Sir Thomas Francis Wade, (25August 181831July 1895) was a British
diplomat
A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or interna ...
and
sinologist
Sinology, or Chinese studies, is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of China primarily through Chinese philosophy, language, literature, culture and history and often refers to Western scholarship. Its origin "may be traced to the ex ...
who produced an early Chinese textbook in English, in 1867,
that was later amended, extended and converted into the
Wade-Giles romanization
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...
system for
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
by
Herbert Giles
Herbert Allen Giles (, 8 December 184513 February 1935) was a British diplomat and sinologist who was the professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge for 35 years. Giles was educated at Charterhouse School before becoming a British ...
in 1892. He was the first
professor of Chinese at
Cambridge University
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
.
Early life
Born in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, he was the elder son of Colonel Thomas Wade, CB,
of the
Black Watch and Anne Smythe (daughter of William Smythe) of
Barbavilla,
County Westmeath
"Noble above nobility"
, image_map = Island of Ireland location map Westmeath.svg
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Ireland
, subdivision_type1 = Province
, subdivision_name1 =
, subdivis ...
, Ireland. He was educated at the Cape, in Mauritius, at
Harrow and at
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...
.
In 1838, his father purchased for him a commission in the
81st Foot. Exchanging (1839) into the
42nd Highlanders, he served with his regiment in the
Ionian Islands, devoting his leisure to the study of
Italian and modern Greek.
Career in China
On receiving his commission as lieutenant in 1841 he exchanged into the
98th Foot
The 98th (Prince of Wales) Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army. It was originally raised in 1824 as the 98th Regiment of Foot, before assuming the title of the 98th (Prince of Wales) Regiment of Foot in 1876. Later, in 1 ...
, then under orders for
Qing China
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...
and landed at
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...
in June 1842. The scene of the
First Opium War
The First Opium War (), also known as the Opium War or the Anglo-Sino War was a series of military engagements fought between Britain and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of the ...
had at that time been transferred to the
Yangtze River
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...
and Wade was ordered there with his regiment. There he took part in the attack on
Zhenjiang
Zhenjiang, alternately romanized as Chinkiang, is a prefecture-level city in Jiangsu Province, China. It lies on the southern bank of the Yangtze River near its intersection with the Grand Canal. It is opposite Yangzhou (to its north) a ...
and in the advance on
Nanking
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...
.
In 1843, he was appointed
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...
interpreter to the garrison
and, two years later, to the
Supreme Court of Hong Kong
The Supreme Court of Hong Kong was the highest court in Hong Kong prior to the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China in 1997 and heard cases of first instance and appeals from the Di ...
, and, in 1846, assistant Chinese secretary to the superintendent of trade, Sir
John Francis Davis. In 1852 he was appointed vice-consul at
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...
. The
Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It last ...
had so disorganised the city's administration that it was considered advisable to put the collection of the foreign customs duties into commission, a committee of three, of whom Wade was the chief, being entrusted with the administration of the customs. This formed the beginning of the
imperial maritime customs service
The Chinese Maritime Customs Service was a Chinese governmental tax collection agency and information service from its founding in 1854 until it split in 1949 into services operating in the Republic of China on Taiwan, and in the People's Republ ...
.
In 1855, Wade was appointed Chinese secretary to Sir
John Bowring
Sir John Bowring , or Phraya Siamanukulkij Siammitrmahayot, , , group=note (17 October 1792 – 23 November 1872) was a British political economist, traveller, writer, literary translator, polyglot and the fourth Governor of Hong Kong. He was a ...
, who had succeeded Sir
John Davis at Hong Kong. On the declaration of the
Second Opium War
The Second Opium War (), also known as the Second Anglo-Sino War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a colonial war lasting from 1856 to 1860, which pitted the British Empire#Britain's imperial ...
in 1857, he was attached to
Lord Elgin
Earl of Elgin is a title in the Peerage of Scotland, created in 1633 for Thomas Bruce, 3rd Lord Kinloss. He was later created Baron Bruce, of Whorlton in the County of York, in the Peerage of England on 30 July 1641. The Earl of Elgin is the h ...
's staff as Chinese secretary and with the assistance of
Horatio Nelson Lay he conducted the negotiations which led up to the
Treaty of Tientsin
The Treaty of Tientsin, also known as the Treaty of Tianjin, is a collective name for several documents signed at Tianjin (then romanized as Tientsin) in June 1858. The Qing dynasty, Russian Empire, Second French Empire, United Kingdom, and t ...
(1858). In the following year he accompanied Sir
Frederick Bruce in his attempt to exchange the ratification of the treaty, and was present at
Taku
Taku may refer to:
Places North America
* the Taku River, in Alaska and British Columbia
** Fort Taku, also known as Fort Durham and as Taku, a former fort of the Hudson's Bay Company near the mouth of the Taku River
** the Taku Glacier, in Ala ...
when the force attending the mission was attacked and driven back from the
Pei Ho (Hai River).
On Lord Elgin's return to China in 1860, he resumed his former post of Chinese secretary, and was mainly instrumental in arranging for the advance of the special envoys and the British and French forces to
Tientsin
Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...
