HAROLD JOHN TIMPERLEY (1898-1954)

Harold John Timperley (also referred to as H.J or Harold J) was correspondent for the Manchester Guardian (and other newspapers and agencies) during the 1930s in China.

He is best known for his role in exposing the Japanese massacre in Nanjing after the occupation in December 1937. Members of the small foreign community which sought to save the lives of thousands of Chinese civilians sent written accounts to him in Shanghai, where he was then based, which by agreement with them he wrote up into a book called "What War Means: The Japanese Terror in China" (London: Gollancz, 1938). His dispatches to the Manchester Guardian, also based on these materials, attracted much attention and he was censored by the Japanese authorities in Shanghai. Later Harold published a more general account of recent Japanese history under the title "Japan: A World Problem" (New York: John Day and Co., 1942).

Harold became an adviser for the Chinese government's Ministry of Information and then joined UNRRA and subsequently UNESCO. In 1950 he became a technical adviser to the new diplomatic service of Indonesia, but contracted a tropical disease and returned to England the following year. He joined the Society of Friends, did voluntary work for the War on Want charity, and died in 1954.

The excellent Timperley genealogy website (www.timperley.org) makes it clear that Harold was the son of Frederick Henry Timperley (1863-1905) and that he had a sister Dorothy Ethel Timperley (1900-1980) who married her cousin Hubert Arthur Lionel Timperley (1890-1954). The website correctly records that Harold married Elizabeth Chambers in 1937, and also notes a second marriage with a certain "Helen" (no surname).

Elizabeth nee Chambers is still alive, and I learn from her that the marriage, which took place in Nanjing, was shortlived and she returned to the US the following year.

Harold started working as a journalist in China in 1928 and appears to have been well-known among the more progressive section of the foreign community. He was a friend of Edgar Snow, author of the classic Red Star Over China (1936).

However little seems to be known or published about him apart from his own books, obituaries at the time of his death, and some isolated references.

From what we know, he was quite a remarkable person who played a largely unseen part in trying to convey the truth about what was then happening in China. (His dispatches to the Manchester Guardian were unsigned, as the custom generally in British journalism). His subsequent career also sounds both interesting and admirable.

I am, rather belatedly, Harold's successor in Shanghai as correspondent for The Guardian --we have dropped the "Manchester" some time ago. (It is interesting to note, by the way, that the Timperley family seems to have originated in Manchester). I am myself a China specialist and have worked in the area for many years.

I am keen to write up Harold's life and to do it proper justice. Apart from the newspaper archives, very little personal material is available. Elizabeth Chambers has been very helpful but lost touch with Harold soon after they separated.

***I would be very interested to hear of any possible family reminiscences or recollections of Harold, and whether there are any family archives in which he might be mentioned.***

I conclude with an extract from an obituary written by E R Hughes (then Professor of Chinese at Oxford) and published in The Friend on his death.

"I found him a man of exquisite honour. When a relationship went wrong, he looked for what was wrong in himself. When he suffered gross injustice at the hands of a great institution, he refused to fight for justice to himself, but went on fighting for the cause at stake. Again and again he sacrificed his personal interests for the sake of the downtrodden and in the end, it is not too much to say, he killed himself in waging the 'War on Want'".

John Gittings
East Asia Editor
The Guardian (UK)
No. 8, Lane 1006,
Huashan Road
Shanghai 200050
China