Dr. Thomas Gillard Churcher [1856-1947], Medical Missionary in Morocco and Tunisia

Thomas Gillard Churcher was born in London in 1856. After finishing school he went in business in the city, but soon found himself called in full-time Christian work. In 1878 he enrolled in The Pastor’s College in London, under the tutelage of Charles H. Spurgeon. After two years training went to Edinburgh with Spurgeon’s blessing to study medicine and later gained experience in the Edinburgh Medical Mission and the Mildmay Mission Hospital, Bethnal Green, London. In 1885 he went out to Tangier in Morocco to take over the medical work recently started by the North Africa Mission. In December 1891 he married one of the nurses in the hospital, Miss M. Robertson. The following year he and his wife moved to Fez, the cultural capital of the country. Following furlough in England in 1894 he returned to North Africa to start a medical work in Soussa (or Susa) and he and his wife settled there in 1895.

Many of Dr. Churcher’s reports about his work in Morocco were published in Spurgeon’s monthly magazine The Sword and the Trowel. There can now be accessed on this page. More will be added as later issues of the magazine become available for scanning.