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Bertram Lenox Simpson
Bertram Lenox Simpson (1877–1930) was a British author who wrote about China under the pen name "B. L. Putnam Weale" (or sometimes simply "Putnam Weale").
Lenox Simpson was the son of Clare Lenox-Simpson, who had been in the Chinese Maritime Customs Service since 1861; he had a brother, Evelyn, a mining engineer who worked in China, and a sister, Esme. His education was at Brighton College, after which he too joined the Service. Simpson started to work for the Customs Service in 1896 and his career benefitted from his father's patronage. He was in China during the Boxer Rebellion and during the siege of the legations. After this, he became Brigade Interpreter for the British Expeditionary Force (he spoke 5 languages). Sir Ernest Satow, the British minister-plenipotentiary to China, refused to be introduced to Lenox Simpson when he was at Peking (1900–06) 'on account of his character'.
Lenox Simpson left the Chinese Maritime Customs Service in 1901, perhaps connected with zealous looting after the siege of the Legations in 1900. The British historian Robert Bickers called him "the consummate treaty port jobbing hack, writing commentaries, begging for newspaper work, penning novels... and serving as the Daily Telegraph correspondent in Beijing from 1911 to 1914." Much of his writing in the Edwardian era was given over to defending the treaty port system in China. He remained in China, and began a prolific career writing about China and the Far East.
Lenox Simpson's best-known book, Indiscreet Letters from Peking was published in 1907 and offered up a trenchant defense of British imperialism in China as it recounted his role in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Much of his memoir of the year 1900 was concerned with attacking the Foreign Office for being too supine and diplomatic towards the Chinese, and portrayed himself as the man of action, unconcerned with diplomatic niceties, and always willing to do and fight for what is right. In addition in Indiscreet Letters from Peking, Lennox Simpson portrayed both Russia and Germany as rival powers threatening the British empire, which led him to attack the Foreign Office for being too willing to have Britain work with Russia and Germany in putting the Boxers. Furthermore, he complained that the Foreign Office was willing to compromise with both the Germans and the Russians over their claims to have zones of spheres of influence in China, which he saw as a serious threat to the British empire. The overall theme of Indiscreet Letters from Peking was that the British had the world's greatest empire, but were being let down by their leaders and diplomats who were insufficiently aggressive in defending the empire. The Boxer Rebellion, especially the siege of the legations in Beijing in the summer of 1900, had attracted enormous interest in the United Kingdom and came for many British people in the early 20th century what the Indian Mutiny had being for the Victorians, namely a war that was seen as a vindication of the British empire. Moreover, the Boxer Rebellion served as a template for British understanding of China well into the 20th century with the sacking of the British embassy in Beijing in 1967 along with the beating of the British diplomats by the Red Guards being presented by the British newspapers as just another example of "Boxerism". Given the popular interest in the Boxer Rebellion along with Lenox Simpson's self-proclaimed status as the China expert who could explain "Boxerism", the book was a best-seller. Finally, Lenox Simpson's portrayal of a British empire being let down by alleged enervated elite struck a chord with elements of the British public.
His first novel, The Forbidden Boundary (1908) concerned the theme of sex between white men and Asian women, which was the forbidden boundary of the title. Lennox Simpson's book was an early example of the erotic Asian fetish with Chinese women presented as a seductively erotic temptations for British men, albeit with the proviso that such relationships always ended in disaster, thereby appealing to both ends of the British public. In his letters to the editors of his publisher Macmillan, he constantly exaggerated his own status as a China expert while always asking for more money for his books. However, Simpson was well informed on Chinese affairs. As a journalist, he was the first to report that in August 1914 President Yuan Shikai had wanted to declare war on Germany and in a meeting with John Jordan, the British minister-plenipotentiary to China had offered up 50, 000 soldiers who together with the British would take Qingdao, the capital of Shandong province which Germany had taken from China in 1897. Qingdao served as the main German naval base in Asia and was the home of the East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy. Japan had an alliance with Britain and was on the verge of entering the war, and Yuan was emphatic that he did not want the Japanese to attack Qingdao. Yuan predicated (correctly) that the Japanese would take Qingdao for themselves instead of giving it back to China. Jordan rejected Yuan's offer, saying that Britain did not need China's help to defeat Germany. In fact, the British had sent most of their small army to aid France and Belgium, both of which had been invaded by Germany and Britain did not have sufficient forces in East Asia to take the fortress city of Qingdao by itself. Jordan and the Foreign Office just preferred Japanese help in besieging Qingdao as Japan was felt to the stronger power. Qingdao was taken after an Anglo-Japanese siege, falling in November 1914 while the East Asia Squadron had escaped and make an epic journey across the Pacific in an attempt to return to Germany before destroyed by the British in the Battle of the Falkland Islands. The "Shandong Question" as the Sino-Japanese dispute was known as Japan's demanded to take over the former German rights in the Shandong province for itself proved to be one of the more difficult disputes at the Paris peace conference in 1919. Both Lenox Simpson and George Morrison, the Australian journalist who had once served as The Times Beijing correspondent were well aware of Yann's offer and Jordan's rejection. Both journalists felt that Jordan had made a major mistake in rejecting China's offer as both felt the "Shandong Question" could had been avoided if only Britain had solicited the help of China instead of Japan in besieging Qingdao.
