William Henry Wilkinson

For the British trade union leader, see William Henry Wilkinson (trade unionist).

Sir William Henry Wilkinson (traditional Chinese: 務謹順, simplified Chinese: 务谨顺; May 10, 1858[1] - 1930) was a British sinologist who served as Consul-General for the United Kingdom in China and Korea. He was also a playing card collector and card game enthusiast.

British Diplomatic Service

?-1893 Consul at Shantou[2][3]
1893-94 Acting Consul-General at Seoul[1][4]
1894-97 Acting Vice-Consul at Chemulpo[1][4]
1900-01 Consul at Ningbo[5]
1901-02 Acting Consul at Wenzhou[5]
1902-09 Consul-General at Kunming and Simao, for Yunnan and Guizhou[5][6]
1909-11 Consul-General at Chengdu[5]
1911-12 Consul-General at Mukden[5][7]
1912-17 Consul-General at Hankou[7][8]

Books

  • Where Chineses Drive: English Student-Life at Peking (London, 1885)[9]
  • "Those Foreign Devils!": A Celestial on England and Englishmen by Hsiang-fu Yuan (translated by Wilkinson; London and New York, 1891)
  • The Game of Khanhoo (London, 1891)
  • A Manual of Chinese Chess (Shanghai, 1893)
  • Chinese Origin of Playing Cards (1895)
  • The Corean government: constitutional changes, July 1894 to October 1895. With an appendix on subsequent enactments to 30th June 1896 (1896)
  • Bridge Maxims (1918)
  • Mah-Jongg: a memorandum (1925)

His Collection of Playing Cards

Cards from Wilkinson's collection are now in the British Museum, and are referred to in Catalogue of the collection of playing cards bequeathed to the Trustees of the British museum by the late Lady [[Charlotte Schreiber]] by British Museum] by Freeman M. O'Donoghue (1901), pp. 184–185: "Chinese - Collection of modern packs acquired by the testator from Mr. W.H. Wilkinson of H.M. Consular Service, who has kindly furnished the following information: 'The packs contained in this collection were procured during the year 1889-90 from Guangzhou, Shantou, and Fuzhou in South China, from Ningbo and Shanghai on the central sea-board, from Beijing in the north, from Jiujiang and Yichang in mid- China, and from Chongqing in the far west...."[10]

References

  1. ^ a b c The Foreign Office list and diplomatic and consular year book for 1917, Foreign Office, Great Britain.
  2. ^ Stewart Culin (1893), Exhibition of Games in the Columbian Exposition, Journal of American Folklore, 6(22): 205-227.
  3. ^ Hubert Howe Bancroft (1893), The Book of the Fair: an Historical and Descriptive Presentation of the World's Science, Art, and Industry, as Viewed through the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893, The Bancroft Company, Publishers, Chicago. (Relevant excerpt here.)
  4. ^ a b Horace N. Allen (1901), A Chronological Index: Some of the Chief Events in the Foreign Intercourse of Korea From the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Twentieth Century, pp.53-54.
  5. ^ a b c d e 清季中外使領年表(“Chronological list of Chinese and foreign consular officers for late Qing dynasty”), 中華書局 (Zhonghua Book Company), Beijing, 1985.
  6. ^ "No. 27473". The London Gazette. 12 September 1902. p. 5887.
  7. ^ a b George Ernest Morrison, The Correspondence of G. E. Morrison: 1895-1912, pg. 624, Cambridge University Press (1976), ISBN 0-521-20486-0
  8. ^ The China Year Book, 1913.
  9. ^ Yüan, Hsiang-fu (1891). "Those Foreign Devils!": A Celestial on England and Englishmen. Leadenhall Press.
  10. ^ Catalogue of the collection of playing cards bequeathed to the Trustees of the British museum by the late Lady Charlotte Schreiber by British Museum. Dept. of prints and drawings; O'Donoghue, Freeman M. (Freeman Marius) (1901), pp. 184-194.
  • Elliot Avedon Virtual Museum of Games: W.H. Wilkinson. University of Waterloo


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