Backhouse

EDMUND BACKHOUSE (1873 - 1944)

Backhouse belonged to the noted Quaker family of Darlington and district, achievers in many spheres. Thomas William Backhouse wrote half a dozen works on astronomy and meteorology; James Backhouse published books about his long missionary journeys to Australia, Mauritius and South Africa; Stephen (1741-79) and Edward Robson (1763-1813), both of Darlington, were cousins of the family and both academic botanists. Stephen's British Flora (1777) is of great literary interest and was the first botanical work written in English to use binomial nomenclature. Edward Backhouse (1808-1879) was the author of Early Church History published posthumously in 1884, as well as a number of religious tracts and a book of bird engravings. An exhibition devoted to the Backhouses, entitled 'Saints and a Sinner' was put on by the Sunderland Museum and Art Gallery some years ago. The 'Sinner' was the black sheep of the family, Edmund Backhouse, who lived at 'Uplands' in Darlington and had a house 'The Rookery' in Middleton Tyas, where Edmund was born.

Edmund spent little time in the North East, apart from family visits, and is best known for some extremely dubious dealings in China; he has been called, in fact, 'the most remarkable scoundrel ever known in the Far East'. In 1910, he published with J.O.P. Bland, a book entitled China under the Empress Dowager based, it seems, on a forged diary. Later on, after some ludicrously shady business activity, he donated some eight tons of rare and valuable Chinese manuscripts to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, hoping to get a professorship. This did not materialise, though he does appear on the Bodleian roll of honour. Backhouse spent the last twenty years of his life as a recluse in Peking.

His memoirs have been described by Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper (later Lord Dacre of Glanton) in The Hermit of Peking (1976) as being 'of no ordinary obscenity'. In these fevered imaginings, Backhouse claimed to have had affairs with, among others, Oscar Wilde, Verlaine and Lord Rosebery as well as the aged Empress of China. He also claimed to have visited Tolstoy and played opposite Sarah Bernhardt. His English-Chinese dictionary and other writings were, it seems, destroyed by the invading Japanese in 1937.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
EDMUND BACKHOUSE (1873 - 1944) Backhouse belonged to the noted Quaker family of Darlington and district, achievers in many spheres. Thomas William Backhouse wrote half a dozen works on astronomy and meteorology; James Backhouse published books about his long missionary journeys to Australia, Mauritius and South Africa; Stephen (1741-79) and Edward Robson (1763-1813), both of Darlington, were cousins of the family and both academic botanists. Stephen's British Flora (1777) is of great literary interest and was the first botanical work written in English to use binomial nomenclature. Edward Backhouse (1808-1879) was the author of Early Church History published posthumously in 1884, as well as a number of religious tracts and a book of bird engravings. An exhibition devoted to the Backhouses, entitled 'Saints and a Sinner' was put on by the Sunderland Museum and Art Gallery some years ago. The 'Sinner' was the black sheep of the family, Edmund Backhouse, who lived at 'Uplands' in Darlington and had a house 'The Rookery' in Middleton Tyas, where Edmund was born. Edmund spent little time in the North East, apart from family visits, and is best known for some extremely dubious dealings in China; he has been called, in fact, 'the most remarkable scoundrel ever known in the Far East'. In 1910, he published with J.O.P. Bland, a book entitled China under the Empress Dowager based, it seems, on a forged diary. Later on, after some ludicrously shady business activity, he donated some eight tons of rare and valuable Chinese manuscripts to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, hoping to get a professorship. This did not materialise, though he does appear on the Bodleian roll of honour. Backhouse spent the last twenty years of his life as a recluse in Peking. His memoirs have been described by Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper (later Lord Dacre of Glanton) in The Hermit of Peking (1976) as being 'of no ordinary obscenity'. In these fevered imaginings, Backhouse claimed to have had affairs with, among others, Oscar Wilde, Verlaine and Lord Rosebery as well as the aged Empress of China. He also claimed to have visited Tolstoy and played opposite Sarah Bernhardt. His English-Chinese dictionary and other writings were, it seems, destroyed by the invading Japanese in 1937.
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