Bertram Lenox Simpson

{{Infobox person

| name = Bertram Lenox Simpson

| image = Portrait of Bertram Lenox Simpson.jpg

| alt =

| caption =

| birth_date = 1877

| birth_place = England

| death_date = 1930

| death_place = China

| nationality = British

| other_names = Putnam Weale

| known_for = Book: The Fight for the Republic in China

| occupation = Journalist

}}

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. 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).

Lenox Simpson left the Chinese Maritime Customs Service in 1901, perhaps connected with zealous looting {{citation needed|reason=Source needed for this claim of "connected with zealous looting"|date=March 2018}} after the siege of the Legations in 1900. One historian calls him "the consummate treaty port jobbing hack, writing commentaries, begging for newspaper work, penning novels... and serving as Daily Telegraph correspondent in Beijing from 1911 to 1914."{{Citation needed|reason=Source needed for this claimed quotation and claimed "one historian"|date=March 2018}} He remained in China, and began a prolific career writing about China and the Far East.Robert Bickers, Britain in China: Community, Culture, and Colonialism, 1900–1949 (Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press,1999), p. 34. 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."Putnam Weale, The Eternal Priestess, p. 26, quoted in Robert Bickers, Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, "Shanghai's 'Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted' Sign," China Quarterly 142 (1995): 450. 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.

Sir Ernest Satow refused to be introduced to Putnam Weale when he was at Peking (1900–06) 'on account of his character'.Satow Papers PRO 30/33 11/18, Satow to Lord Reay, 12 September 1918

By 1930 Lenox Simpson had become thoroughly embroiled in Chinese internal politics and thus took control of customs in Tianjin on behalf of Yan Xishan. He was killed in what some believed to have been an assassination. This was difficult to conclusively prove, because the killers were never caught or identified.

Works

His work Indiscreet Letters from Peking is widely cited as an eyewitness account of the events during the siege of the Legations in 1900, but two scholars have cast doubt on its reliability.Lanxi Xiang in his notes on sources says that many of the so-called diaries "are bogus ones, which were written after the events, including Indiscreet Letters From Peking – I consider them secondary, rather than primary sources." Lanxin Xiang. The Origins of the Boxer War: A Multinational Study. (London; New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), p. 363). Robert Bickers says of it that it is "No straightforward memoir" but a "stylized account" and an attack on "supine British diplomatic leadership" Britain in China: Community, Culture, and Colonialism, 1900–1949 (Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1999),(p.34).

A number of his books have recently been republished in facsimile, usually under his pen-name "Putnam Weale". There are free downloads of The Fight for the Republic in China, his best-known work. The Oxford English Dictionary cities his Why China Sees Red as an early example of use of the word term warlord, though The New York Times had used it earlier.

