Frederick Clement Christie Egerton

Lt. Col. Frederick Clement Christie Egerton
File:Egerton, Frederick Clement Christie.jpg
Born	1891
Residence	Great Bricett Hall, Great Bricett, near Ipswich [1937]
Occupation	armed services historian
Society Membership membership ordinary fellow elected_AI 1936.12.15

Notes

House Notes

1936.11.17 nominated

Notes From Elsewhere

Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Clement Christie EGERTON The Gloucestershire Regiment.
born 17 Feb. 1891 (if record for Frederick Egerton at National archives is our man)

Historian and travel writer. Wife Elizabeth Harker Spenceley

Book about him: Chance encounter : Kwayep of Bamana. Author: Bettina von Lintig

Inquiry about Clement Egerton [from 2010]
Does anyone know of a source of biographical information about Frederick Clement Christie Egerton, the first to produce a complete English translation of the late Ming period Chinese novel Jin Ping Mei (The Golden
Lotus: A Translation from the Chinese Original, of the Novel Chin P'ing Mei, 1939)?
I have not found the dates of his birth and death, although I have the name and birth date of his (apparently second) wife; he attained the rank of Colonel, presumably in the British Army, although I have no details. I
am particularly in his education and his warmly acknowledged collaboration with "C. C. Shu," who was, of course, the famous Beijing novelist Lao She (1899-1966), in his translation project. The most extensive commentary on
that I have found was the brief description of their relatively close personal relationship by King Hu in the Hong Kong translation journal Renditions 10 (1978). Neither that nor Egerton's self-references in his ethnographic account African Majesty published about the same time as The Golden Lotus give any indication of Egerton's level of competence in Chinese. Egerton does mention a visit to Japan in the 1920s, but makes no reference to China or to the Chinese language, nor do any of his other several books have anything to do with China. I would like to know whether this novel was actually translated into English by Lao She and merely edited by Egerton, who described himself in African Majesty merely as a "publisher."
Many thanks for any information. Robert E. Hegel Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Frederick Clement Christie Egerton to give him his full name and title. Egerton was a larger-than-life character, and eccentric and jovial polymath cut from the same cloth as Pound’s friend, Allen Upward. His father was an English country parson according to King Hu, author of ‘Lao She in England’, but he writes that Egerton himself ‘had no religious beliefs’. This might have been the case when Egerton and Lao She met, but it belies the fact that, in 1911, he had been consecrated in the Old Catholic Church taking the title of Bishop of Norwich. After a short period Egerton was apparently reconciled with the Holy See of Rome having performed no ministerial functions. He then joined the army and during the war rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1923 he left his wife and four children for an American girl, Katherine Hodge, a Harvard graduate who was working as a secretary at the American consulate in Cavendish Square, where he was employed as an editor. The scandal of the divorce cost him his job. When Egerton and Lao She met in the library at SOS ‘the two of them got on so wonderfully well that they decided to rent a flat together at No. 31 St James’s Gardens, an elegant mid-Victorian terrace on a grand scale in West London’s leafy Holland Park. Following the war, London’s substantial stuccoed town houses became inconvenient for single family occupancy, largely owing to a lack of servants to run them. Many were now being divided up into flats. Lao She was to pay the rent and the Egertons would provide all the meals. This happy arrangement was to last for the next three years until the lease ran out and Lao She moved to the Bloomsbury hotel.
‘Clement Egerton might have been poor, but he certainly knew how to spend money’, writes King Hu. ‘He loved buying books, smoked and drank. Lao She shared all these interests which probably explained why they were such great friends’ … [from Lao She in London by Anne Witchard, 2012]

[from pdf Introdction to the Golden Lotus] In African Majesty Egerton described himself in his forties as “a fattish, bespectacled, middle-aged, would-be slightly cynical publisher” (p. xvii) who was largely bald (p. 189) and who resided on Lime Street in London, presumably near the Leadenhall Market. He had taken part in seminars
offered at the London University School of Economics by the widely infl uential pioneer in that fi eld, the Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942) (p. 4). He was also “very fond” of reading travel books, and
yet he had little patience for “travelers” who seldom left their comfortable carriages to engage with the people they purported to be describing. His travel diaries demonstrate far more contact with local people.
Egerton’s anthropological interests in learning more about the differences among human cultures is what drew him to West Africa (xvii) and to other subsequent adventures. It may also have informed his tackling Golden Lotus as a novel of social behavior. Although he was a prolific photographer who took innumerable still photos and even motion pictures while on his journeys, he admitted that he lacked the technical skills to keep his cameras
functioning

Publications

External Publications

African majesty : a record of refuge at the court of the king of Bangangté in the French Cameroons by F. Clement C Egerton

The Golden Lotus : a translation, from the Chinese original, of the novel Chin Pʻing Mei by Xiaoxiaosheng

Angola in perspective : endeavour and achievement in Portuguese West Africa by F. Clement C Egerton

Salazar, rebuilder of Portugal by F. Clement C Egerton

The future of education by F. Clement C Egerton

A handbook of church music : a practical guide for all those having the charge of schools and choirs, and others who desire to restore plainsong to its proper place in the services of the church by F. Clement C Egerton

Angola without prejudice by F. Clement C Egerton

Related Material Details

Other Material

National Archives: army officer's personal file; [and possibly] air officer's service record