Thomas Francis Wade | |||||||||
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 Thomas Wade (published 1895) | |||||||||
| Born | 25 August 1818 London, England | ||||||||
| Died | 31 July 1895(1895-07-31) (aged 76) Cambridge, England | ||||||||
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge | ||||||||
| Scientific career | |||||||||
| Fields | Sinology | ||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 威妥瑪 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 威妥玛 | ||||||||
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Sir Thomas Francis Wade,GCMG KCB (25 August 1818 – 31 July 1895) was a Britishdiplomat andsinologist who produced an early Chinese textbook in English, in 1867,[1] that was later amended, extended and converted into theWade-Gilesromanization system forMandarin Chinese byHerbert Giles in 1892. He was the firstprofessor of Chinese atCambridge University.
Born inLondon, he was the elder son of Colonel Thomas Wade, CB,[2]: 466n of theBlack Watch and Anne Smythe (daughter of William Smythe) ofBarbavilla,County Westmeath, Ireland. He was educated at the Cape, in Mauritius, atHarrow and atTrinity College, Cambridge.[3] In 1838, his father purchased for him a commission in the81st Foot. Exchanging (1839) into the42nd Highlanders, he served with his regiment in theIonian Islands, devoting his leisure to the study ofItalian and modern Greek.[4]
On receiving his commission as lieutenant in 1841 he exchanged into the98th Foot, then under orders forQing China and landed atHong Kong in June 1842. The scene of theFirst Opium War had at that time been transferred to theYangtze River and Wade was ordered there with his regiment. There he took part in the attack onZhenjiang and in the advance onNanjing.[4]
In 1843, he was appointedCantonese interpreter to the garrison[2]: 413n and, two years later, to theSupreme Court of Hong Kong, and, in 1846, assistant Chinese secretary to the superintendent of trade, SirJohn Francis Davis. In 1852 he was appointed vice-consul atShanghai. TheTaiping Rebellion 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 theimperial maritime customs service.[4]
In 1855, Wade was appointed Chinese secretary to SirJohn Bowring, who had succeeded SirJohn Davis at Hong Kong. On the declaration of theSecond Opium War in 1857, he was attached toLord Elgin's staff as Chinese secretary and with the assistance ofHoratio Nelson Lay he conducted the negotiations which led up to theTreaty of Tientsin (1858). In the following year he accompanied SirFrederick Bruce in his attempt to exchange the ratification of the treaty, and was present atTaku when the force attending the mission was attacked and driven back from theHai River.[4]
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 toTianjin and subsequently towardsBeijing. For the purpose of arranging for a camping ground inTongzhou 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 thelegation at Peking he took up the post of Chinese secretary of legation. In 1862 Wade was made aCompanion of the Bath.[5]
Wade was acting Chargé d'Affaires in Beijing 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.[2]: 467n He conducted long and difficult negotiations in the wake of the 1870Tianjin Massacre,[6] and was knighted in 1875. Despite leaving Beijing in the wake of theMargary Affair, Wade negotiated theChefoo Convention in 1876 withLi Hongzhang. He was then madeKCB.[6]
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 ofChinese literature to theCambridge University Library's Oriental Collection. In 1888, he was elected the firstProfessor of Chinese at theUniversity of Cambridge. He held the position as a professor until his death inCambridge at 77.[3] He served as president of theRoyal Asiatic Society from 1887 to 1890.
Wade was married to Amelia Herschel (1841–1926), daughter of astronomerJohn Herschel.
In addition to diplomatic duties, Wade published books assisting in learning of the Chinese language:
In these books, Wade produced an innovative system oftransliteration of Chinese pronunciation into the Latin alphabet (i.e., "romanization"), based on the pronunciation conventions of theBeijing dialect. Wade's system was later modified byHerbert Giles (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 theWade-Giles system. It was the dominant transliteration system for much of the 20th century. Though it was replaced by thePinyin system, it is still used in some publications and communities.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Douglas, Robert Kennaway (1911). "Wade, Sir Thomas Francis". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 227–228.| International | |
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