for a third term. They provided an explanation of the Chinese characters on the scroll:
The four Chinese characters on the scroll HIS SHOW MAN CHING express more adequately than these English phrases can what we are feeling deeply in our hearts. Roughly translated these characters bear the meaning that ‘Hand in hand we march toward the future’ or ‘Hand in hand we press toward the future.’
This attractively presented book adds Agnes M Moncrieff to the diaspora of Kiwi heroines. Her place in NZ’s history is honoured by its publication.
[Elspeth Preddey is a former member of the Board of the YWCA of Wellington, and the author of THE WEL HERSTORY – the Women’s Electoral Lobby in New Zealand 1975-2002]
More about Agnes Moncrieff:
Agnes Moncrieff’s first term during 1930-1934 saw her based in Peiping working with students, including running a hostel. After a furlough and YWCA training in the USA and UK, she returned to China at the end of 1936 and was sent to Shanghai. She had only been there eight months when in August 1937 the Japanese Army occupied Shanghai. Fortunately, Agnes was on a week’s holiday at a resort above the Yangtze River.
She was unable to return to Shanghai and eventually went to Hankow (now Wuhan), where initially she was seconded to the International Red Cross which was organised locally by medical missionaries, consular officials and Church representatives to distribute to mission and civilian hospitals medical supplies sent from England. Although very demanding she greatly enjoyed the challenge of it. However, she was needed by the Hankow YWCA and returned to YWCA work there coping with Japanese bombing raids until in September 1938 with the Japanese Army occupation of Hankow imminent she was told to return to Shanghai. In spite of being occupied by the Japanese life in Shanghai went on, as did the work of the YWCA.
Agnes returned to New Zealand at the beginning of September 1940 for ten months. The YWCA of New Zealand were reluctant for her to return but the YWCA of China wrote saying how much they needed her. They had moved to a safer location in the interior at Chengtu (now Chengdu). Agnes did return but it in order to reach Chengtu had to do an epic five and a half week journey on a truck from Rangoon which include negotiating the Burma Road. She arrived to take up her position of Business Secretary for the YWCA of China just 15 days before Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbour. Agnes remained there until October 1945 when she flew out to Calcutta and eventually back to New Zealand.
At the end of each of her four year terms of service, Agnes toured New Zealand three times proving by her “masterly and vivid speeches a most effective emissary on behalf of China.”
