Retrato de John Barrow
Foto: John Jackson · Wikimedia Commons

Autor

John Barrow

1764–1848

Nascimento
19 de junho de 1764, Ulverston
Morte
23 de novembro de 1848, Londres
Nacionalidade
Reino Unido da Grã-Bretanha e Irlanda
Ocupação
Explorador, historiador, escritor, botânico e cartógrafo

Vida e obra

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Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet (19 June 1764 – 23 November 1848) was an English geographer, linguist, writer and civil servant. He partook in the Macartney Embassy to China, then worked and studied in South Africa, and served as the Second Secretary to the Admiralty from 1804 until 1845. Barrow wrote the memoir The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of HMS Bounty (1831), which is considered the classic account of the Mutiny on the Bounty.

Early life

Barrow was born the only child of Roger Barrow, a tanner in the village of Dragley Beck, in the parish of Ulverston, Lancashire. He was a pupil at Town Bank Grammar School, Ulverston, but left at the age of 13 to found a Sunday school for poor local children.

Barrow was employed as superintending clerk of an iron foundry at Liverpool. At only 16, he went on a whaling expedition to Greenland. By his twenties, he was teaching mathematics, in which he had always excelled, at a private school in Greenwich.

China

Barrow taught mathematics to George Thomas Staunton, son of Sir George Leonard Staunton, Bt; through Staunton's interest, he was attached on the first British embassy to China from 1792 to 1794 as comptroller of the household to Lord Macartney. He soon acquired a good knowledge of the Chinese language, on which he subsequently contributed articles to the Quarterly Review; and the account of the embassy published by Sir George Staunton records many of Barrow's valuable contributions to literature and science connected with China.

Barrow ceased to be officially connected with Chinese affairs after the return of the embassy in 1794, but he always took much interest in them, and on critical occasions was frequently consulted by the British government.

Texto: “Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet”, da Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre, sob a licença CC BY-SA 4.0. Datas e fatos: Wikidata.