Stirling Fessenden was an American lawyer who practised in Shanghai.
Background
Stirling Fessenden was born September 29, 1875 in Fairfield, Maine, United States. The son of Nicholas Fessenden, Judge and later Secretary of State of Maine, and Laura Stirling, he came from a prominent New England family which included Samuel Fessenden, a Massachusetts state senator and United States Treasury Secretary William P. Fessenden.
Education
In 1896, he graduated from Bowdoin College with a Bachelor of Arts Bowdoin College, in 1932, awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws.
Career
He was the chairman of the from 1923 to 1929 and then Secretary-General of the Council from 1929 to 1939. Fessenden came to Shanghai in 1903. In 1907, he was admitted to practice in the newly established United States Court for China.
He and Jernigan, were, initially, the only American lawyers to pass the strict bar exam introduced by the new judge, Lebbeus Wilfley.
He served as Chairman of the Far Eastern Bar Association in Shanghai for many years. Following the outspring on violence in Shanghai from 1925, he re-organized the Shanghai Volunteer Corps.
He created the American Mercantile Company, mostly dealing with Shanghai real-estate in 1925 along with Harry Virden Bernard. In 1929, Fessenden resigned from his post as Chairman of the Municipal Council and took up the post of Director-General (later Secretary-General) of Municipal Council, charged with the administration of the council.
After the Japanese invasion of China, the Shanghai International Settlement was encircled by Japanese troops.
The Japanese occupation authorities claimed that he conspired with the Americans against Japan. With effect from June 30, 1939, Fessenden retired from his position with the council due to eye disease. In 1941, when Japan occupied the Shanghai International Settlement at the start of the Pacific War, the Japanese forced Fessenden to be interned with Russian refugees.
After he was completely blind, Chinese servants took care of him.
Fessenden was offered a passage out of Shanghai in September 1943 on the Mississippi Gripsholm. However, knowing that he had little time to live, he declined.
He died of a heart ailment, 9 days before his 68th birthday, on September 20, 1943 in Shanghai.
Membership
In 1920, Fessenden was elected a member of Board of Trustees and in October 1923 he became chairman of the Municipal Council.