John Robert Morrison

John Robert Morrison

Morrison (right) with a colleague (painted by George Chinnery)
Born April 17, 1814
Macau, Qing Dynasty
Died August 29, 1843 (aged 29)
Macau, Qing Dynasty
Parent(s) Robert Morrison
Mary Morton

John Robert Morrison (Chinese: 馬儒翰; April 17, 1814 in Macau – August 29, 1843) was the second son and third child of Robert Morrison's marriage to Mary Morton. He was a translator, diplomat and missionary in China and the Far East, most closely associated with Canton and Hong Kong. John Robert acted as a translator during the negotiation of the Treaty of Nanking and was appointed the first Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong.[1]

Early life

John Robert left Macau on 21 January 1815 along with his mother and elder sister aboard a ship bound for England. They returned to Macau on 23 August 1820, but less than two years later his mother died and he was sent back to England to receive an education. Over the next four years he was educated in Manchester and at Mill Hill Grammar School in the London suburbs.[2]

When his father left for China on 1 May 1826, he took John Robert with him. He learned the Chinese language from his father, and attended the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca between 1827 and 1830.

Career in China

From 1830, Morrison acted as translator for English merchants in Canton, China. In 1832-4, he accompanied American merchant and diplomat Edmund Roberts to Siam and Cochin China as his personal secretary and translator.[3]:p.171 Morrison also compiled a Chinese Commercial Guide to provide information on British trade in China and contributed to Karl Gützlaff's Eastern Western Monthly Magazine[4] , a publication aimed at improving Sino-western understanding.

John Morrison succeeded his father in 1834 and was appointed Chinese Secretary to the British East India Company on behalf of the British government. He was then involved in diplomacy during the Opium War from 1839–1842, which resulted in the Treaty of Nanking. When the Government of Hong Kong formed after the treaty, Morrison became a member of the Legislative and Executive Councils, and the first Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong under the leadership of Sir Henry Pottinger.

Missionary work

Apart from official duties, John Morrison continued his father's work of the English Protestant Church in Canton and supported those Chinese converts persecuted by the Chinese authorities. He revised his father's translation of the Bible and appealed to the London Missionary Society to continue its missionary work in Canton. In February 1838 he was made Recording Secretary of the Medical Missionary Society.

Translation of the Bible

In 1840, Walter Henry Medhurst, Karl Gützlaff, Elijah Coleman Bridgman and John Robert Morrison cooperated to translate the Bible into Chinese. The translation of the Hebrew part was done mostly by Gützlaff from the Netherlands Missionary Society, with the exception that the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua were done by the group collectively. This translation, produced in a version of classical Chinese known as High Wen-li (Chinese: 深文理), was completed in 1847 after John Robert's death and is well known due to its adoption by the revolutionary peasant leader Hong Xiuquan of the Taiping Rebellion as the basis for some of the reputed early doctrines of the organization.

Death and legacy

The grave of Morrison in the Old Protestant Cemetery in Macau, next to those of his parents

John Robert died on 29 August 1843[2] following a nine-day episode of "Hong Kong fever" (possibly malarial fever). This was the same outbreak in Hong Kong that took the life of fellow missionary Samuel Dyer. He is buried in the Old Protestant Cemetery in Macau, close to the grave of this father.[5]

Morrison Hill in Hong Kong is named for him.

Literary works

References

  1. ↑ American Presbyterian Mission (1867), p. 10-11
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Carey, W. H. (1850). Oriental Christian Biography, Containing Biographical Sketches of Distinguished Christians Who Have Lived and Died in the East. Calcutta, Baptist Mission Press. p. 193.
  3. ↑ Roberts, Edmund (Digitized 12 October 2007) [First published in 1837]. "Chapter XII —". Embassy to the Eastern courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat : in the U. S. sloop-of-war Peacock ... during the years 1832-3-4. Harper & brothers. p. 171. OCLC 12212199. Retrieved April 25, 2012. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ↑ "Eastern Western Monthly Magazine (東西洋考每月統紀傳)" (in Chinese). Chinese Culture University, Taiwan. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
  5. ↑ Ride, Lindsay (7 May 1962). "The old Protestant cemetery in Macao" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-12-10.

Bibliography

See also

Government offices
New creation Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong
1843 		Succeeded by
Sir Frederick Bruce