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Sir Harry Smith Parkes GCMG KCB (24 February 1828 – 22 March 1885) was a British diplomat who served as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary and Consul General of the United Kingdom to the Empire of Japan from 1865 to 1883 and the Chinese Qing Empire from 1883 to 1885, and Minister to Korea in 1884.
Biography. Sir Harry Smith Parkes (1828-1885) was born on 24 February 1828 at Bloxwich, near Walsall. He was the youngest of three children, and the only son, of an ironmaster and his wife. Following an education at the King Edward the Sixth school in Birmingham, he proceeded to China in 1841 through the influence of a family connection.
Harry Parkes was at the heart of Britain’s relations with the Far East from the start of his working life at fourteen, to his death at fifty-seven. Orphaned at ... Front Matter
He was paying his respects at the grave of Sir Harry Parkes, honouring, he said, his role in promoting industrial development in Japan. Although Parkes spent longer in China, and is now much better known there than in Japan, it is safe to say that no Chinese Ambassador will ever do the same thing.
Harry Parkes was at the heart of Britain's relations with the Far East from the start of his working life at fourteen, to his death at fifty-seven. Orphaned at the age of five, he went to China on his own as a child and worked his way to the top.
These papers of Sir Harry Smith Parkes (1828-1885), diplomat and successively ambassador to Japan and China from 1865, were deposited on permanent loan to the Library by Sir John Keswick in 1957. The collection was subsequently converted into a gift in 1969.
Sir Harry Smith Parkes (24 February 1828-22 March 1885) was a British diplomat who served as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary and Consul General of the United Kingdom to the Empire of Japan from 1865 to 1883 and the Chinese Qing Empire from 1883 to 1885, and Minister to Korea in 1884.
