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Constance Bryant (June 22, 1887 - May 12th, 1975) of Ambleside, England was a female missionary who served for the Fukien Mission under the Church Missionary Society. Bryant attended Westfield College and the University of London before accepting admission into the Church Missionary Society in 1913. Constance was the daughter of Alfred Charles Edward Bryant and Eliza Weller, as well as the sister of Ethel Annie Bryant, Lilian Emily Bryant, and Jessie Bryant. In 1914, Bryant began her missionary work and served for over thirty years in East Asia. Assuming an administrative role as the writer of the mission's annual analysis, Bryant contributed to the management of funds, connections with dioceses across districts in Fukien, the establishment of the most schools and training institutions out of all C.M.S. missions in China, and the maintenance of the mission through the bombings and Japanese occupations of World War II. Bryant retired in 1947 and died in her home of Kent, England in 1975 at the age of 87.

Education
Constance Bryant's educational training began at Christ's Hospital Girls' School of Hertford, England. The institution was prominent in Hertford and served as a branch of Foundling Hospital and the school of Christ's Hospital. Bryant then attended Westfield College from 1907 to 1911, an institution founded to educate women for the University of London. She graduated with Class 3 Honors in Modern European History - a major in the Faculty of Arts. In 1911, Bryant enrolled in the London Day Training School program of the University of London and passed the Examination of Pedagogy in 1912. It was here where she obtained her B.A. and became a Life Member of Convocation with the university.

Family
Constance Bryant was born to Alfred Charles Edward Bryant (1849-1895) and Eliza Weller (1850-1921) in Kent, England. Constance was the sister of Ethel Annie Bryant (1875-1922), Lilian Emily Bryant (1878-1957), and Jessie Bryant (1880-1963). The family held residence in Chatham, Kent when Constance was born.

Fukien Mission
On June 17, 1913, Constance Bryant accepted her admission into the missionary program of the Church Missionary Society. As an C.M.S. missionary, Constance was sent on the Fukien Mission in the modern day Fujian Province of Southeast China. Directly before Bryant's arrival, the C.M.S. established eleven dioceses across numerous districts within Fukien (in 1912) to work in close unity with one another. A distinct characteristic of the Fukien province, where Constance served, was the large number of dialects spoken, and the unity across districts proved beneficial to combat language barriers. Across dioceses, the Church Missionary Society, Church of Zenana Missionary Society, and the Dublin University Fukien Mission all collaborated to promote the institution of accessible medicine and education across the districts of Fukien - the overarching purpose of the Fukien Mission.

Constance Bryant served as a missionary with the Fukien Mission for over thirty years before her retirement in 1947. Bryant, one of the first female missionaries of the Fukien Mission to do so, assumed an administrated position as the designated liaison between the C.M.S. correspondents in England and the mission in Fukien. Bryant wrote annual letters to England as an overview of the affairs with the Fukien Mission and was occasionally published in the Fukien News newspaper for her written articles about her experiences as a missionary. Throughout her letters and articles, Bryant expressed the hardships of running the mission hospitals and schools during World War II and the Japanese occupation in China.

In Bryant's 1938-1939 annual report, she highlights the shared anxieties of the world war crises in the West. In 1939, Bryant found herself traveling throughout the Fukien province to the modern day capitol of Fuzhou, Lienkong, Dong Muong, and Gwang Tau to report on the work of the dioceses. With this travel, Bryant continuously put her life at risk as her work was accompanied with frequent bombings from Japanese bomber planes. Bryant reported that roads were torn up, ports were closed, and extensive destruction of diocese property and great life losses occurred. Military threats and dangerous conditions continued through the end of the second world war, and in addition to frequent bombings, Bryant was forced to work through evacuations of the Fukien Normal School in which she worked, high inflation prices and undersupply of rice, a lack of available Christian teachers, and government pressure to raise qualifications for instructors at the Normal School. On October 6, 1941, Bryant's mission school was also looted by Japanese occupiers, leaving the students and instructors without equipment and in dire need of money. In response, Constance developed a financial report following the looting for the Church Missionary Society. The report did not only notify the organization of the great losses, but resulted in the shipment of resources to help maintain the hospitals and schools in Fukien.

In all, the Fukien Mission united districts across the province to open eleven dioceses, numerous Normal Schools, and an abundance of hospital dispensaries to help improve the wellness of East Asians in Fukien. Most notably, while evading Japanese bombs and occupations, the Fukien mission built the Fukien Christian University in 1916 that merged with the Fujian Superior Normal School and the Hua Nan Women's College to form today's Fujian Normal University.

Legacy
Constance Bryant of the Church Missionary Society is most notable as one of the earliest women to assume an administrative role as a liaison for a C.M.S. mission. Bryant was sent to work for the Fukien Mission in 1947 and was recognized as a significant contributor to the success of the Fukien mission for her work in writing the annual reports and her urgent notice sent in 1941 to notify the C.M.S that the mission was attacked. With Bryant's immediate decision to take initiative and withdraw $5000 of C.M.S. funds, she was able to prevent the decomposition of the Fukien Mission from the World War II upheaval in Japan and China. Bryant also made contributions to the construction and maintenance of the Fukien Christian University, a school that would later become the Fujian Normal University.

Death
Following her retirement from the Church Missionary Society in 1947, Constance Bryant returned to her residence in Kent, England and died May 12, 1975.