Simpson's novels were portrayed China as an exotic and romantic place for tough and rugged individualistic Englishmen to have adventures in, free of any of the social constraints, sexual or otherwise, that governed behavior in Britain. Most of his Chinese novels were presented as romans à chef with the preface to his 1920 novel Wang the Ninth saying this story had "the quality of being true and should therefore be known". His later novels were more sympathetic towards the Chinese than his earlier ones, and usually the villains were Soviet Russia or Japan, through the same theme remained that allowing China to fall into the Soviet or Japanese sphere of influence would be a deadly danger to the British empire. China was in turmoil during this period with the ancient Qing dynasty that ruled China since 1644 being overthrown in the Xinhai revolution of 1911-1912 following by the collapse of the central government after the death of Yuan Shikai in 1916 with various warlords governing different provinces while locked in merciless struggles for power as the warlords fought one another in a series of wars. Lennox Simpson took advantage of the fascination of the British public with what was happening in China with two novels set against the backdrop of the Xinhai revolution and a trilogy of a novels describing the rise of a humble Chinese peasant to being a Boxer and finally a warlord. The voracious desire for power also extended to the wives and concubines of the warlords. Lenox Simpson reported that Li Dequan, the wife of General Feng Yuxiang was a close friend of Han Shuxiu, the wife of General Guo Songling, a subordinate of Marshal Zhang Zuolin, the "Old Marshal" who ruled Manchuria until his assassination by the Japanese in 1928. Li had reportedly "stirred up" Han who in turn urged her husband to rebel against Zhang with the aim of taking Manchuria for himself. In 1925, Guo rebelled against Zhang. However, Zhang had the support of the Japanese Kwantung Army, which had occupied southern Manchuria since 1905 under the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth, which had ended the Russian-Japanese war. The Japanese saw Zhang as their "man in China" and backed him decisively against Guo's rebellion. Following the failure of the rebellion, both Guo and Han were publicly executed to set an example of the price of treason against the "Old Marshal". Lenox Simpson used the rebellion as an example of the perils of giving Chinese women an western educating, writing "in the end the foreign educated wives got their way with the tragic reasons known".
His 1914 novel, The Eternal Princess has the earliest reference as yet located to the apocryphal sign in Shanghai's Huangpu Park, "No Dogs or Chinese." He wrote in The Eternal Priestess: "There has just been a fierce controversy in the newspapers...over the notice put in the public gardens here. Some fool in the municipality had signboards painted with-'Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted'. Rather rough I call it. If I were one of them I should kill some foreign devil just to equalise matters". The story about the sign saying "no dogs or Chinese" seems to have been Simpson's invention, but it is true that the International Settlement in Shanghai was a strictly segregated city-within-the-city as the British and American residents of the International Settlement disliked having Chinese people in their community. As of 1916 he was working for the political section of the office of the President of China. One researcher reports that "During the period of September 1916 to June 1917, he had written at least thirty-eight reports on foreign affairs for the Chinese government. Many of them were ... read by President Li Yuanhong." His journalistic career in China included periods as editor of the Peking Leader and as chairman of the Far Eastern Times syndicate.
In 1927, he was employed by the Shanghai Municipal Council, which governed the International Settlement in Shanghai, to counter foreign press criticism of the racist laws that governed the International Settlement.. Bickers described Lennox Simpson as being ambivalent in his later writings about China as he continued to defend the treaty port system while often portraying the British residents of the treaty ports as snobbish, greedy, spoiled, selfish, racist and generally unpleasant. Bickers wrote that Lenox Simpson's politics were those of an imperialist committed to upholding the treaty port system while he was also a journalist forever looking for a good story that might him bring some badly needed money. Despite his politics, Lennox Simpson was quite willing to criticise aspects of life in the treaty ports if he thought that might help him sell a story. The theme of his newspaper articles and books was that the treaty port system was being let down by the foreign residents of the treaty ports who were behaving in a manner offensive to the Chinese and the system would work better if the residents of the International Settlement and the other concessions would behave better. The ambiguity of the foreign concessions in China undercut foreign sympathy for them by the 1920s since China was not anyone's colony and the laws in the concessions about where Chinese people could and could not go in their own country seemed outrageous to many even at the time, which led to the defensive quality to the writings done by the residents of the foreign concessions such as Simpson.
