Walter Henry Medhurst (consul)
Walter Henry Medhurst | |
---|---|
Born | Walter Henry Medhurst 1822 |
Died | 1885 |
Nationality | British |
Sir Walter Henry Medhurst (1822–1885) was a British diplomat in China.
Being the son of the prominent British missionary
In the following years, he held a number of important consular positions in Chinese treaty ports such as Fuzhou, Shanghai (as H.M. Consul), Hangzhou and Hankou. Medhurst distinguished himself as a prominent advocate of gunboat diplomacy to defend what he considered to be British interests in China.
Medhurst married three times, his third wife being Juliana Tryphena Burningham (1836-1881) whose son Walter Nowell Medhurst died of poisoning on Guernsey in 1880, at 17 years of age.[2]
In 1868, Rutherford Alcock sent him to resolve the Yangzhou riot. He was criticized in Britain for his efforts.
Medhurst retired from consular service on 1 January 1877 and was knighted on 20 March the same year.
He moved back to England in 1884,[1] and died at Torquay on 26 December 1885, leaving another son and at least two daughters.[2]
References
- ^ a b c d "Medhurst, Walter Henry (1822-1885)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
- ^ a b "The mystery of the pupil and the poison". Guernsey Press. 18 December 2004. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
- ^ Shaw, William Arthur (1906). The Knights of England. A complete record from the earliest time to the present day of the knights of all the orders of chivalry in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of knights bachelors, incorporating a complete list of knights bachelors dubbed in Ireland.
Sources
- C. A. Harris, "Medhurst, Sir Walter Henry (1822–1885)," rev. T. G. Otte, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007, accessed 3 Aug 2007.
- F.J Snell, "The chronicles of Twyford, being a new and popular history of the town of Tiverton in Devonshire: with some account of Blundell's School founded A.D. 1604", Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co, Limited, 1892.