Frederick Seguier Drake

Frederick Seguier Drake (Chinese: 林仰山; pinyin: Lín Yǎngshān, 13 April 1892 – 21 August 1974) was a Chinese-born English Baptist missionary, sinologist, and archaeologist.

After a decade of missionary service, he received a Teacher's Diploma and began work as an associate professor of education at Cheeloo University in Jinan.

Large portions of Cheeloo University were destroyed during the capture of Jinan in September 1948, at which point Drake was the sole remaining BMS member in the city.

He assisted in rebuilding following the war, although the BMS's duties were largely restricted to the operations of Cheeloo in the wake of an increasingly self-sufficient regional Baptist church and repression from the incipient Communist government.

In 1922, he led a group of theology students to a Guiyidao sanctuary, where they heard preaching incorporating universalist Christian and Daoist messages.

Drake thought favorably of the experience and published a series of articles about the sect in the Chinese Recorder, one of a relatively small number of accurate second-hand accounts of the movement.

[4]Drake received a Teacher's Diploma in 1923, and was appointed as Associate Professor of Education at Cheeloo University in Jinan the following year.

Unwilling to subject his son to boarding school and the "whole sacrifice of the divided home", Drake returned to Shandong alone, while Dora and the child remained in England.

Drake remained confident in the ability of the Baptist church to survive in China, writing that it would "carry on whatever happens" under independent Chinese leadership.

[10] Following the surrender of Japan, Drake and other Baptist missionaries in Shandong worked to restore the mission's institutions in the area, with a focus on medical facilities.

Jinan alternated between Communist and Nationalist control during the reemerging Chinese Civil War; Drake described it as an "island held by guerrillas [...] surrounded by a sea of Communism".

Drake, alongside fellow missionary Ronald Still, negotiated with Nationalist, Communist, and American officials active in the region in order to secure the safety of the medical staff.

Colonel Huang, a Communist official in Qingzhou, was receptive to the missionaries' requests and pledged to arrange their release; the staff was returned to the hospital after several months.

He recruited a number of prominent scholars to the university, including Jao Tsung-I, Lo Hsiang-lin, Tang Chun-i, and Mou Zongsan.

A group black and white photo of professors arranged next to a large Chinese gate
Faculty of Cheeloo University, 1924
Hall of Theology at Cheeloo, c. 1940
Interior of the Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb , excavated by Drake in 1955.
An art gallery, labeled "F. S. Drake Gallery"
The F. S. Drake Gallery ( 林仰山展覽廳 ; Lín Yǎngshān zhǎnlǎntīng ) at the University Museum and Art Gallery, Hong Kong