Hosea Ballou Morse

Hosea Ballou Morse (18 July 1855 – 13 February 1934) was a British North America-born British customs official and historian of China. He served in the Chinese Imperial Maritime Custom Service from 1874 to 1908, but is best known for his scholarly publications after his retirement, most prominently The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, a three volume chronicle of the relations of the Qing dynasty with Western countries, and The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635–1834.

Morse descended from New England stock although for five generations his family lived in Nova Scotia, where he was born.^[1][2] The family returned to Medford, Massachusetts when Morse was young. He attended Boston Latin School and graduated from Harvard College in 1874, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He married Annie Josephine Welsford in London on February 8, 1881. The couple had no children of their own. After Morse's retirement, they lived in Surrey, England, and during World War I he became a British citizen. He was granted an honorary LL.D. from Western Reserve University in 1913 and an Honorary LL.D. from Harvard in his Fiftieth Reunion year, 1924. He died in on February 13, 1934, in Surrey, England.