MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER, SIR Harry Parkes, died in 1885 – long before any members of my immediate family had the chance to speak with him. More important perhaps, I never met my grandparents or anyone else of the generation of Sir Harry's children in person. So the house was never full of anecdotes or the exploits of his life in the nineteenth century of the Far East as it opened up to engagement with Europe; his way of working, his understanding of the strategies he needed to follow to further British interests; what those interests were and why; the quality of life at that time; and his relationships, private as well as professional, with those with whom he had to work at this high, and possibly controversial point in the colonial era.

These are all important questions and worth pursuing for their insights into the workings and influence of the colonial system and its principle agents. However, the existing literature tends to treat them in piecemeal fashion. Either one has to rely on ‘official’ accounts or histories of the period that offer different interpretations of imperialist thinking and events. Examples in Harry Parkes's case would be Lane-Poole & Dickins or Loch. The trouble with that type of analysis is that it is always subject to a prospective bias or agenda that the author may have. In particular, the evaluation may change, and often does, with popular perceptions of what may be justifiable or acceptable in a more modern era – and this includes cases where the (perceived) relative importance of the costs vs. benefits of an imperialist system for different sections of the population shift.

On the other hand, an evaluation of a regime's performance and outcomes must depend to a significant extent on the individuals responsible for its implementation and how they interact with the political and economic environment within which they are working. For that sort of information and an evaluation, we are dependent on personal papers, personal observations or more anecdotal evidence from those involved in the process. The problem here is those papers or observations are often not available, or are only partially available, because they have been destroyed or become lost over time.