William Linton

Life

Linton was born in 1891 in Thomasville, Georgia. He was baptized as a child in a Methodist church and later began attending a Presbyterian church. In 1912 he graduated at the top of his class in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Although he had been slated to join General Electric (GE), he gave up that position and, that same year, at the age of twenty-one, went to Korea as a missionary of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (the Southern Presbyterian Church). He is said to have first arrived in Mokpo.

Throughout his career in Korea, he continued his education during his periods in the United States. He earned a master's degree in secondary education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and during his furlough from 1928 to 1930 he received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Columbia Theological Seminary. At the age of sixty-six he received a doctorate in education from Belhaven College in Mississippi. He married Charlotte (Korean name In Sarye), the youngest daughter of the veteran missionary Eugene Bell; all four of their sons were born in Korea. In his later years he underwent three operations for cancer, and he died on August 13, 1960, while receiving treatment in the United States.

Ministry and Accomplishments

• School education: He taught at Yeongmyeong School in Gunsan, teaching the Bible and English in Korean. He later served as principal of Sinheung School and Kijeon Girls' School in Jeonju.
• Support for the March First Movement: He is reported to have helped produce copies of the Declaration of Independence and Korean national flags for the March 5 independence demonstration in Gunsan in 1919. In August of that year, at a Southern laymen's convention held in Atlanta, he spoke about conditions in Korea and the nonviolent spirit of the independence movement.
• Refusal of Shinto shrine worship: In 1937, while he was principal of Sinheung School, the school closed after he refused to comply with Japanese colonial demands for Shinto shrine worship. In 1940 he was expelled to the United States. Sources differ on the circumstances of the closure, describing it variously as a "voluntary closure" or a "forced closure."
• Founding a college: He returned to Korea after liberation and remained in the country during the Korean War, continuing to run schools. In 1954 the Korea Mission of the Presbyterian Church in the United States held its annual meeting in Jeonju and resolved to establish a college in Daejeon. As chairman of the college's board of trustees, Linton oversaw the entire founding effort. When Daejeon Christian College opened in 1956, he became its first head, and when it was accredited as a regular college under the name Taejon College in 1959, he became its first president. The school later became Hannam University.

Influence on the Korean Church

Linton is regarded as a leading figure in the Southern Presbyterian educational mission in the Honam region. His family has maintained ties with Korea for four generations, beginning with his father-in-law, Eugene Bell. His son Hugh Linton (In Hyu) served as a missionary, died in a traffic accident, and was buried in Suncheon; another son, Dwight Linton (In Doa), served as president of Honam Theological College. His grandson Stephen Linton leads the Eugene Bell Foundation, which assists tuberculosis patients in North Korea. In 1994 Hannam University established the Indon Academy, named after him using his Korean name, and the university presents the Indon Culture Award annually. The house in which he lived is preserved within the missionary village, which has been designated a cultural property by the city of Daejeon.

Assessment

In recognition of his contributions to the independence movement and to the training of future leaders, the government of the Republic of Korea posthumously awarded him the Order of Merit for National Foundation, Patriotic Medal (Aejokjang), in 2010. His grandson In Yohan (John Linton) accepted the decoration on behalf of the family. In 2022 he was named "Independence Activist of the Month" for March. Some have observed, however, that he is less widely known to the general public than early missionaries such as Underwood. Assessments of him have come mainly from Hannam University and church media, and no notable criticism has been identified in publicly available sources.