Indiscreet Letters from Peking

Putnam Weale's work "Indiscreet Letters from Peking" is widely cited as an eyewitness account of the events during the siege of the Foreign Legations in Peking (modern day Beijing) during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Bertram Lenox Simpson (1877?1930) was a British author who wrote about China under the pen name "B. L. Putnam Weale". Lenox-Simpson was the son of Clare Lenox-Simpson, who had been in the Chinese Maritime Customs Service since 1861; he had a brother, Evelyn, a mining engineer who worked in China, and a sister, Esme.His education was at Brighton College, after which he too joined the Service. He was in China during the Boxer Rebellion and during the siege of the legations. After this, he became Brigade Interpreter for the British Expeditionary Force (he spoke 5 languages).