Samuel Dyer

Samuel Dyer
Missionary to the Chinese
Born	(1804-02-20)20 February 1804 Greenwich, England
Died	24 October 1843(1843-10-24) (aged 39) Macau, China
Nationality	British
Spouse(s)	Maria Dyer (née Tarn)
Parent(s)	John Dyer Eliza Seager

Samuel Dyer 台約爾 (20 February 1804 – 24 October 1843), was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China in the Congregationalist tradition, who worked among the Chinese in Malaysia. He arrived in Penang in 1827. Dyer, his wife Maria, and their family lived in Malacca and then finally in Singapore. He was known as a typographer for creating a steel typeface of Chinese characters for printing to replace traditional wood blocks. Dyer's type was accurate, aesthetically pleasing, durable and practical.

Samuel Dyer was born at the Royal Greenwich Hospital (London), England to John Dyer and Eliza (Seager). He was the fifth of the eight Dyer children. His father was a secretary of the Royal Hospital for Seaman, and later became Chief clerk of the Admiralty in 1820. John was also an acquaintance of Robert Morrison, who was soon to become the first Protestant missionary to China, a connection that would have enormous implications in the life of his son, Samuel. Morrison and his Chinese tutor Yong Sam-tek visited the Dyer home in Greenwich during Morrison’s period of study in medicine and astronomy between 1805-1806.

Dyer was schooled at home until he was 12, and then educated in a boarding school at Woolwich, in south east London from 1816, superintended by the Rev. John Bickerdike, a minister with the English Dissenters.

In 1820 He experienced a conversion to Christ at Thomas Wilson's Paddington Chapel, in Paddington, Northwest London, under ministry of the Rev. James Stratten and soon Dyer began teaching Sunday school there. In 1822 he was formally admitted into membership.