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Bertram Lenox Simpson
Bertram Lenox Simpson (1877–1930) was a British author who wrote about China under the pen name "B. L. Putnam Weale" (or sometimes simply "Putnam Weale").
Lenox Simpson was the son of Clare Lenox-Simpson, who had been in the Chinese Maritime Customs Service since 1861; he had a brother, Evelyn, a mining engineer who worked in China, and a sister, Esme. His education was at Brighton College, after which he too joined the Service. Simpson started to work for the Customs Service in 1896 and his career benefitted from his father's patronage. He was in China during the Boxer Rebellion and during the siege of the legations. After this, he became Brigade Interpreter for the British Expeditionary Force (he spoke 5 languages). Sir Ernest Satow, the British minister-plenipotentiary to China, refused to be introduced to Lenox Simpson when he was at Peking (1900–06) 'on account of his character'.
Lenox Simpson left the Chinese Maritime Customs Service in 1901, perhaps connected with zealous looting after the siege of the Legations in 1900. The British historian Robert Bickers called him "the consummate treaty port jobbing hack, writing commentaries, begging for newspaper work, penning novels... and serving as the Daily Telegraph correspondent in Beijing from 1911 to 1914." Much of his writing in the Edwardian era was given over to defending the treaty port system in China. He remained in China, and began a prolific career writing about China and the Far East.
Lenox Simpson's best-known book, Indiscreet Letters from Peking was published in 1907 and offered up a trenchant defense of British imperialism in China as it recounted his role in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Much of his memoir of the year 1900 was concerned with attacking the Foreign Office for being too supine and diplomatic towards the Chinese, and portrayed himself as the man of action, unconcerned with diplomatic niceties, and always willing to do and fight for what is right. In addition in Indiscreet Letters from Peking, Lennox Simpson portrayed both Russia and Germany as rival powers threatening the British empire, which led him to attack the Foreign Office for being too willing to have Britain work with Russia and Germany in putting the Boxers. Furthermore, he complained that the Foreign Office was willing to compromise with both the Germans and the Russians over their claims to have zones of spheres of influence in China, which he saw as a serious threat to the British empire. The overall theme of Indiscreet Letters from Peking was that the British had the world's greatest empire, but were being let down by their leaders and diplomats who were insufficiently aggressive in defending the empire. The Boxer Rebellion, especially the siege of the legations in Beijing in the summer of 1900, had attracted enormous interest in the United Kingdom and came for many British people in the early 20th century what the Indian Mutiny had being for the Victorians, namely a war that was seen as a vindication of the British empire. Moreover, the Boxer Rebellion served as a template for British understanding of China well into the 20th century with the sacking of the British embassy in Beijing in 1967 along with the beating of the British diplomats by the Red Guards being presented by the British newspapers as just another example of "Boxerism". Given the popular interest in the Boxer Rebellion along with Lenox Simpson's self-proclaimed status as the China expert who could explain "Boxerism", the book was a best-seller. Finally, Lenox Simpson's portrayal of a British empire being let down by alleged enervated elite struck a chord with elements of the British public.
His first novel, The Forbidden Boundary (1908) concerned the theme of sex between white men and Asian women, which was the forbidden boundary of the title. Lennox Simpson's book was an early example of the erotic Asian fetish with Chinese women presented as a seductively erotic temptations for British men, albeit with the proviso that such relationships always ended in disaster, thereby appealing to both ends of the British public. In his letters to the editors of his publisher Macmillan, he constantly exaggerated his own status as a China expert while always asking for more money for his books. However, Simpson was well informed on Chinese affairs. As a journalist, he was the first to report that in August 1914 President Yuan Shikai had wanted to declare war on Germany and in a meeting with John Jordan, the British minister-plenipotentiary to China had offered up 50, 000 soldiers who together with the British would take Qingdao, the capital of Shandong province which Germany had taken from China in 1897. Qingdao served as the main German naval base in Asia and was the home of the East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy. Japan had an alliance with Britain and was on the verge of entering the war, and Yuan was emphatic that he did not want the Japanese to attack Qingdao. Yuan predicated (correctly) that the Japanese would take Qingdao for themselves instead of giving it back to China. Jordan rejected Yuan's offer, saying that Britain did not need China's help to defeat Germany. In fact, the British had sent most of their small army to aid France and Belgium, both of which had been invaded by Germany and Britain did not have sufficient forces in East Asia to take the fortress city of Qingdao by itself. Jordan and the Foreign Office just preferred Japanese help in besieging Qingdao as Japan was felt to the stronger power. Qingdao was taken after an Anglo-Japanese siege, falling in November 1914 while the East Asia Squadron had escaped and make an epic journey across the Pacific in an attempt to return to Germany before destroyed by the British in the Battle of the Falkland Islands. The "Shandong Question" as the Sino-Japanese dispute was known as Japan's demanded to take over the former German rights in the Shandong province for itself proved to be one of the more difficult disputes at the Paris peace conference in 1919. Both Lenox Simpson and George Morrison, the Australian journalist who had once served as The Times Beijing correspondent were well aware of Yann's offer and Jordan's rejection. Both journalists felt that Jordan had made a major mistake in rejecting China's offer as both felt the "Shandong Question" could had been avoided if only Britain had solicited the help of China instead of Japan in besieging Qingdao.
