China and Queen Victoria: Edward Rutherfurd (1839)
Edward Rutherfurd, author of China.
In this playful episode with the novelist Edward Rutherfurd, we venture east and back to the mid-nineteenth-century. For Great Britain this was an age of lusty global trade and nowhere was their presence causing more alarm than in China.
By 1839 Chinese patience with the British-run opium trade was at an end. Rutherfurd explains how a confrontation between the ancient, proud and insular Chinese and the merchant adventurers of the West was inevitable and how, had he the chance, he would have tried to stop it.
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By the 1830s an increasing number of British merchants were engaged in what was known as ‘the China Trade.’ This, in short, involved the shipping of vast quantities of opium – produced in the fields of Bengal – across to the coastal port of Canton, where it was smuggled into China for consumption. This was a morally suspect trade but, as those involved in it well-knew, it could make a person very rich, very, very quickly.
“‘The largest criminals seem to come from a country called Britain. Nobody seems to be sure where it is … I have learned, however, that this country is ruled by a queen.’”
By the late 1830s opium had become a huge social problem within China (see the images below). The Emperor responded by dispatching an ‘incorruptible’ administrator called Lin Zexu to the southern coast. Commissioner Lin’s desire to dismantle the trade was absolute.
Throughout the summer of 1839 Lin took aim at the ‘Factories’ of Canton, which formed a vital part of the trading network. After demands and threats, the British merchants eventually surrendered their supplies of opium. Once confiscated, Lin then had these destroyed in dramatic fashion on the banks of the Pearl River.
This act led directly to the conflict between Great Britain and China that we know today as the First Opium War.
The war was a curious mismatch. China was an ancient power that dominated its region. Britain, while tiny by geographic comparison, was technologically-advanced and aggressive in its pursuit of power. The depth of Britain’s capabilities was not yet recognised in Peking, where there was little understanding of modern weaponry.
The novelist Edward Rutherfurd explains this charged historical context at the start of his journey back to the year 1839. Playfully inserting himself into the history, he assumes the role of moral saviour – transporting a vital letter from Commissioner Lin to the young Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle in England.
Along the way we pause on the banks of the Pearl River. We catch a glimpse of Victoria and her future husband, Prince Albert, as their engagement is made in secrecy. At the same time a new, French technology is poised to arrive in Britain. The Daguerreotype is a new photographic method and it will pioneer an entirely new art form.
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Click here to order Edward Rutherfurd’s book from John Sandoe’s who, we are delighted to say, are supplying books for the podcast.
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Show notes
Scene One: June, 1839. Chinese Commissioner Lin burns thousands of chests of opium confiscated from British (and also American) merchants. This sets off the famous Opium Wars that so profoundly affect the attitude of China towards the West to this day.
Scene Two: October, 1839. The engagement of Victoria and Albert at Windsor Castle.
Scene Three: The following morning, October, 1839. Windsor Castle with all the newly-purchased equipment to make a Daguerrotype photograph.
Memento: An egg boiled by Warren Delano during the siege of the 'factories' at Canton.
People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Edward Rutherfurd
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Colorgraph
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About Edward Rutherfurd
Edward Rutherfurd was born in England, in the cathedral city of Salisbury. Educated at the universities of Cambridge, and Stanford, California, he worked in political research, bookselling and publishing. After numerous attempts to write books and plays, he finally abandoned his career in the book trade in 1983, and returned to his childhood home to write Sarum, a historical novel with a ten-thousand year story, set in the area around the ancient monument of Stonehenge, and Salisbury. Four years later, when the book was published, it became an instant international bestseller, remaining 23 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List. Since then he has written seven more bestsellers.
Map showing the location of the scenes in 1839
Shipping in the Pearl River off Canton
Source WikiCommons
Opium in China
Boulevard du Temple by Daguerre - as discussed in the episode
Image credit: WikiCommons
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