Thomas Wade
Sir Thomas Francis Wade (August 25, 1818 - July 31, 1895) was a London-born British diplomat and Sinologist linguist who invented what is to become the Wade-Giles Romanization for Mandarin Chinese. His Chinese name was Wei Tuoma (威妥瑪).Like his father, Wade began working in the army. As a soldier, later an official interpreter, Wade went to China in 1842. Wade became a diplomat in 1845 and served in Nanjing, Beijing, Hong Kong, and other posts. Knighted in 1875, Wade participated in the Treaty of Tianjin and the Chefoo Convention. In addition to diplomatic duties, Wade published books teaching or advancing non-Chinese's knowledge in the language:
- The Records to Seek the Seaport (尋津錄 Xun Jin Lu, 1859)
- Teach Yourself Chinese (語言自邇集 Yuyan Zier Ji, 1867)
- Peking Syllabary (1895)
After retiring from working over forty years in the British embassies in China, he return to England in 1883, and donated 4,304 volumes of Chinese literature to the University Library's Oriental Collection three years later. He was then elected to be the first professor the Chinese language in Cambridge University in 1888. He had the position as a professor until his death in Cambridge at 77.
