Daniel Brooke Robertson

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Sir Daniel Brooke Robertson (1810–27 March 1881) was a British diplomat who served as consul-general in Shanghai from 1854 to 1858. He was born in 1810, the eldest son of Daniel Robertson of Struan, Perthshire, Scotland, and Emily Brooke Clarke. He trained as a barrister and was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1840. In 1842 he joined the China consular service, becoming vice-consul at Shanghai in 1843 and acting Danish consul there in 1848. After a year as acting consul at Ningpo, he returned to Shanghai as vice-consul in 1851. In 1853 he was appointed consul at Amoy, and in 1854 he served as consul at Shanghai while also acting as Danish consul; he also briefly ran the Hong Kong superintendency during the absence of the British plenipotentiary. In 1860 he moved to Canton and acted as official receiver of indemnities under the Treaty of Peking for Canton and Swatow. In 1861 he became British commissioner in Kowloon and served as a Canton commissioner during allied occupation. He was appointed consul at Canton in 1872, and in 1877 was named consul-general at Shanghai but did not take up the post due to ill health and retired that year. He married Ellen Nutter (née Aingell) in 1839; she died in 1852. Their son Daniel Brooke Robertson also joined the British consular service in Japan and died suddenly aged about 48. Robertson died in London on 27 March 1881. He received several honours: Knight Bachelor (1862), Companion of the Bath (1865), and Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1879.