Background
Archie Rose, the son of Thomas Edward Rose, was born on 14 July 1879.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Archie Rose
Edit ProfileEducation
He was educated at Bedford Modern School and King"s College, London, before becoming a student interpreter at the British Legation in Peking in 1897.
Career
He was awarded the Medal and clasp for his role in the defence of western embassies during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. and provided a lively eye-witness account of life in the Legations during the sieges, for example from Monday 25 June 1900:
"These people are the most shockingly bad shots fortunately for us. If a quarter of their shots and shells came anywhere near our walls and buildings we should all have been in suitable resting-places long ago. They must be utter rotters.
If they had any pluck there are several places where they could get into the compound and smash us easily.
Every day we are fortifying, trenching, barricading, doing everything that is possible, whilst they stay at a safe distance and blaze away like fun". In 1903 he was appointed British Consul at Chongqing, and subsequently became consul at Chefoo, Ningpo, Hangchow and Tengyue.
He also travelled extensively in, Mongolia and Central Asia and collaborated on an ethnological study of the tribes of the Chinese-Burmese border region. In 1911 he was appointed International Commission on Illumination and in the same year returned to England to attend an advanced course in Chinese at King"s College, Cambridge.
Here, he befriended John Maynard Keynes and the two were to maintain a long-running correspondence.
He was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society for his exploration work. On his return to Asia he served as the Foreign Office representative at the tripartite conference on the subject of the independence of Tibet, held at Shimla over the winter of 1913-1914. In 1915 he was Commercial Attache at Shanghai and from 1917 he held the same position at the Peking embassy.
Rose retired from the Foreign Office with the rank of First Secretary in 1921, and embarked on a career in business in the Far East.
Becoming a Director of British American Tobacco and the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and India. He retired to England at Framlingham, Suffolk, and became a Justice of the Peace for the County.
He died on the 3rd. March, 1961.
