MORRISON, Robert (1782-1834), the first Protestant missionary to China, was born of Scottish parents at Morpeth, Northumberland, on 5th January 1782. After receiving an elementary education in Newcastle, he was apprenticed to a lastmaker, but his spare hours were devoted to studies connected with theology, and in 1803 he was received into the Independent academy at Hoxton. In the following year he offered his services to the London Missionary Society, by which, after he had attended the mission college of Gosport and studied Chinese under a native teacher, he was sent to Canton in 1807. He was appointed translator to the East India Company’s factory there in 1808, and, in addition to his official dutiqp connected with this post, laboured with intense application at a Chinese Grammar and a translation of the New Testament, both of which were published in 1814. In 1817 he published A View of China for Philological Purposes, and his translation of the entire Bible was completed in the following year. His next enterprise was the establishment of an Anglo-Chinese college at Malacca for “the reciprocal cultivation of Chinese and European literature,” which was opened in 1820. In 1821 his Chinese Dictionary was published by the East India Company at an expense of £15,000. Leaving China at the close of 1823 he spent two years in England, where he advocated Chinese missions before large and enthusiastic audiences, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Returning to China in 1826 he set himself to promote education and to prepare a Chinese commentary on the Bible and other Christian literature. He died at Canton on 1st August 1834. His Memoirs, compiled by his widow, were published in 1839 (2 vols. 8vo, London).