Simpson's novels were portrayed China as an exotic and romantic place for tough and rugged individualistic Englishmen to have adventures in, free of any of the social constraints, sexual or otherwise, that governed behavior in Britain. Most of his Chinese novels were presented as romans à chef with the preface to his 1920 novel Wang the Ninth saying this story had "the quality of being true and should therefore be known". His later novels were more sympathetic towards the Chinese than his earlier ones, and usually the villains were Soviet Russia or Japan, through the same theme remained that allowing China to fall into the Soviet or Japanese sphere of influence would be a deadly danger to the British empire. China was in turmoil during this period with the ancient Qing dynasty that ruled China since 1644 being overthrown in the Xinhai revolution of 1911-1912 following by the collapse of the central government after the death of Yuan Shikai in 1916 with various warlords governing different provinces while locked in merciless struggles for power as the warlords fought one another in a series of wars. Lennox Simpson took advantage of the fascination of the British public with what was happening in China with two novels set against the backdrop of the Xinhai revolution and a trilogy of a novels describing the rise of a humble Chinese peasant to being a Boxer and finally a warlord. The voracious desire for power also extended to the wives and concubines of the warlords. Lenox Simpson reported that Li Dequan, the wife of General Feng Yuxiang was a close friend of Han Shuxiu, the wife of General Guo Songling, a subordinate of Marshal Zhang Zuolin, the "Old Marshal" who ruled Manchuria until his assassination by the Japanese in 1928. Li had reportedly "stirred up" Han who in turn urged her husband to rebel against Zhang with the aim of taking Manchuria for himself. In 1925, Guo rebelled against Zhang. However, Zhang had the support of the Japanese Kwantung Army, which had occupied southern Manchuria since 1905 under the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth, which had ended the Russian-Japanese war. The Japanese saw Zhang as their "man in China" and backed him decisively against Guo's rebellion. Following the failure of the rebellion, both Guo and Han were publicly executed to set an example of the price of treason against the "Old Marshal". Lenox Simpson used the rebellion as an example of the perils of giving Chinese women an western educating, writing "in the end the foreign educated wives got their way with the tragic reasons known".
His 1914 novel, The Eternal Princess has the earliest reference as yet located to the apocryphal sign in Shanghai's Huangpu Park, "No Dogs or Chinese." He wrote in The Eternal Priestess: "There has just been a fierce controversy in the newspapers...over the notice put in the public gardens here. Some fool in the municipality had signboards painted with-'Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted'. Rather rough I call it. If I were one of them I should kill some foreign devil just to equalise matters". The story about the sign saying "no dogs or Chinese" seems to have been Simpson's invention, but it is true that the International Settlement in Shanghai was a strictly segregated city-within-the-city as the British and American residents of the International Settlement disliked having Chinese people in their community. As of 1916 he was working for the political section of the office of the President of China. One researcher reports that "During the period of September 1916 to June 1917, he had written at least thirty-eight reports on foreign affairs for the Chinese government. Many of them were ... read by President Li Yuanhong." His journalistic career in China included periods as editor of the Peking Leader and as chairman of the Far Eastern Times syndicate.
In 1927, he was employed by the Shanghai Municipal Council, which governed the International Settlement in Shanghai, to counter foreign press criticism of the racist laws that governed the International Settlement.. Bickers described Lennox Simpson as being ambivalent in his later writings about China as he continued to defend the treaty port system while often portraying the British residents of the treaty ports as snobbish, greedy, spoiled, selfish, racist and generally unpleasant. Bickers wrote that Lenox Simpson's politics were those of an imperialist committed to upholding the treaty port system while he was also a journalist forever looking for a good story that might him bring some badly needed money. Despite his politics, Lennox Simpson was quite willing to criticise aspects of life in the treaty ports if he thought that might help him sell a story. The theme of his newspaper articles and books was that the treaty port system was being let down by the foreign residents of the treaty ports who were behaving in a manner offensive to the Chinese and the system would work better if the residents of the International Settlement and the other concessions would behave better. The ambiguity of the foreign concessions in China undercut foreign sympathy for them by the 1920s since China was not anyone's colony and the laws in the concessions about where Chinese people could and could not go in their own country seemed outrageous to many even at the time, which led to the defensive quality to the writings done by the residents of the foreign concessions such as Simpson.
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