Bertram Lenox Simpson, writing under the pseudonym B. L. Putnam Weale, was a British author, journalist, and government adviser whose life and work were deeply intertwined with early twentieth-century China. Born in 1877, he followed his father into the Chinese Maritime Customs Service after completing his education at Brighton College. He was present in China during the pivotal Boxer Rebellion and the subsequent siege of the foreign legations in 1900, later serving as a Brigade Interpreter for the British Expeditionary Force due to his fluency in five languages.
After leaving the customs service in 1901—amidst rumors of his involvement in looting following the siege—Simpson embarked on a prolific writing career. He worked as a journalist, serving as the Beijing correspondent for the Daily Telegraph from 1911 to 1914, and later editing the Peking Leader and managing the Far Eastern Times syndicate. Under his "Putnam Weale" pen name, he published numerous commentaries, reports, and novels concerning Far Eastern affairs. His 1914 novel, The Eternal Princess, is notable for containing the earliest known reference to the infamous apocryphal sign in Shanghai's Huangpu Park, "No Dogs or Chinese."
Beyond his literary endeavors, Simpson became actively involved in Chinese politics. By 1916, he was drafting numerous foreign affairs reports for the political section of the President of China, Li Yuanhong. His deep entanglement in local political factions eventually led him to seize control of the customs office in Tianjin on behalf of warlord Yan Xishan in 1930. Later that year, Simpson was killed in Tianjin in what was widely believed to be an assassination, though his killers were never identified.
