Robert Morrison was the London Missionary Society’s first missionary to China. Morrison, the son of a Scotsman who settled in Morpeth with his English wife, had been brought up in a devoutly Presbyterian household. He felt a call to missionary activity, and prepared for his work in China by studying the country’s languages and literature in London. He finally departed for the port of Canton in 1807. While there, his main task was to work on a Chinese translation of the Bible, in preparation for which he was to compile a Chinese-English dictionary. He supported himself by working as a translator for the East India Company until he completed both books. The Bible was finished in 1819 and the last part of his dictionary in 1822. Apart from a short visit to England in 1824-5, he spent the rest of his life in Macao and Canton translating religious works into Chinese, dying there in 1843.