Harry Smith Parkes

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Harry Smith Parkes bigraphy, stories - British diplomat

Harry Smith Parkes : biography

1828 – 1885

Sir Harry Smith Parkes (Traditional Chinese: 巴夏禮; Simplified Chinese: 巴夏礼, 1828–1885) was a 19th-century British diplomat who worked mainly in China and Japan. Parkes Street in Kowloon, Hong Kong is named after him.

Notes

China (1841-64)

First Opium War

In June 1841 Parkes sailed for China to take up his residence at the house of his cousin, Mary Wanstall Gützlaff (née Newell), who was the wife of the missionary and explorer Karl Friedrich Gützlaff. On Parkes’s arrival in Macau in October 1841 he prepared for employment in the office of John Robert Morrison, secretary and first interpreter of Sir Henry Pottinger, who was then British minister plenipotentiary and chief superintendent of trade in China. At this time what later became known as the First Opium War (1839–42) had broken out.

Parkes learned the basics of the Chinese language, and in May 1842 joined Morrison in Hong Kong. On 13 June 1842 he accompanied Pottinger on his expedition up the Yangtze River to Nanking (Nanjing), and witnessed the capture of Chinkiang on 21 July and witnessed the signing of the Treaty of Nanking on board the British warship HMS Cornwallis on 29 August 1842. By this treaty the five ports of Canton, Amoy, Fuchow, Ningpo and Shanghai were opened to trade.

Diplomatic work

Karl Gützlaff was appointed civil magistrate in Chusan (Zhoushan) following the British occupation of the island, and Parkes served as his clerk from September 1842 to August 1843. In August 1843 he passed the consular examination in Chinese in Hong Kong and that September was appointed interpreter at Foochow (Fuzhou). However, there was a delay in opening the port and so he served instead at the consulate in Canton (Guangzhou) and as assistant to the Chinese Secretary in Hong Kong.

In June 1844 he was appointed interpreter at Amoy (Xiamen) and in March 1845 he and his consul, Mr (afterwards Sir) Rutherford Alcock, were transferred to Foochow, where Parkes was attacked by stone-throwing Manchu soldiers on 4 October. In June 1846 he assisted Alcock to secure compensation of $46,163 from the Fukien (Fujian) authorities for British property looted and destroyed during a riot.

In August 1846 Alcock and Parkes were again transferred, this time to Shanghai, where Parkes acted as interpreter. In 1847 he began to study the Japanese language and in March 1848 accompanied the British vice-consul at Shanghai to Nanking to negotiate the punishment of some Chinese men who had assaulted three British missionaries at Tsingpu (Qingpu). Following this he was appointed interpreter at Shanghai on 9 April 1848 and after a period of leave from 1850-1851 which he spent in Europe, he took up the post of interpreter at Amoy, to which he had been appointed in July 1849.Lane-Poole, Stanley. (1901). Sir Harry Parkes in China, p. 138.

On 21 November 1851 he was appointed interpreter at Canton, travelling there in February 1852. While there, he acted as Consul in the absence of Sir John Bowring, and in August 1853 he was placed temporarily in charge of the Canton vice-consulate.

In 1854 Parkes was appointed Consul at Amoy. In 1855 he accompanied Bowring to Siam (now Thailand) as joint secretary to the mission to conclude a commercial treaty with the kingdom. The treaty, the first European treaty with Siam, was signed in Bangkok on 18 April and Parkes travelled to England with the treaty for ratification. He delivered it on 1 July, and was received by Queen Victoria on 9 July 1855. He spent the rest of 1855 helping the Foreign Office with Chinese and Siamese business. Parkes exchanged the ratified Siamese treaty in Bangkok on 5 April, and arrived in Canton in June where he was to be acting consul during Alcock’s absence.

Second Opium War

Parkes’ position as acting Consul at Canton brought him into renewed contact with Imperial commissioner and governor-general Ye Mingchen, and the conflict between the two men would soon lead to the Second Opium War (1856–60).

On 8 October 1856 the Chinese-owned lorcha Arrow was boarded by officials of the Chinese water patrol as she entered the Pearl River. It had been learnt that several pirates were aboard, sailing under the protection of the Red Ensign, so it was boarded by the water patrol, who arrested 12 Chinese sailors and took down the flag. Parkes sent a protest to Ye Mingchen, in which he pointed out that lowering the British flag was an insult; Ye replied that the Arrow was owned and crewed by Chinese and the flag had not been flying at the time. Parkes considered this action a violation of the treaty rights and sent dispatches to the governor of Hong Kong, Sir John Bowring, in which he portrayed the action as an insult to the British flag.