Sir Rutherford Alcock: First British Minister to Japan (1859-1865), Consul (1844-1859) and Minister (1865-1870) to China

The son of a village doctor, Rutherford Alcock trained in medicine and became a battlefield surgeon, working in Portugal and Spain during the civil wars there in the 1830s. In a major career shift, he entered the consular service, went to China, and ended up as British Minister (the equivalent of today’s ambassador) to Japan and then China. This progression was unique, indeed bizarre, especially as every senior position he got was one he specifically said he did not want. Nonetheless, he was the man who commenced Britain’s relations with Japan and introduced Japan’s arts and crafts to the UK, in addition to playing a central role in Britain’s relationship with China. He was no rampant imperialist and expressed ambivalence about Britain’s position in East Asia as he contended with intractable issues like the opium trade and how to punish attacks on British interests without starting a war. This book fills a major gap in the study of Japan’s opening to the West from a British perspective, as well as Britain’s relationship with East Asia as a whole, through the eyes of a brilliant, but complicated and contradictory figure.

Dr Robert Morton is a professor at Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan. He is the author of the prize-winning A.B. Mitford and the Birth of Japan as a Modern State and A Life of Sir Harry Parkes.