Edward Harper Parker

Educated in Liverpool and called to the bar at the Middle Temple, Edward Harper Parker studied Chinese with plans to enter the tea trade, then went out to Asia as a student interpreter. Between 1869 and 1871 he traveled in Mongolia, later serving in British consular posts including Wenzhou, Fuzan, and Shanghai, while also traveling more widely through Oceania, East Asia, and North America.

After retiring from the consular service in 1895, he returned to England and moved into academic life. He became reader in Chinese at University College, Liverpool, in 1896, and in 1901 was appointed to a part-time chair in Chinese at Owens College, Manchester, a post he held until his death in 1926.

Parker wrote extensively for general readers as well as students, publishing books on the Opium Wars, Confucius, Chinese religion, diplomacy, and history. He was especially known in his own day as an interpreter of Chinese affairs, and later scholars have also noted his early attention to spoken Chinese and to forms in Cantonese and Hakka that did not fit neatly into traditional character-based description.