- Also known as
-
H B Morse
-
primary name: Morse, Hosea Ballou
-
other name: Morse, Ballou
- Details
- individual; academic/intellectual; American (USA); Male
- Life dates
- 1855-1934
- Biography
- Commissioner of Chinese Maritime Customs (1874-1909); historian of Chinese foreign relations. Educated at Boston Latin School and Harvard. Entered Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs in 1874, and served at Shanghai, Peking (=Beijing), Tsientin (=Tianjin), Pakhoi (=Beihai), Tamsui (in Taiwan), Lungchow (=Longzhou), Hankow (=Hankou) and Canton (=Guangzhou). Retired to UK where he devoted the rest of his life to scholarship. At the time of his death, he was considered the major historian of modern China in the English-speaking world. The British Museum acquired his collection over two years: over a thousand coins in 1882, and over a thousand coins in 1883, some via his wife Mrs H B Morse (q.v.).
- Bibliography
- The Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China, 1635-1834, 4 vols, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926; vol.5, Oxford, 1929 (reprint Taipei 1975).
The Gilds of China, with an account of the gold merchant or co-hong of Canton, London, 1909.
The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (1910-18), 3 vols, London, 1910-18 (reprint Taipei, 1971).
The Trade and Administration of China,Shanghai, 1907, revised editions 1913, 1921.
John King Fairbank, Martha Henderson Coolidge, Richard J Smith, H B Morse: Customs Commissioner and Historian of China. University Press of Kentucky, 1995.
See Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; also National Register of Archives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosea_Ballou_Morse