ALCOCK, SIR RUTHERFORD (1809-1897), British consul and diplomatist, practised medicine until 1837. In he became consul at Fuchow in China, opened to trade by the treaty of 1842, and Mr. Alcock, as he then was, had to maintain an entirely new position with the Chinese authorities. He went in 1846 to Shanghai and there superintended the establishment and laying out of the British settlement. In 1858 he was appointed consul-general in the newly opened empire of Japan, and in the following year was promoted to be minister plenipotentiary. In 186o Mr. Alcock's native interpreter was murdered at the gate of the legation, and in the following year the legation was stormed by a body of Ronins, whose attack was repulsed by Mr. Alcock and his staff. After a brief period at home he returned to Japan in 1864 and he was transferred to Peking in 1865, where he repre sented the British Government until 1871. Alcock was one of the first to awaken in England an interest in Japanese art; his best known book The Capital of the Tycoon, appeared in 1863. He died in London on Nov. 2, 1897.
See A. Michie, The Englishman in China during the Victorian Era, as illustrated in the career of Sir Rutherford Alcock (Edinburgh, igio).