Rutherford Alcock
Sir Rutherford Alcock KCB (* 1809 , † November 2, 1897 in London ) was a British doctor who later worked as a diplomat in Japan and China .
Life
After its approval in 1831, he received his membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) The following year he volunteered in the British naval brigade and took as a medical officer from 1832 to 1834 in the liberal wars part. He then moved to the British Aid Legion of Spain in May 1835 and was a participant in the First Carlist War from 1835 to 1837 . After a year he was promoted to the rank of Deputy Inspector General of the Hospital System. At first he had hoped to get the chair of military surgery at King's College Hospital in London, with an assistant surgeon at Westminster Hospitalwas connected, but as he suffered increasingly from rheumatic fever attacks, he could no longer use his thumbs properly and had to give up his medical career. In 1839 he was offered a teaching position in surgery at Sydenham College, and in 1842 he became inspector of anatomy in the Home Office. He then decided to shape his future differently and first became British Consul in Fuzhou , China (1944), in Shanghai (1846) and in Canton (1854).
In 1858 he finally entered the diplomatic service and in 1858 was appointed the first British consul in Japan. He arrived in Edo in 1859 , where he resided with interruptions until 1865. Alcock tried to open Japan to British trade. In 1864 he was instrumental in the preparations for the bombing of Shimonoseki by the European-American alliance, which, among other targets, was to open up inland waters.
Between 1865 and 1871 he was British Minister (Ambassador) in Beijing. The “Alcock Convention” from 1869 is named after him.
From May 1882 to July 1891 Alcock was chairman of the board of directors of the North Borneo Chartered Company .
The Capital of the Tycoon
During his stay in London in 1862 he wrote The Capital of the Tycoon . Tycoon was the name given to the Shogun among foreigners in Japan between 1854 and 1868 . This work, "without question the most important literary phenomenon about Japan since the work on Perry's Expedition", also has a special geographical value due to the description of Mount Fuji. Alcock has the merit of having "climbed this mountain first among all foreigners and first disseminating more detailed information about it."
Works
- Lectures on amputation, especially on the injuries which they cause, and on the question of when and how to carry them out on them, held in medicine. Sydenham College School. Translated into German edited by Dr. Ms. J. Behrend. Kollmann Leipzig, 1844
- The Capital of the Tycoon: A narrative of a three years' residence in Japan. 2 vols. London, Longman, 1863
literature
- Catalog Japan and Europe 1543-1929. Berlin 1993
- Petermann's messages . 1864 and 1879
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alcock, Sir Rutherford . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 1 : A-Androphagi . London 1910, p. 524 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
- ^ MH Kaufman: The military career of Mr (later Sir) Rutherford Alcock (1809-97) . In: Journal of Medical Biography . tape 13 , no. 1 , ISSN 0967-7720 , p. 3-10 , PMID 15682225 .
- ^ Views of British North Borneo . British North Borneo Company, London, 1899
- ^ Petermanns Mitteilungen , 1864, p. 157
- ↑ Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen , 1879, p. 371
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Alcock, Rutherford |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British doctor and diplomat |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1809 |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 2, 1897 |
| Place of death | London |