[https://archive.org/details/manchumuscovite00simp/ Manchu and Muscovite] (1904)
The Re-Shaping of the far east (1905)
Indiscreet Letters from Peking: Being the Notes of an Eye-Witness, Which Set Forth in Some Detail, from Day to Day, the Real Story of the Siege and Sack of a Distressed Capital in 1900—the Year of Great Tribulation. London: G. Bell, 1906.
{{cite book|title=INDISCREET LETTERS FROM PEKING (YEAR 1919)|first1=B.L. PUTNAM|last1=WEALE|year=1907|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lHJeY-NOWuoC |access-date=1 April 2013 }}
{{cite book|title=Indiscreet Letters From Peking |first1=B L Putnam |last1= Weale |others=Compiled by John Otway Percy Bland, Sir Edmund Backhouse|year=1907|publisher= Dodd Mead And Company |url=https://archive.org/stream/indiscreetletter008256mbp |access-date=1 April 2013 }}
{{cite book|title=Indiscreet Letters from Peking: Being the Notes of an Eyewitness, which Set Forth in Some Detail, from Day to Day, the Real Story of the Siege and Sack of a Distressed Capital in 1900—the Year of Great Tribulation|editor-first=Bertram Lenox Putnam|editor-last=Weale|year=1909|publisher=Dodd, Mead|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fNhAAAAAYAAJ |access-date=1 April 2013 }}
{{cite book|title=Indiscreet Letters From Peking|editor-first=B.L. PUTNAM|editor-last=WEALE|year=1922|edition=China|location=Shanghai|publisher=Kelly and Walsh, Limited British Empire and Continental Copyright Excepting Scandinavian Countries by Putnam Weale from 1921|url=http://www.freefictionbooks.org/books/i/2373-indiscreet-letters-from-peking |access-date=1 April 2013 }}
{{cite book|title=Indiscreet Letters From Peking Being the Notes of an Eye-Witness, Which Set Forth in Some Detail, from Day to Day, the Real Story of the Siege and Sack of a Distressed Capital in 1900—the Year of Great Tribulation|editor-first=B.L. PUTNAM|editor-last=WEALE|year=1922|edition=China|location=Shanghai|publisher=Kelly and Walsh, Limited British Empire and Continental Copyright Excepting Scandinavian Countries by Putnam Weale from 1921|url=http://www.wattpad.com/19413-indiscreet-letters-from-peking-being-the-notes-of |access-date=1 April 2013 }}
The truce in the East and its aftermath (1907)
The coming struggle in eastern Asia (1909)
The conflict of color; being a detailed examination of racial ... (1910)
The Unknown God (1911)
[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14345/14345-h/14345-h.htm The fight for the republic in China] (1917)
The truth about China and Japan (1919)
[https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100654896 The Pageant of Peking] (1920)
An indiscreet chronicle from the Pacific (1922)
Why China Sees Red (1926)
Chang Tso-Lin's Struggle against the Communist Menace (1927)
China's crucifixion (1928)
The Port of Fragrance (1930)[novel]

References

{{Reflist|refs=

{{Cite book

| last = Robert

| first = Hart

|author2=James Duncan Campbell

| title = The I. G. in Peking; letters of Robert Hart Chinese Maritime Customs 1868–1907 (Vol. 1)

| publisher = Harvard

| year = 1975

| pages = 1075, 1148

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=7ZybVIprRUMC&q=bertram+lenox+simpson&pg=PA1148

| isbn = 0-674-44320-9 }} Ed: John King Fairbank, Katherine Frost Bruner, Elizabeth McLeod Matheson.

{{Cite book

| last = Bickers

| first = Robert

| title = Empire Made Me; an Englishman adrift in Shanghai

| publisher = Columbia University Press

| year = 2003

| pages = 236

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=K0KhDqE5OvUC&q=bertram+lenox+simpson&pg=PA236

| isbn = 0-231-13132-1}}

{{Cite book

| last = Xu

| first = Guoqi

| title = China and the Great War

| publisher = Cambridge University Press

| year = 2005

| pages = 91

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=qJ9MisefgxYC&q=xu+guoqi+bertram+simpson&pg=PA91

| isbn = 978-0-521-84212-9}}

{{Cite book

| last = French

| first = Paul

| title = Through the looking glass: China's foreign journalists from opium wars to Mao

| publisher = Hong Kong University Press

| year = 2009

| pages = 82

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=sM0O9oqGK8sC&q=bertram+lenox+simpson&pg=PA82

| isbn = 978-962-209-982-1}}

{{Cite book

| last = Burke

| first = Edmond

| title = The annual register of world events (vol. 172)

| publisher = Longman's Green

| year = 1931

| pages = 143

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=2wQSAAAAIAAJ&q=bertram+lenox+simpson

}}

External links

{{Sister project links|wikt=no|n=no|q=no|author=yes|b=no|v=no|voy=no|d=yes}}

{{gutenberg author | id=5484| name=Bertram Lenox Simpson}}
{{Gutenberg author |id=5484| name=Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale}}
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search.html/?default_prefix=author_id&sort_order=downloads&query=5484 The Fight for the Republic of China] – Free download at Guttenburg
{{Internet Archive author |name=Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale}}
{{Internet Archive author |sname=Bertram Lenox Simpson}}
[http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Simpson%2C%20Bertram%20Lenox%2C%201877-1930 List of books by Bertram Lenox Simpson]

Category:1877 births

Category:1930 deaths

Category:British expatriates in China

Category:British political writers

Category:People educated at Brighton College

Category:Writers about China