Bradley’s m issionary efforts were not effective in producing conversions and his legacy lie more in the fields o f m edicine and printing. In the former field, he w as the first to introduce sm allpox vaccination to Siam in 1838, w hile in the latter area he w as the founder o f Siam ’s first newspaper, the
Bangkok R eco rd er in 1844, an almanac, the B angkok C alendar from 1859, and the printer o f Siam ’s
first printed book in Siam ese in 1835, w hose subject w as the Ten Commandments. See Sinlapachai Chanchaloem, M o B radlay kab K n m g Siam [D octor Bradley and Siam] (C hulalongkom U niversity, Bangkok, 1994), pp. 83-88 and Sukanya Sudbanthat, M o B radlay kab karn n an gsu eph im haeng
K rung Siam [Doctor Bradley and the N ewspapers o f Siam] (Matichon, Bangkok, 1994), pp. 21, 46-51.
61 R. Costet, Siam -Laos: H istoire de la M ission, p. 352. 62 R. Costet, Siam -Laos: H istoire de la M ission, p. 353.
competition there. The primary concern in the capital was that some o f the more radical Protestants might provoke an official backlash against all Christian
denominations by their aggressive methods but, in the end, this fear did not come to pass because the mainstream Protestant denominations became as adept as the Catholics at reading and responding to the sensitivities o f Siamese society.
However, the position of Catholicism was different in the north o f Siam. Unlike Bangkok, the Mission of Siam had no established presence there prior to the arrival of the Protestants. More importantly, it was one o f the Protestant posts outside Bangkok that met with some semblance of success, having established itself in Chiang Mai in 1868 and later expanded to neighbouring provinces such as Lampang (1880), Lamphun (1891), and Phrae (1893). The Protestant missionaries o f the Chiang Mai post had first distinguished themselves through the distribution of quinine, used for the treatment o f malaria, but later developed to provide educational services as well as a more formal healthcare system in the form o f a hospital by 1901. Thus, when the Mission o f Siam decided to expand its activities to the north in the
1930s, they found not virgin territory, as in the past, but a well-established Protestant presence that was already conducting similar activities to the Catholic missions elsewhere in the country.
Establishing a Presence
Among the native Protestants, who compose a good part o f the population, there is at present a veiy decided movement towards Catholicism.
Vicar-Apostolic Perros, July 1933
The Mission was not totally unaware o f the developments in the north and had known of the expansion of the Protestant missions in that area. The Mission had
sent two priests to the area to ascertain the situation in 1843, but nothing concrete came o f this enterprise. In addition, the limited financial and personnel resources o f the Church had been used up in the establishment o f the Mission o f Laos in the late nineteenth century. Thus, it was only during the ministry o f Vicar-Apostolic Perros, beginning in 1909, that the plan for a post in northern Siam returned to the attention o f the Mission and, once again, became financially feasible.
The first real sign o f the Mission’s intention to expand to the north during this period was the sending o f two priests to Chiang Mai to reconnoitre the area again in 1914. Following their positive report, some land was brought along the river in Chiang Mai, but further plans were suspended at the outbreak o f the First World War when the Vicar-Apostolic, along with a number of other French priests, was recalled to France. The conclusion o f the First World War did not guarantee the continuation o f the scheme for Chiang Mai. Indeed, efforts were still hampered by the lack o f personnel and financial resources and it was only in 1930, ironically in the midst of a global economic depression, that the first real effort was made to establish a Catholic presence in Chiang Mai.
The pre-existence o f hospitals and schools built and run according to a European model in the area meant that the Mission could not afford to take the standard approach o f establishing a chapel, a small parish school, and possibly a few other facilities, since these would not stand out from the competition. The Mission clearly required something more outstanding, and was more than willing to seek loans and run up deficits and even personal debts in pursuit o f this goal. For
example, the Vicar-Apostolic would contract a personal debt o f 12,500 baht in order to buy land and two large houses in Chiang Mai, one for the use o f a priest and the
other to be used as a religious house for indigenous nuns or priests/’3 In addition, Vicar-Apostolic Perros was able to secure an interest-free loan for 200,000 baht from the M.E.P. in November 1931 for the purpose o f establishing a college in Chiang Mai.64 The College was to be Montfort College, another distinguished Catholic educational institution that would survive into the twenty-first century.65
On the personnel front, the Vicar-Apostolic approached ‘safe’ religious orders that already had a record o f success in Bangkok in running educational
institutions, such as the Brothers o f St. Gabriel and the Ursulines. The Ursulines had a further advantage in having their own financial resources, having been able to secure 6,000 pounds sterling from the order’s head office in Rome for the establishment o f the Regina Coeli girls’ school in Chiang Mai, which opened its doors in 1932.66 Matters were not so simple with regard to the Brothers of St. Gabriel, with the Director o f the new boys’ college complaining about the difficulties encountered while operating in such a remote region. Nevertheless, following their first year o f operation the two schools had acquired just over 200 pupils between them.67 Incomplete records suggest that the schools experienced a slow but constant growth throughout the 1930s. By the end o f the decade, Montfort School had increased the number o f pupils to 178 from its original figure o f 103,68 while the number of pupils in Regina Coeli had increased to 138 from its original 111 by 1935.69