John Goucher

John Franklin Goucher (1845–1922) was a Methodist pastor who was the co-founder and namesake of Goucher College in Maryland.^[1]

John Goucher was born in 1845 in Pennsylvania to a Methodist family. He graduated from Dickinson College in 1868 and became a Methodist Episcopal Church minister in Maryland. In 1877 he married Mary Cecilia Fisher (1850–1902), a well-educated woman from Baltimore who was the daughter of a physician, and the Gouchers had five children. The Gouchers were active in international Christian missions and in educating women. Goucher made several trips to China and Japan to help found and support mission hospitals and schools. ^[2] He was also instrumental in the establishment of Aoyama Gakuin in Shibuya, Japan^[3] The Gouchers worked to found a Methodist school for women upon the 100th anniversary of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the 1880s, and they donated large amounts of funds to the school, which was founded as the Woman's College of Baltimore City in 1885 and opened in 1888. After first refusing, Goucher eventually agreed to become president of the school in 1890 and served in this capacity until 1908. In 1910 the school was renamed in the Gouchers' honor. John Goucher served on the board until 1922 when he died.^[4]

References