(Tianjin) and subsequently towards
Peking
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
. For the purpose of arranging for a camping ground in
Tongzhou he accompanied Mr (afterwards Sir)
Harry Parkes on his first visit to that city. Wade took a leading part in the following negotiations, and on the establishment of the legation at Peking he took up the post of Chinese secretary of legation. In 1862 Wade was made a
Companion of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as on ...
.
Wade was acting Chargé d'Affaires in Peking from June 1864 to November 1865 and from November 1869 to July 1871. Wade was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary and Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China in that year and served in that role until his retirement in 1883.
He conducted long and difficult negotiations in the wake of the 1870
Tientsin Massacre, and was knighted in 1875. Despite leaving Peking in the wake of the
Margary Affair
The Margary Affair ( or 滇案; ''Diān àn'') was a crisis in Sino-British relations, which followed the murder of British official Augustus Raymond Margary in 1875.
As part of efforts to explore overland trade routes between British India and ...
, Wade negotiated the
Chefoo Convention
The Chefoo Convention, known in Chinese as the Yantai Treaty, was a treaty between Qing China and Great Britain, signed by Sir Thomas Wade and Li Hongzhang in Zhifu (now a district of Yantai) on 21 August 1876. The official reason for the treat ...
in 1876 with
Li Hongzhang
Li Hongzhang, Marquess Suyi ( zh, t=李鴻章; also Li Hung-chang; 15 February 1823 – 7 November 1901) was a Chinese politician, general and diplomat of the late Qing dynasty. He quelled several major rebellions and served in important ...
. He was then made
KCB.
Return to England
After retiring from working over forty years in the British embassies in China, he returned to England in 1883, and three years later donated 4,304 volumes of
Chinese literature to the
Cambridge University Library
Cambridge University Library is the main research library of the University of Cambridge. It is the largest of the over 100 libraries within the university. The Library is a major scholarly resource for the members of the University of Cambri ...
's Oriental Collection. In 1888, he was elected the first
Professor of Chinese at the
University of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
. He held the position as a professor until his death in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
at 77.
He served as president of the
Royal Asiatic Society
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...
from 1887 to 1890.
Wade was married to Amelia Herschel (1841–1926), daughter of astronomer
John Herschel
Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical wo ...
.
Works
In addition to diplomatic duties, Wade published books assisting in learning of the Chinese language:
*''The Peking Syllabary; being a collection of the characters representing the dialect of Peking; arranged after a new orthography in syllabic classes, according to the four tones; designed to accompany the Hsin Ching Lu, or Book of Experiments'', (Hong Kong), 1859.
*語言自邇集 ''Yü-yen Tzŭ-erh Chi, a progressive course designed to assist the student of Colloquial Chinese, as spoken in the capital and the Metropolitan Department'', London, 1867.
*漢字習寫法 ''
῾Han Tzŭ Hsi Hsieh Fa, a set of writing exercises, designed to accompany the Colloquial Series of the Tzŭ Erh Chi'', London, 1867.
*文件自趰集 ''Wên-chien Tzŭ-erh Chi, a series of papers selected as specimens of Documentary Chinese'', London, 1867.
In these books, Wade produced an innovative system of
transliteration
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...
of Chinese pronunciation into the Latin alphabet (i.e., "
romanization
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...
"), based on the pronunciation conventions of the
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...
dialect. Wade's system was later modified by
Herbert Giles
Herbert Allen Giles (, 8 December 184513 February 1935) was a British diplomat and sinologist who was the professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge for 35 years. Giles was educated at Charterhouse School before becoming a British ...
(Giles succeeded Wade as professor of Chinese at Cambridge University), into the "Wade system as modified by Giles": the system now more generally known as the
Wade-Giles system. It was the dominant transliteration system for much of the 20th century. Though it was replaced by the
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
system, it is still used in some publications and communities.
List of works
*
*
* bound with ''The Peking Syllabary; being a collection of the characters representing the dialect of Peking; arranged after a new orthography in syllabic classes, according to the four tones; designed to accompany the Hsin Ching Lu, or Book of Experiments''
*
* (link not inc. Key and New Edition of the Syllabary)
* (link to Key and New Edition of the Syllabary only)
*
*
*
Notes
References
*Cooley, James C., Jr. ''T.F. Wade in China: Pioneer in Global Diplomacy 1842–1882.'' Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981.
*
*Sterckx, Roel, ''In the Fields of Shennong: An inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Cambridge on 30 September 2008 to mark the establishment of the Joseph Needham Professorship of Chinese History, Science and Civilization.'' Cambridge: Needham Research Institute, 2008 ().
External links
*
Cambridge Oriental Collections intro archived link on archive.org. Retrieved 15 October 2017.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wade, Thomas Francis
1818 births
1895 deaths
People educated at Harrow School
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Professors of the University of Cambridge
81st Regiment of Foot officers
Black Watch officers
British diplomats in China
Linguists from the United Kingdom
British military personnel of the First Opium War
British people of the Second Opium War
Governors of the Cape Colony
Justices of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong
Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
North Staffordshire Regiment officers
British sinologists
Presidents of the Royal Asiatic Society
Creators of writing systems