William Alexander 1767-1816

William Alexander was appointed the official draughtsman to the first British embassy to reach China, led by Lord Macartney in 1792-4.  The purpose of Macartney's trip was to negotiate with the Emperor of China over trade and encourage him to lift some of the restrictions he had imposed.  Macartney also hoped to establish a permanent British embassy in Peking and, with the help of a team of experts, gather enough information about China, so that Britain's understanding of that country might be strengthened.  

Macartney, a successful and upright diplomat and colonial governor, took with him as his Secretary and deputy Sir George Leonard Staunton, whose account of the Embassy was later illustrated by Alexander.  Staunton's son, George Thomas, later the second Baronet, was the only member of the Embassy to speak Chinese and acted as interpreter.  Other experts included natural scientists, engineers, botanists, medics and even an artillery officer. 

On their return to England, however, it was Alexander's drawings that had the most profound effect on the British public.  They soon became widely celebrated as the most detailed and comprehensive drawings of China ever seen in the western world.  Up to this date European artists had drawn rather stereotypical and caricatured images of China, but Alexander's drawings were finely detailed and depicted the topography, architecture and people of china in a way never seen before.  A number of these drawings were exhibited at the Royal Academy and published as engravings and were themselves copied by other artists throughout the nineteenth century.