Tianjin (Tientsin), China: interior ruins of the Chapel of the Sisters of Charity after the Tianjin Massacre. Photograph by John Thomson, 1871.

Interior of a ruined church of European design, looking east, a man standing against a buttress toward the apse. A bright patch of sunlight at the extreme lower right of the frame. The building was the Chapel of the Sisters of Charity (there are several different orders of nuns having this name). The Sisters first arrived in Tianjin in 1862 to perform charitable works. In 1870 in response to a cholera epidemic nearby, they received into the convent many sick children. A large number of these children died there, and due to a shortage of coffins, two or three were frequently buried together. This caused public outcry in the city. On 21 June 1870, angry Chinese burned down many foreign mission stations, and massacred 21 foreigners in Tianjin, including ten nuns of the Sisters of Charity. The incident became known as the Tianjin Massacre. This photograph was taken not long after the event