Hannah Riddell

Hannah Riddell

By Ayaka Kamoda

Hannah Riddell was born in London in 1855. Her father was sick, so she and her mother managed girl’s school instead of father. Although she was only 20, she taught all subjects. In 1886, her mother died, and also her father died soon after, so the school went bankrupt. After that she joined CMS (Church Missionary Society), and she was send to Japan when she was 35 as missionary. There, she saw Hansen’s patients, and she decided to support the building of a hospital for Hansen’s disease, even though she wasn’t doctor. It was called Kaishun hospital in Kumamoto, southern Japan. The reason why she took part in it was that she had read the bible. It says you should help people who are not helped by anybody.

It was hard for her to achieve her purpose because she was not Japanese and people did not try to understand Hansen’s disease, but she took action actively. To begin with she started fundraising campaign. She needed money, so she pressured a Zaibatsu [Editor's note: a large industrial conglomerate in prewar Japan, with influence over large parts of the economy] to support her, and she stayed in Karuizawa during summer to meet powerful person. As a result industrialist Eiichi Shibusawa and politician Shigenobu Ookuma decided to help her.

Secondly, she had a talented for publicity work, so she gave two lectures per a day. In addition, she tried to understand about Hansen's disease. At that time nobody knew that the chance of transmission was low between humans, especially adults. She also isolated them, but she respected patients. For example, they could wear clean clothes, and they were required to control sexual abstinence, so they could not marry. Many people might think it’s not reception, but they can go out if they did not want to be there, so it’s not obligation. Therefore she really wanted to help them, she did like that. In addition Shigenobu Ookuma suggested that Hannah should build another hospital in another place. As a result she built hospital for Hansen’s disease in Kusatu and Okinawa.

She stuck to her opinion, so she had many enemies in the organization. As a result she could not work with them. There is a definitive incident that shows this. It is that Jon Bishop and Hannah were on bad terms with each other, and finally Jon became mentally deranged in 1897. When he was moving to Hong Kong for medical treatment in 1900, he died on the ship. Henry Evington, who was enemy of Hannah, said that he died because of her. Therefore she had to work far from Kaishun Hospital. It was her obstacle, but she overcame it. She looked at it from a different angle, and she thought it is chance to do freely. She was active in the front more than before.

At that time Japanese had ignored Hansen's patients because they did not try to understand Hansen's disease. Riddell had a lot of enemies, and couldn’t speak Japanese. Moreover, she could have lived in London if she had gone back, but she stayed in Japan to help foreigners. Could you be as active as Hannah in foreign country?