The missionary and Chinese scholar Robert Morrison was born in Morpeth, Northumberland, the youngest of eight children. In 1801 he decided to enter the Presbyterian ministry and began to study Greek, Hebrew and Latin. In 1804 he joined the London Missionary Society and set his sights on work in China. Missionary training followed in Gosport and he then returned to London, studying medicine at St Batholomew’s Hospital and astronomy in Greenwich.
Morrison sailed to Canton (Guangzhou), arriving on 7 September 1807. In China he worked hard on producing a Chinese dictionary and grammar, and on translating the scriptures. In 1809 the East India Company appointed him as a translator. Keen on his dictionary project, the Company shipped printing presses to China and Morrison’s volumes were published in Macau between 1815 and 1823. However, his translations of the New Testament into Chinese ran counter to Company policy and Morrison was fortunate not to be dismissed from service. He also helped found the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca, which opened in 1818.
Exhausted by his efforts, Morrison returned to Britain in 1824 with his substantial Chinese library, later a core collection of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He nevertheless returned to China two years later with his second wife Eliza; his first wife Mary had died in childbirth in 1820. Ill-health forced Eliza to leave Canton in December 1832. Morrison health also began to fail and he died in Canton on 1 August 1834. His reputation lies with his works of scholarship; as missionary he secured no more than twelve converts.