C. R. Boxer
Sir Charles Ralph Boxer | |
---|---|
Born | 8 March 1904 |
Died | 27 April 2000 |
Occupation | Historian |
Alma mater | Royal Military College, Sandhurst |
Sir Charles Ralph Boxer
Early life
Charles Ralph Boxer was born at
Education and military career
Charles Boxer was educated at
Boxer returned to London for a two-year posting from 1935–36 to the military intelligence section of the War Office. Posted to Hong Kong in 1936, he served as a General Staff Officer 3rd grade (GSO3) with British troops in China at Hong Kong, doing intelligence work. Between 1937 and 1941, Boxer, promoted from captain to major, became one of the key members of the Far East Combined Bureau, a British intelligence organisation that extended from Shanghai to Singapore. By 1940, most of its Hong Kong office had been transferred to Singapore, leaving Boxer as the army's chief intelligence officer in the colony. In 1940, he was advanced to General Staff Officer 2nd grade (GSO2). Wounded in action during the Japanese attack on Hong Kong on 8 December 1941, he was taken by the Japanese as a prisoner of war and remained in captivity until 1945. After his release, Boxer returned to Japan in February 1946 as a member of the British Far Eastern Commission, a post that he served until the next year. During his military career, Boxer published 86 publications on Far Eastern history with a particular focus on the 16th and 17th centuries.
Academic career
As a major in the British Army, Boxer had resigned from the service in 1947, when
On retiring from the University of London in 1967, Boxer took up a visiting professorship at Indiana University, where he also served as an advisor to the Lilly Library located on its campus in Bloomington, Indiana. From 1969 to 1972, Boxer held a personal chair in the history of European Overseas Expansion at Yale University.
Charles R. Boxer died at
Personal life
He was married to Ursula Norah Anstice Tulloch, a woman commonly called the most beautiful in Hong Kong, when he met and had an affair with
Awards and honours
- Honorary doctorate, University of Utrecht, 1950
- Honorary doctorate, University of Lisbon, 1952
- Fellow of the British Academy, 1957
- Honorary doctorate, Universidade Federal da Bahia, 1959
- Honorary doctorate, University of Liverpool, 1966
- Member of the China Academy, Taiwan, 1966
- Papal Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, 1969
- Honorary doctorate, University of Hong Kong, 1971
- Honorary doctorate, University of Peradeniya, 1980
- Gold Medal, Instituto Historico e Geografico Brasileiro, 1986.
- Caird Medal of the National Maritime Museum, 1989
- Distinguished Service Award, Conference on Latin American History 1987
Other awards:
- Knight of Military Order of Saint James of the Sword (Portugal)
- Grand Cross of the Order of Infante D. Henrique(Portugal)
Published works
Bibliographies
- S. George West, A List of the Writings of Charles Ralph Boxer Published Between 1926 and 1984, Compiled for his Eightieth Birthday (London: Tamesis Books Ltd, 1984).
- “The Charles Boxer Bibliography,” Portuguese Studies, vol. 17, 2001, pp. 247–276.[3]
Selected works
- A Portuguese Embassy to Japan (1644-1647). Translated from an Unpublished Portuguese Ms. etc. (Kegan Paul, 1928); republished 1979
- Jan Compagnie in Japan, 1660-1817. An Essay (Martinus Nijhoff, 1936); republished 1950 & 1968
- Fidalgos in the Far East, 1550-1770. Fact and Fancy in the History of Macao (Martinus Nijhoff, 1948); republished 1968
- The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650 (University of California, 1951); republished 1967, 1974 & 1993
- Salvador de Sá and the Struggle for Brazil and Angola, 1602-1686 (Athlone Press, 1952)
- South China in the Sixteenth Century (1550-1575) (Hakluyt Society, 1953); editor
- The Dutch in Brazil, 1624-1654 (Clarendon Press, 1957)
- The Great Ship from Amacon: Annals of Macao and the Old Japan Trade, 1555-1640 (Centro de Estudos Historicos Ultramarinos, 1959)
- The Tragic History of the Sea, 1589-1622 (Hakluyt Society, 1959); editor
- The Colour Question in the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1825 (OUP, 1961)
- The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695-1750: Growing Pains of a Colonial Society (University of California, 1962)
- The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600-1800 (Hutchinson, 1965); The "History of Human Society" series
- Portuguese Society in the Tropics: Municipal Councils of Goa, Macao, Bahia and Luanda, 1510-1800 (University of Wisconsin, 1965)
- Francisco Vieira de Figueiredo: A Portuguese Merchant-Adventurer in South-East Asia, 1624-1667 (Martinus Nijhoff, 1967)
- Some Literary Sources for the History of Brazil in the Eighteenth Century. The Taylorian Lecture delivered 9 May 1967 (Clarendon Press, 1967)
- Further Selections from The Tragic History of the Sea, 1559-1565 (Hakluyt Society, 1968); editor
- The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415-1825 (Hutchinson, 1969); The "History of Human Society" series
- Mary and Misogyny: Women in Iberian Expansion Overseas 1415-1815. Some Facts, Fancies and Personalities (Duckworth, 1975)
- The Church Militant and Iberian Expansion, 1440-1770 (Johns Hopkins University, 1978)
- Portuguese India in the Mid-Seventeenth Century (OUP, 1980)
- From Lisbon to Goa, 1500-1750: Studies in Portuguese Maritime Enterprise (Routledge, 1984)
- Portuguese Merchants and Missionaries in Feudal Japan, 1543-1640 (Routledge, 1986)
- Dutch Merchants and Mariners in Asia, 1602-1795 (Routledge, 1988)
See also
References
- ^ 'A Truly British Samurai - The Exceptional Charles Boxer (1904-2000)' by Paul Budden. Published by Bunkasha 2015
- ^ Kenneth R. Maxwell: The C.R. Boxer Affaire: Heroes, Traitors, and the Manchester Guardian Archived 13 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Council on Foreign Relations, 16 March 2001
- S2CID 245845046.
Further reading
- Boyd, Kelly, ed. Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writers (Rutledge, 1999) 2:110-11
- Budden, ed. A Truly British Samurai, the Exceptional Charles Boxer (1904 -2000). Published by Bunkasha, 2015
- Cummins, J. S. (2007). "Boxer, Charles Ralph". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/74008. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Lequin, Frank (2000). "In Memoriam: Charles Ralph Boxer F.B.A.: 8 March 1904 - 27 April 2000". Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. 156 (4): 671–685. JSTOR 27865661.
Obituaries
- The Guardian Magisterial historian of Portugal and its dark imperial past
- Renaissance Studies Obituary Professor C. R. Boxer
- The Asia Society of Japan In Memoriam Charles Ralph Boxer (1904–2000)
- Reminiscences [1]