Giles, H. A.

H.A. Giles, in full Herbert Allen Giles, (born Dec. 8, 1845, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Eng.—died Feb. 13, 1935, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire), English scholar of Chinese language and culture, who helped to popularize the Wade-Giles system for the romanization of the Chinese languages.

Educated at Charterhouse school, London, Giles joined the consular service and spent the years 1867–92 in various posts in China. Upon his return, he lived in Aberdeen, Scot., until 1897, when he was appointed professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge, succeeding Sir Thomas Francis Wade; he retained the chair until 1932.

Over the years he published a variety of books on Chinese language and culture that were popular into the second half of the 20th century, including Chinese Without a Teacher (1872), Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (1880), Gems of Chinese Literature (1884), A Chinese Biographical Dictionary (1898), A History of Chinese Literature (1901), An Introduction to the History of Chinese Pictorial Art (1905; 2nd ed. 1918), and The Civilization of China (1911). His Chinese-English Dictionary (1892; 2nd ed. 1912) firmly established the Wade-Giles romanization system, which had been developed by Wade. Wade-Giles remained the most popular such system for English-speaking scholars until the official promulgation of Pinyin in 1979.