Thomas Taylor Meadows
| HM Consul Thomas Taylor Meadows | |||||||||||
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| File:Meadows, Thomas Taylor.jpg | |||||||||||
| Born | 1815 | ||||||||||
| Died | 1868 | ||||||||||
| Residence |
Canton New Chang [1866] c/o Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill [list Aug 20 1866] | ||||||||||
| Occupation | diplomacy | ||||||||||
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Contents
Notes
Office Notes
House Notes
ASL proposed 1866.06.19 HM Consul, Newchwang
1869.03.16 death announced
The Agents of the late Mr Meadows having applied for the return of the current year’s subscription, it was resolved that the amount be not returned unless the death happened on or before the 31st December 1869. [sic] surely 1868?
Notes From Elsewhere
Thomas Taylor Meadows (b. 1815 – d. 1868) was an incredible gifted individual. He was erudite, even by the standards of his day. As an early member of the British diplomatic corps in Hong Kong (and later Shanghai) he had a chance to shape the western understanding of, and policy towards, China. He was also extraordinarily risk-acceptant....he studied Chinese with Professor Karl Friedrich Neumann. Less than one year after his graduation in 1842 he arrived in Hong Kong where he would work as a Senior Assistant and later as an Interpreter....succeeding in building a formidable intelligence organization that was loyal to him personally.
Member of the Athenaeum Club from 1867
Publications
External Publications
two books that he published. The first of these was released in London in 1847, though its preface bears the date of June 15th, 1846. It is titled Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China and on the Chinese Language, and it remains to this day one of the most important foreign language descriptions of this era of Chinese social history.
More important still is his 1856 volume, modestly titled The Chinese and their Rebellions, viewed in connection with their national philosophy, ethics, legislation and administration, to which is added An Essay on Civilization and its present state in the East and West (London: Smith Elder and Co. 1856). This work, widely considered his magnum opus, was composed and published while meadows was on sick leave, recovering from a serious illness, in England.