WILLIAMS (Samuel Wells).
Ying Hwa Yun-fu Lih-Kiai. An English and Chinese vocabulary in the Court Dialect.
FIRST DICTIONARY IN THE COURT DIALECT
The American Presbyterian missionary and linguist Samuel Wells Williams arrived in Canton in 1833 where he worked as supervisor of the printing press of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He later served as editor of The Chinese Repository and became Secretary of the United States Legation to China. He played a key role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Tientsin. Upon his return to America, was appointed the first Professor of Chinese language and literature in the United States at Yale.
Williams’ dictionary was the first to attempt to teach “Mandarin” or ‘guanhua’, the language spoken at the court in Peking to English speakers. On the surface it is surprising that it took until 1844 to compile this milestone for the communication with the Chinese Court. However, until 1844 Chinese were forbidden from teaching their language to foreigners. it was only through the US. Treaty of Wanghia that American officers and citizens were allowed to hire Chinese scholars and buy Chinese books (article xviii). Subsequently, this law was applied to all foreigners in the Treaty of Tianjin (1858).
Rudolph Krone (1823-1863) was a German missionary with a strong interest in botany. Between 1855 and 1861 he formed a large collection of plants from Guangdong province, which was later sold to the Comte Albert Belhomme de Franqueville (1814–1891). Krone returned to Europe in 1861, travelling via Russia. He once more embarked for China in 1863 but died on the way at Aden, where he was buried. Cordier, 1598-1599; Lust, 1058.
