Boxer Rebellion--Forbes-Sempill, Arthur

serving successively on the torpedo gunboats HMS Tweed, Sandpiper, and Whiting, then transferring to the battleship HMS Centurion, initially patrolling the Pearl River system in Guangdong [Canton], then transferring to northern China in response to the increasing threat of the Boxer Rebellion, including his participation in the Battle of Taku Forts, detailed daily entries including encounters with pirates ("...A shot was fired at us, so we opened fire at once which was swiftly returned ... I sent the cutter down to pick up a sampan so as to land & recover the gear, but as soon as she dropped astern she was fired on by the pirates who were hidden in the bushes on the bank..." [6 January 1900]), public executions, naval bombardments and actions ("...[HMS Whiting] had been shot by a 4.7 on starb: side amidships. The projectile had passed thro' her coal bunker & into the boiler, but in its flight had been turned broadside on & lodged itself against the water tubes thus making a bed for itself..." [17 June]), the aftermath of battle and atrocities by both sides ("...A large junk ran ashore where the Russians are in S. Fort [Taku] & when these coolies tried to land from her the fort opened first & killed about 30, even firing at them as they attempted to escape by swimming..." [19 June]), his departure from Taku on 23 July and return to Britain via Shanghai, Japan, and North America, 245 numbered pages together with 5 pages of notes and 6 pages of addresses (plus blanks), in black, blue, and red ink, 1 January-27 September 1900, also with two vintage silverprints of public beheadings, newspapers cuttings and other printed and manuscript ephemera inserted, in a disbound Letts annual diary, each leaf separately housed in a plastic sleeve, in two ring binders, together with two further ring binders of photocopies and two spiral bound volumes of extracts and transcripts, lacking pp.197-202, 231-238, 251-256, 271-364 (almost all after Forbes-Sempill's departure from China), loss at the bottom of each leaf from fire damage, resulting in occasional loss of text, some discoloration and fraying throughout

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A detailed and unpublished Western account of the Boxer Uprising. This journal was kept by a young officer in the Royal Navy, Lieutenant Arthur Lionel Ochoncar Forbes-Sempill (1877-1962), youngest son of the 17th Lord Sempill. It is notable for its precise record of the Western use of naval firepower in fighting the popular uprising that threatened Western interests, especially in Northern China. Its lively vignettes also give a good impression of life in China at this tumultuous period - from his account of the efficiency of small-scale sugar manufacture, to his description of passing through a town where the locals were shouting insults and "making the throat-cutting sign as we passed", to the devastation incurred by Western firepower on the Taku Forts near Tianjin.