William Woodville Rockhill
| William Woodville Rockhill | |
|---|---|
 |
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| United States Ambassador to Greece | |
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In office September 25, 1897 – April 27, 1899 |
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| President | William McKinley |
| Preceded by | Eben Alexander |
| Succeeded by | Arthur Sherburne Hardy |
| United States Ambassador to Serbia | |
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In office May 7, 1897 – April 27, 1899 |
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| President | William McKinley |
| Preceded by | Eben Alexander |
| Succeeded by | Arthur Sherburne Hardy |
| United States Ambassador to Romania | |
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In office May 18, 1897 – April 27, 1899 |
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| President | William McKinley |
| Preceded by | Eben Alexander |
| Succeeded by | Arthur Sherburne Hardy |
| United States Ambassador to China | |
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In office March 8, 1905 – June 1, 1909 |
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| President | Theodore Roosevelt |
| Preceded by | Edwin H. Conger |
| Succeeded by | William J. Calhoun |
| United States Ambassador to Russia | |
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In office January 11, 1910 – June 17, 1911 |
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| President | William Howard Taft |
| Preceded by | John W. Riddle |
| Succeeded by | Curtis Guild, Jr. |
| United States Ambassador to Turkey | |
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In office August 28, 1911 – November 20, 1913 |
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| President | William Howard Taft |
| Preceded by | Oscar Straus |
| Succeeded by | Henry Morgenthau, Sr. |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
May 1, 1854 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | December 8, 1914 (aged 60) |
William Woodville Rockhill (May 1, 1854 – December 8, 1914) was a United States diplomat, best known as the author of the U.S.'s Open Door Policy for China and as the first American to learn to speak Tibetan.
Rockhill was born in Philadelphia, the son of Thomas Cadwalader Rockhill and Dorothea Anne Woodville (1823–1913). His father died when he was 13 years old and his mother relocated the family to France to escape the Civil War. While in his teens, Rockhill read Abbé Huc's account of his 1844-46 voyage to Lhasa, which sparked young Rockhill's interest in Tibet. Rockhill sought out the celebrated Orientalist Léon Feer of the Bibliothèque Nationale, who guided Rockhill's learning about the Far East. Rockhill attended the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, where he studied Tibetan. After graduation, Rockhill joined the French Foreign Legion, serving as an officer in Algiers.
In 1876, Rockhill returned to the United States, and on December 14, 1876, he married his childhood sweetheart, Caroline Tyson, daughter of J. Washington Tyson and Marie Louise (Hewling) Tyson of Philadelphia. The couple purchased a cattle ranch in New Mexico, but Rockhill concluded that ranching was not to his liking. By 1880, he had completed a French language translation of the Tibetan version of the Udanavarga, which was published in 1881.
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