Grace Dyer Taylor  Grace Dyer Taylor (31 July 1859 – 23 August 1867) was the eldest surviving daughter of James Hudson Taylor and Maria Jane Dyer, Christian missionaries to China. The event of her death of meningitis at the age of eight near Hangzhou has been cited by mission historians such as Ruth Tucker, Roger Steer, and John Pollock among others as being a turning point in the history of the China Inland Mission. Grace was born in Ningbo during the Second Opium War, the day after rioting broke out in parts of the city. The Taylors had only one means of escape if the church building where they lived ever came under attack: a rope hanging from a second story window down to the narrow canal behind their home. The last instance that they came close to needing it was the day before Grace was born. In 1860 her parents took her on a furlough to England with them and while there, her father founded the China Inland Mission in 1865. She spent the next six years in London where three younger brothers joined the family. In 1866 Grace was one of the four Taylor children to journey with the "Lammermuir Party", the largest group of Protestant missionaries that had ever sailed, returning to China in 1866. Her father was criticized for taking unmarried women missionaries into China, and replied in this way,   On board the tea clipper "Lammermuir", Grace shared a cabin with Emily Blatchley, who was in charge of teaching the Taylor children. Jennie Faulding was one of the first to take note of Grace's apparent conversion to Christianity along with a number of the crew while they sailed across the Indian Ocean. The "Lammermuir" was almost wrecked by two typhoons before arriving in battered shape at Shanghai. No lives were lost, but the passengers and crew were weary and exhausted on their arrival. In China during 1867 the young missionary agency was troubled by internal divisions that nearly frustrated the mission. Grace's father's policy that all should wear the native Chinese clothing—missionaries and children alike—was controversial among the Protestant British in China. During the critical first year of the China Inland Mission in Hangzhou, Grace suffered from a fever and died. Her death shook the Taylor family severely, but it also aroused sympathy for and brought a realization among the missionaries and the Chinese that no cost was too great to the Taylors in bringing the Gospel to China. Internal differences among the missionaries were shortly resolved and the work continued in scope.