American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society missionary to the Telegus of South India, 1864-1910.

Dr. John E. Clough was born in 1836 in New York, of Puritan ancestry, one grandfather having served seven years under General George Washington. He trained as a civil engineer and earned his government certificate after working for four years. He was appointed as a missionary to India and went to Ongole in 1866, where he and his first wife Harriett Sunderland began work, focusing on lower caste people of the area. Dr. Clough is known for his famine relief missionary work in India along with his contributions to the Ongole movement. He dug canals, built villages of palm huts and invited all to help in the work. After Harriett’s death, he married Emma Rauschenbusch.

Emma Rauschenbusch Clough was the daughter of August and the sister of Walter. She studied in Wellesley, as a special student, and in Rochester Female Seminary. She arrived in Madras as a missionary in 1882 and began her study of Telugu. When her health began to fail, she returned to the U.S. She recovered and earned her PhD from the University of Byrne in Switzerland. Doctorates for women were uncommon in those days. In London, Dr. Clough and Emma were married in 1894 and they returned to Ongole. In 1901, John suffered an accident while on tour and they headed home once again. In 1905, they retired from active work. Emma’s best-known work is “Social Christianity in the Orient: The Story of a Man, A Mission and a Movement,” and “A Study of Mary Wollstonecart and the Rights of Woman.” John Clough passed away in 1910.