Francis Lister Hawks Pott

Francis Lister Hawks Pott was an American Episcopal missionary and educator whose long career was closely connected with Shanghai. Born in New York in 1864, he went to China in the 1880s and became president of St. John’s University, a college founded by the Episcopal Church in Shanghai. His writing grew out of this work: he addressed English-speaking readers curious about Chinese society, art, and the history of Christianity in China. Pott wrote at a time when Western accounts of China often presented the country through an outsider’s lens. His books are useful both for the information they offer and as records of how a missionary and educator sought to explain China to his contemporaries.

Among his books are The Chinese as They Are and A Short History of the Art of the Chinese. These titles reflect his interest in describing Chinese customs and artistic traditions for a general readership, while his other writing treated the development of Christian institutions in China. His prose is explanatory and organized around making unfamiliar subjects accessible; readers will also notice the assumptions of his era and position. Pott’s work offers a window onto the cultural encounters that shaped missionary life and education in Shanghai. If you’re curious about those encounters, his books make a useful starting point for exploring the titles available here.