Sir Edmund Backhouse, 2nd Baronet
Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, 2nd Baronet (20 October 1873 – 8 January 1944) was a British
His biographer,
Early life
Backhouse was born into a
When reflecting on his childhood he wrote that "I was born of wealthy parents who had everything they wanted and were miserable...I heard not a kind word nor received a grudging dole of sympathy..."[3] Backhouse attended Winchester College and Merton College, Oxford. While at Oxford he suffered a nervous breakdown in 1894, and although he returned to the university in 1895, he never completed his degree, instead fleeing the country due to the massive debts he had accumulated.[4]
China
In 1899, he arrived in Peking where he soon began collaborating with the influential Times correspondent George Ernest Morrison, translating works from Chinese to English, as Morrison could not read or speak Chinese. Backhouse fed Morrison what he said was insider information about the Manchu court, but there is no evidence of him having any significant ties with anyone of prominence. At this time, he had already learned several languages, including Russian, Japanese and Chinese. He spent most of the rest of his life in Peking, in the employment of various companies and individuals, who made use of his language skills and alleged connections to the Chinese imperial court for the negotiation of business deals. None of these deals was ever successful.[4]
In 1910, he published a history, China Under the
He also worked as a secret agent for the British legation during the
Backhouse's life was led in alternate periods of total reclusion and alienation from his Western origins, and work for Western companies and governments. In 1939, the Austrian Embassy offered him refuge, and he made the acquaintance of the Swiss consul, Richard Hoeppli, whom he impressed with tales of his sexual adventures and homosexual life in old Beijing. Hoeppli persuaded him to write his memoirs, which were consulted by Trevor-Roper. Décadence Mandchoue was not published until 2011 by Earnshaw Books.,[8] while the memoir dealing with his early life in Europe The Dead Past was finally published in 2017 by Alchemie Books.[9]
Peking, during that period of
Accusations of forgery and fabrication
There are two major accusations levelled at Backhouse.
His claim that much of his China Under the Empress Dowager was based on the diary of the high court official Ching-shan (景善; pinyin: Jǐngshàn), which Backhouse claimed to have found in the house of its recently deceased author when he occupied it after the Boxer Uprising of 1900, is contested.
The authenticity of the diary has been questioned by scholars, notably Morrison, but initially defended by J. J. L. Duyvendak in 1924, who studied the matter further and changed his mind in 1940. In 1991, Lo Hui-min published a definitive proof of its fraudulence.[13]
In 1973 the British historian
Trevor-Roper described the diary as "pornographic", considered its claims, and eventually declared its contents to be figments of Backhouse's fertile imagination.[5]
Robert Bickers, in the
Derek Sandhaus, however, notes that Trevor-Roper did not consult specialists in Chinese affairs, and seems to have read only enough of the text to have been disgusted by its homosexuality.[14] While conceding that Backhouse fabricated or imagined many of these assignations, Sandhaus finds that others are plausible or independently confirmed and he reasons that Backhouse spoke Chinese, Manchu, and Mongolian, the languages of the imperial household, and his account of the atmosphere and customs of the Empress Dowager's court may be more reliable than Trevor-Roper allowed.[15][16]
Works
- Backhouse, Edmund; Bland, J.O.P. (John Otway Percy) (1910). China Under the Empress Dowager: Being the History of the Life and Times of Tzŭ Hsi. Retrieved 1 April 2013. China under the empress dowager
- Backhouse, Sir Edmund; Bland, John Otway Percy (1914). Annals & memoirs of the court of Peking: (from the 16th to the 20th century). London: Heinemann. Retrieved 1 April 2013. Wayback Machine
- Backhouse, Sir Edmund; Bland, J.O.P. (1913). "Secret Annals of the Manchu Court 1. The Story of the Precious Pearl". The Atlantic, Volume 112. Atlantic Monthly Co. p. 629. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
- Backhouse, Sir Edmund (2011). Décadence Mandchoue. Hong Kong: Earnshaw Books. ISBN 978-9881944511.
- Backhouse, Sir Edmund (2022). The Dead Past. Alchemie Books. ISBN 978-0648801993.
Notes
- ^ Trevor-Roper, Hugh The Hermit of Peking, New York: Alfred Knopf, 1976 pages 348–352.
- ^ Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please? (Funk & Wagnalls, 1936).
- ^ Seagrave, Sterling, and Peggy Seagrave. Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China. New York: Knopf, 1992. 282. Print
- ^ a b c Robert Bickers, 'Backhouse, Sir Edmund Trelawny, second baronet (1873–1944)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 4 May 2011
- ^ a b "Hugh Trevor-Roper on Sir Edmund Backhouse | Camp Catatonia". campcatatonia.org.
- ^ "History and scope of the Chinese collections". Bodleian Library. Archived from the original on 23 January 2013. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
- ]
- ^ Backhouse, Derek Sandhaus, ed., Décadence Mandchoue, Introduction.
- ^ Backhouse, Hoeppli, ed., The Dead Past, Introduction.
- ^ Trevor-Roper, Hugh The Hermit of Peking, New York: Alfred Knopf, 1976 pages 295–296.
- ISBN 0-19-861353-9.
- ^ "Casualty Details: Backhouse, Sir Edmund Trelawny". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
- ^ Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, Derek Sandhaus, ed., Décadence Mandchoue: The China Memoirs of Edmund Trelawny Backhouse (Chicago: Earnshaw Books, 2011), Introduction, xv–xxiv.
- ^ Backhouse, Derek Sandhaus, ed., Décadence Mandchoue, ibid.
- Asia Times Online. Retrieved 18 October 2017; unavailable 5 February 2020.
References
- Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, Derek Sandhaus, ed., Décadence Mandchoue: the China Memoirs of Edmund Trelawny Backhouse (Hong Kong: Earnshaw Books, 2011 ISBN 988-19445-1-1) Amazon Preview
- Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, Dr Reinhard Hoeppli, ed., The Dead Past (Alchemy Books, 2017
- Sir ISBN 978-190601101-7
- "Hugh Trevor Roper on Sir Edmund Backhouse"
- Leigh Rayment's list of baronets
- "Sir Edmund Trelawney Backhouse, baronet". Archived from the original on 1 May 2008. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - Dictionary of National Biography article by Robert Bickers, 'Backhouse, Sir Edmund Trelawny, second baronet (1873–1944)' 2004 Backhouse, Sir Edmund Trelawny, second baronet (1873–1944), Sinologist and fraudster, accessed 4 Jan 2007.
External links
- China under the Empress Dowager: Being the History of the Life and Times of Tzu Hsi, by J. O. P. Bland and E. Backhouse Archived 4 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine