Rewi Alley was born in Springfield, on the South Island of New Zealand in 1879. He came to China in 1927. Alley joined the Shanghai Marxism Study Group in the 1930s, and supported the underground revolution of the Communist Party of China. After the War of Resistance against Japan broke out, Alley, together with Edgar Snow and his wife and other foreign friends, organized various industrial cooperative (co-ops) to support the Chinese cause. In the 1940s, he set up schools, and explored new approaches to education such as part-time study and a method that combined "hands and brain".

Alley lived in China for 60 years, and formed deep and meaningful friendships with the older generation of revolutionaries.

(China.org.cn November 18, 2005)