Papers of Sir Chaloner Alabaster

The collection contains one box comprising Chaloner Alabaster's personal correspondence, transcripts, photographs and other material.

Sir Chaloner Alabaster (1838-1898) was educated at King's College London and was appointed student interpreter in China in 1855. He served during the Opium Wars and the Taiping Rebellion and was Vice-Consul at Shanghai (1869-1873). He later became Consul-General at Hankow (1880-86) and Canton (1886-91). On the 25th September 1876 he married Laura Abbie MacGowan, the daughter of an American doctor and former missionary who worked in Chinese Customs in Shanghai. They had six children together. In 1892 he was knighted and retired the same year to Bournemouth, where he died in 1898. His elder brother, Henry, was a member of the China Consular Service from 1856, and his son became Attorney General in Hong Kong.

Open

The material was presented by Dr. John S. Alabaster in 2004.

For permission to publish, please contact Archives & Special Collections, SOAS Library in the first instance