MIssionary Wilson's House, Gwangju

I'm in the process of writing a longer entry on missionary work carried out in Suncheon during the early-20th century, but as a little introduction I wanted to write-up Missionary Wilson's House (우일선선교사사택), located in Gwangju. Built in 1920, it is the oldest example of Western architecture in Gwangju, and was designated as Gwangju Monument no. 15 in 1989. Galbijim ate my pictures, so instead here are a couple stolen from Naver's encyclopedia entry:





It was home to the American missionary Robert A. Wilson, about whom I've been able to find no further information. It is located on the campus of the Honam Theological University and Seminary, on the other side of Sajik Park. On the site of present-day HTUS, the Honam Bible School was established in 1955 by American Presbyterians. In the early 1960s, the Honam Bible School merged with the Gwangju Night School and the Suncheon Maesan Seminary to form the Honam Theology Institution.

According to the HTUS site, the Reverend Thomas Dwight Linton served as principal of the Honam Theological Seminary from 1973 to 1978. The Linton family, it turns out, has an interesting history in Korea, especially in Suncheon, that continues to this day.

The above-mentioned timeline also tells us that George Thompson Brown was the first principal of the Honam Theology Institution, from 1961 to 1967. I don't know anything about him either, but google says he published a 30-page pamphlet titled "Not by Might: A Century of Presbyterians in Korea" in 1984. While stalking googling around I found mention of the Kwangju Christian Hospital, established by Presbyterian missionaries in 1905, and whose first building was erected in 1909 as the Ella Lavine Graham Memorial Hospital (not sure how that works). Further stalking googling led me to the mention of a book titled Kwangju Christian Hospital, the Missionary Years: 1905-1976, by Ron Dietrick who, according to his Amazon.com bio, went to Gwangju in 1958 and stayed there long enough for his children to be raised there. Oh, and according to the Kwangju Christian Hospital timeline, the missionary Dr. Robert M. Wilson became the hospital's second director in 1908.

Wilson's house is on the campus of HTUS. It is on the left side of this map, although I don't recall if it's the "Missionary Compounds" labeled 17. If I remember correctly it is located further down the path, beside a cafe, and is really quite isolated. It is not open to the public and, in spite of being a monument and historical site, is in pretty bad shape, with broken windows and litter inside the first-floor rooms. The basement door was wide open when I was last there, though it was empty of anything besides spiders and trash.