Boston merchant head of Baring Brothers
Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1805, Sturgis was a grandson of the noted merchant of the same name and his wife Elizabeth Perkins Sturgis, a son of Nathaniel Russell Sturgis and his wife Susannah Parkman, and a great-nephew of Thomas Handasyd Perkins.
Harvard University.
Sturgis went to Harvard College at the age of twelve. In 1828 he made his first voyage abroad then practiced law in Boston for a time. He sailed for Canton in 1833 on behalf of opium smuggler John Perkins Cushing, settling for some time in Macau where Lady Elizabeth Napier, wife of British emissary William John, 9th Lord Napier, found him "very intelligent".
In Asia he entered a succession of family firms (Russell & Sturgis of Manila.
Russell, Sturgis & Company of Canton. Russell & Company), and in 1842 he became a full partner.
The steamer on which they crossed the Atlantic arrived too late to catch the onward ship from London. He accepted and ultimately became head of the firm.
Although he never renounced his United States citizenship, Sturgis did not return to the United States and died in England in 1887.
In their interval there, Sturgis was asked by the senior member of Barings Bank to become a partner.
