William C. Hunter

Born in Kentucky in 1812, William C. Hunter was an American merchant and writer best known for recording life in Canton during the years before the treaty-port era. As a boy, he went to China to work with the Canton agency of Thomas H. Smith & Son, and he later spent many years in the China trade.

Sources found during this search describe him as having studied Chinese at the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca and later working with Russell & Company in Canton. After roughly four decades connected with China, he wrote from memory and experience, giving readers a rare view of merchant houses, daily routines, and the changing relationship between Chinese society and Western traders.

Hunter is chiefly remembered for The 'Fan Kwae' at Canton Before Treaty Days, 1825-1844 and Bits of Old China. These books blend personal recollection with historical observation, making them useful both to general readers and to anyone interested in nineteenth-century Guangzhou and the early foreign presence there.