William Scranton

Life

Scranton was born in 1856 in New Haven, Connecticut, an only son. His mother's family had produced several Methodist ministers, and his mother, Mary Scranton, served as an officer of a Methodist foreign mission society. After graduating from Yale University and a medical college in New York, he went into medical practice. He reportedly declined an initial invitation to serve as a missionary in Korea but resolved to become one after nearly dying of typhoid fever.

In October 1884 the missionary society of the Methodist Episcopal Church appointed Henry Appenzeller and Scranton as missionaries to Korea. Scranton was commissioned as a missionary and received ordination before Appenzeller. He arrived at Chemulpo on May 3, 1885, and became the first Methodist missionary to enter Seoul. His mother came to Korea in June of the same year.

In 1907 Scranton came into conflict with Bishop Merriman C. Harris over mission policy, and as a result he resigned both his missionary post and his Methodist ministry. He then transferred his membership to the Anglican Church, where he remained a layman. He also worked as a physician at an American-owned gold mine in Unsan, North Pyongan Province. In 1916 he left Korea for Dalian, China, and in 1917 he moved to Kobe, Japan, where he practiced medicine. Suffering from the aftereffects of a traffic accident and from pneumonia, he died in Kobe on March 23, 1922, and was buried in the Kobe Foreign Cemetery.

Ministry and Achievements

• Medical mission: For roughly his first month in Seoul, he assisted with treatment at Jejungwon, the hospital run by Horace Allen. On September 10, 1885, he began seeing patients in his own home in Jeong-dong, Seoul. This clinic developed into Sibyeongwon (施病院), the first Methodist mission hospital. The hospital's name is said to have been bestowed by King Gojong, though sources differ on the exact date, placing it around 1886 or 1887. In 1887 Boguyeogwan (保救女館), a hospital exclusively for women, opened. He also established dispensaries (clinics that distributed medicine) at several locations outside the city gates to care for poor patients.
• Church planting: He placed Bibles and evangelistic tracts in the dispensaries and stationed evangelists there. This work led to the planting of churches, and he took part in founding Sangdong Church (established 1888), Ahyeon Church, and Dongdaemun Church. In 1893 he became senior pastor of Sangdong Church.
• Bible translation: As a member of the Bible translation committee, he participated in the translation of the Bible into Korean.

His Mother, Mary Scranton

Mary Fletcher Benton Scranton (1832–1909) was sent by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church and came to Korea when she was past fifty. In 1886 she began a girls' school in Jeong-dong, Seoul, with a single student. The following year the Korean government gave the school the name "Ewha Haktang." Ewha Haktang is the forerunner of today's Ewha Girls' High School and Ewha Womans University, and it was also the alma mater of Yu Gwan-sun. At first, recruiting students was extremely difficult because of social attitudes that discouraged the education of women. Mary Scranton went on to found or help found several other girls' schools, including the Samil School in Suwon, and she died in Seoul on October 8, 1909.

Influence on the Korean Church

Scranton and his mother laid the foundation for Methodist missions in Seoul through medical work and women's education. The dispensaries and churches they established in the western, southern, and eastern parts of Seoul became the roots of major churches of the Korean Methodist Church that continue to this day. At Sangdong Church, leaders of both the church and the nationalist movement, including Jeon Deok-gi, grew up under his influence.

Assessment

Scranton is regarded as the true pioneer of Methodist missions in Seoul. After leaving Methodism in 1907, however, he long remained a forgotten figure even within Methodist circles. His resignation is said to have involved conflicts with fellow missionaries and a rift with Bishop Harris, though some aspects of the specific circumstances remain unclear even among researchers. In 2022, the centennial of his death, the Korean Methodist Church announced that it was pursuing plans to move his remains from Kobe to Korea.