She pioneered the work of single women missionaries in China and eventually married the founder of the mission, James Hudson Taylor, after the death of his first wife, Maria Jane Dyer.

She encouraged women, both married and unmarried, to participate in the work of the China Inland Mission in ways that had previously only been reserved for male missionaries.

It caused a scandal among the other Westerners in China to see a young single woman like Faulding adopt the Chinese dress,[1] which was considered a compromise with an idolatrous culture.

In Hangzhou, Faulding proved the value of being an unmarried female, as her daily walks around the neighborhood gave her opportunities to be invited in by the Chinese women, who did not feel threatened as they might have by a foreign man.

[3] During her time in China, she lived and worked with Hudson Taylor's wife, Maria, who taught her the Chinese language.

[1] The news of the terrible Great North China Famine of 1877–78 in Shanxi Province motivated Faulding to go there with two single women as part of a relief team - when no men could be spared to accompany them on their journey and her husband could not go, himself.