The Man Who Rescued Sun Yat-sen – The Memorial to Sir James Cantlie at Cottered

I recently read the autobiography of Alfred Sze, the former Chinese Ambassador to Britain (and later the USA) during the First World War and a Chinese delegate to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. It was self-published in 1962 and is a little tricky to get (some old copies here though). Among Sze’s memoirs of his time in England is his friendship with Sir James Cantlie, the Scottish surgeon who had taught medicine to Sun Yat-sen in Hong Kong and later, in 1896, helped rescue Sun from the Portland Place Chinese Legation in London where the Qing authorities were holding him kidnapped and intending to send him back to China to a probable execution. Sze and Cantlie were good friends and, after his death, Sze officially placed a memorial to Cantlie at St John’s Church in Cottered, Hertfordshire, where Cantlie was buried.Thought I’d look it up…and here it is….

Cantie’s grave at Cottered

The memorial unveiled by Sze to Cantlie

By the way, other close friends of the Sze’s in London included Sir Adolph Tuck, the wealthy Jewish art publisher and the man who effectively invented the postcard and lived close to the Chinese legation on the imposing Park Crescent (and owned a great deal of it). Through his friendship with his near neighbours the Sze’s, Tuck became a lifelong supporter of the fledgling Chinese Republic. Additionally, the Sze’s were friends with the banker, trader and noted collector of collector of Chinese, Korean and Near Eastern art, George Eumorfopoulos, who had been born in Liverpool of refugee Greek parents. A noted Orientalist in London at the time, his collection of Oriental art grew to an enormous size, obliging him to add a two-storey museum to the back of his Chelsea house.

Alfred Sao-ke Sze

Sir James Cantlie