Son [1] of Thomas Alcock, a medical man practising at Ealing. Educated at Westminster Hospital, where he filled the post of House Surgeon, and in 1832 was appointed Surgeon to the British Portuguese forces acting in Portugal. In 1836 he was transferred to the Marine Brigade engaged in the Carlist war in Spain, and within a year was appointed Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals. [2] On his return to England he lectured on Surgery at the Sydenham College, [3] but in 1844 he was nominated Consul at Foochow, one of the ports newly opened to trade by the treaty of 1842. He was transferred to Shanghai in 1846 and had with him Sir Harry Smith Parkes. Under Alcock's direction the municipal regulations for the Government of the British Settlement of Shanghai were established and the foundations were laid of the city which has since arisen there. In 1858 he was appointed the first Consul and in 1859 British Minister in Japan, where the admission of foreigners proved so distasteful that an attack was made upon the British Legation on July 5th, 1861, and Alcock with his staff were in serious danger. Alcock returned to England in 1862 and, having already been decorated CB, was promoted KCB on June 19th, 1862, receiving the Hon DCL at Oxford on March 28th, 1863. He returned to Tokio in 1864, leaving in the following year on his appointment as Minister-Plenipotentiary at Pekin. Here he conducted affairs with such delicacy and tact that Prince Kung said: "If England would only take away her missionaries and her opium, the relations between the two countries would be everything that could be desired." In 1871 he retired from the service of diplomacy, settled in London, and interested himself in hospital management, more especially at the Westminster and Westminster Ophthalmic Hospitals, and in hospital nursing establishments. He served as President of the Geographical Society (1876-1878) and as Vice-President of the Royal Asiatic Society (1875-1878). [4] He married: (1) Henrietta Mary, daughter of Charles Bacon, in 1841; (2) Lucy, widow of the Rev T Lowder, British chaplain at Shanghai. He died without issue at 14 Great Queen Street, London, on Nov 2nd, 1897. There is a portrait of him late in life in the Board Room of the Westminster Hospital, a copy is in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons [5], and one, made in 1843, by L A de Fabeck, is reproduced in Michie's *Englishman in Japan*. Publications: *Notes on the Medical History and Statistics of the British Legion in Spain*, 8vo, London, 1838. *Life's Problems*, 8vo, 2nd ed., London, 1861. *Elements of Japanese Grammar*, 4to, Shanghai, 1861. *The Capital of the Tycoon*, 2 vols., 8vo, London, 1863. *Familiar Dialogues in Japanese with English and French Translations*, 8vo, London, 1863. *Art and Art Industries in Japan*, 8vo, London, 1878. He also edited in 1876 the *Diary of Augustus Raymond Margary* (1846-1875) (the traveller in China). [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] ? Nephew; [2] He was honored with the Knighthood of the Royal Spanish order of Charles III in 1839-40 (*London medical gazette* 1839-40, xxv, 720.); [3] He won the Jacksonian Prize in 1839 and again in 1841.; [4] He was a member of the Board of Guardians of St George's Hanover Square and took "a deep personal interest" in the scheme for emigrating pauper children to Canada. (see his letter to the *Spectator* 5 July 1879 [reprint in the Library]); [5] The words 'a copy is in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons' are deleted and 'no!' added; Rutherford Alcock contributed to the *London Medical Gazette* on lithotripsy (?) 1829, 4, 464; 1830, 5, 102; on transport of wounded 1837-8, 21, 652; on medical statistics of armies 1838 22 321 & 362; on gunshot wounds & other injuries 1839 24 138 etc; on clinical instruction 1839 25 694, & on his Jacksonian prize 1840, 26, 607 and to *The Lancet* 1839/40, 1, 929 on concussion & 1840-41, 1 & 2 on amputation (a series of lectures); Portrait (No.47) in Small Photographic Album (Moira & Haigh).]