THE YEARS BETWEEN 1815 and 1920 were ones of profound change in Britain, in China, and in the relationship between them. As the three generations of one family at the centre of this book knew only too well, the recently established British presence in China became increasingly involved in the politics, economics and finances of China's faltering imperial regime. The British presence and consequence peaked during the Boxer crisis, but was eclipsed within decades by the rising force of Chinese nationalism.’

Andrew Hillier's book covers this remarkable period of change in the relations between China and Britain, but is also a welcome addition to the literature on empire and the family. In this book, family emerges as something greater than the sum of its parts – as a body of knowledge and, in the context of British informal empire in East Asia, of ‘best practice’; an interface between Britain and China, public and private, interests and ideals, and commerce, faith and diplomacy. In the case of the Medhurst/Hillier family, that interface worked to promote three traits in particular: evangelism (and its ‘underlying tenets of commitment and diligence’); an aptitude for the Chinese language; and what the author terms ‘the development of a cultural sensitivity towards China’. As Hillier explains, these particular family traits (just as much as family connections) – acquired and relayed through experiences and memories – proved to be particularly conducive to getting on amidst the compromises and veiled sovereignty of informal empire and the treaty port world.

At the same time, Mediating Empire makes it plain that the relationship between family and empire was never instrumental, and seldom neat, tidy or convenient. It could invite accusations of nepotism, and closed minds. Family is about building connections (the author offers us glimpses of the role of ‘calling’ in deepening and extending family networks), but it is also about the drawing up of lines – most obviously, in this case, between Britons and Chinese. And empire could be brutal to families: separating couples, exacerbating risks, refusing permission for a diplomat and brother to travel to console a bereaved sister, instructing a husband to cut short attempts to resolve a failing marriage, and even, at the end, exacerbating sibling rivalries.