Prof. Wayne Patterson: William Nelson Lovatt in Late Qing China

Royal Asiatic Society Lecture Theatre 14 Stephenson Way, London

William Nelson Lovatt in Late Qing China looks at the Imperial Maritime Customs Service and the final decades of the last Chinese dynasty through the lens of a British-American who served as a Tidesurveyor at nearly a dozen treaty ports.  Rather than focusing on Inspector-General Sir Robert Hart with a top-down approach, Lovatt's perspective is from the bottom-up,…