George Carter Stent Explained

George Carter Stent (1833–1884) was an English soldier in India and China, an agent of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service, and a translator of Chinese texts into English.

Life

George Carter Stent was born into a family of modest means in Canterbury in 1833.^[1] He was the second son of James Stent, of 2 King's Bridge, Canterbury.^[2] Shortly after his twentieth birthday he joined the British Army as a soldier of the 14th (King's Light) Dragoons and proceeded with the regiment to India, where in the 1850s he witnessed and later wrote about the Great Mutiny.^[3] By the mid-1860s, he was in China, serving in the guard of the British legation at Peking. He displayed an affinity for Chinese literature, and with the help of Thomas Francis Wade was recruited into the Maritime Customs Service. He died on 1 September 1884, at Takaw (Kaohsiung), China.

Works

• Scraps from my Sabretasche: Being Personal Adventures While in the 14th (King's Light) Dragoons (London: W.H. Allen & Co.).
• Chinese and English Vocabulary in the Pekinese Dialect (Shanghai: Customs Press, 1871).^[4]
• Chinese and English Pocket Dictionary (Shanghai: Kelly & Co., 1874).^[5]
• The Jade Chaplet, in Twenty-Four Beads (London: London by Trübner & Co., 1874), a collection of songs, ballads, &c., from the Chinese.^{[6] [7]}
• Entombed Alive, and Other Poems (William H. Allen & Co., 1878), from the Chinese.^{[8] [9]}

See also

• Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland

Bibliography

• Idema . Wilt L. . 2017 . George Carter Stent (1833–1884) as a Translator of Traditional Chinese Popular Literature . Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) . 39 . 119–33. 45014213 .
• Book: MacKay, Lynn . Women and the British Army, 1815–1880 . Boydell & Brewer . 2023 . 112–155 . 3. Life Abroad. 10.2307/j.ctv37kck66.8 .
• News: 24 May 1884 . Literary Notices . 12 . Supplement to the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle .
• 1887 . Notes of the Quarter (March, April, May) . Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland . 19 . 3 . 500–51. 25208873 .

External links

• Web site: Stent, G. C. (George Carter), 1833–1884 . The Online Books Page.
• Web site: George Carter Stent, MNCBRAS . The Takao Club.

Notes and References

1. Idema 2017, p. 119.
2. News: 29 November 1884 . Deaths . 4 . Whitstable Times .
3. Idema 2017, p. 120.
4. Idema 2017, p. 121.
5. Idema 2017, p. 122.
6. Idema 2017, p. 123.
7. News: 7 March 1874 . Literary and Artistic . 6 . The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle .
8. Idema 2017, pp. 123, 125, 127.
9. News: 28 September 1878 . Literature, Science, and Art . 6 . The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post .