Wang Tao (1828-1897), from the Yu County of Jiangsu Province, was a famous cultural figure in modern China and an excellent intellectual in Chinese Christianism.

He was born into a traditional intellectual family and accepted Confucianism in his early time. In 1849, he was invited by a British priest to work for a bookstore founded by a Shanghai priest. In 1862, the Qing government (1644-1911) arrested him because he had some relation with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. He at last escaped to Hong Kong and was baptized.

In 1874, he founded the Circulation Newspaper in Hong Kong. In 1884, he went back to the Chinese mainland and took the post of director of Shanghai Gezhi College. His main work was Tao Yuan Chi Du.