Frank W. Price

Who was Frank W. Price?

Francis Wilson Price, sometimes known as Frank W. Price was a missionary of the Presbyterian Church in the United States in China. Born in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province in China to missionary parents, he was educated in the United States at Davidson College, Columbia University, and Yale Divinity School.

After working with the International YMCA and the Chinese Labour Corps in France during the war, he earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School in 1922. When he returned to China in 1923, his ability in the Chinese language and his faculty position at Nanking Seminary allowed him access to many Chinese friends and colleagues. In 1927 Price made a translation of Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People, a basic text of the Nationalist Party, which established a close relationship with Chiang Kai-shek. In the early 1930s, he was influenced by the Rural Reconstruction Movement of Y.C. James Yen to set up an experiment in Christian village life just outside Nanking. He described these experiences in his book, The Rural Church in China After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the Nationalist government sent Price to the United States to promote American support for China.