Walter Russell Lambuth was a Chinese-born American Methodist Bishop who worked as a missionary establishing schools and hospitals in China, of Korea and Japan in the 1880s.
Background
Born in Shanghai, China as the eldest son of James William Lambuth and Mary Isabella McClellan, he was sent to his relatives in Tennessee and Mississippi for his early education. Walter"s parents were pioneering missionaries in China. Together they also founded the mission work of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in Japan.
Walter"s grandfather had been a Preacher in the Mississippi Annual Conference.
Walter"s great-grandfather, the Review William Lambuth, was a Preacher in the Holston Annual Conference (admitted in 1795).
Education
Master of Arts, Emory and Henry College, Virginia, 1875. Doctor of Medicine Vanderbilt University, 1877. Doctor of Medicine Bellevue Hospital Medical College (New York University), 1881.
Post-graduate study Edinburgh and London, 1882.
Doctor of Divinity, Emory College, Georgia, 1892, Randolph-Macon College, 1892.
Career
Medical missionary at Shanghai, Soochow and Peking. China, 1877-1886; superintendent Japan Mission, 1886-1891. Field secretary, 1892-1894, general missionary secretary, 1894-1910, Board of Missions of Mechanical Engineering Church, South.
Elected bishop, May 17, 1910.
Founded, and in charge Soochow Hospital, 1882-1885, Mechanical Engineering Hospital Peking, 1885-1886. Founded Kwansei Gakuin College, Japan.
One of 6 commissioner who united the leading Methodist bodies of the Empire into the Japan Methodist Church. Editor Review of Missions, 10 years Delaware Ecumenical Conference, Washington, 1892, London, 1902.
Member business committee Ecumenical Missionary Conference, New York, 1900.
Vice chairman commission 11, World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh, 1910. Author: Side Lights on the Orient. Winning the World for Christ, 1915.
Medical Missions, 1919.
Edited English edit, Discipline of the Japan Methodist Church. Home: Oakdale, California.
Achievements
Membership
Member business committee Ecumenical Missionary Conference, New York, 1900.