ground "...by the River Side appropriated to the English...but as it is not yet commenced, it is uncertain when we shall inhabit it + but on the site appropriated for the Building Rutherford has at present Offices and a pretty sitting Room for our use, opening into a garden very nicely arranged...". In 1853 Alcock's wife, Henrietta died (March), and the Taiping rebellion reached Shanghai. The city was besieged and attacked until February 1855 when the rebels were starved and burned out of the city. Alcock remained in Shanghai until April of that year to restore peace and order, and then moved on to the Consulate in Canton, the original seat of much unrest in the 1840s. He was stationed in Canton for 1 year and then took a furlough to return home to England in October 1856, just before tensions once again ignited in Canton. Service in Japan (1858–64) In 1858, he was appointed Consul-General and Minister Plenipotentiary in Japan, and remained in that position until 1865. Alcock opened the second British legation in Japan within the grounds of Tōzen-ji in Takanawa, Edo (now Tokyo), the first being at Hiogo (Kobe), under Sir Harry Parkes and the vice-consul Frank Gerard Myberg (also known as Francis Gerard Mijburg and Frans Gerard Mijberg, died 18 January 1868 buried at Kobe). He saw In those days, foreign residents in Japan faced some danger, with noticeable Japanese hostility to foreigners (sonnō jōi). In 1860, Alcock's native interpreter was murdered at the gate of the legation, and in the following year the legation was stormed by a group of ronin from the fiefdom of Mito-han, whose attack was repulsed by Alcock and his staff. In September 1860 he became the first non-Japanese to climb Mount Fuji. From March 1862 to March 1864, Alcock was on leave in England. Service in China (1865–69) Shortly after these events he returned to England on leave in March 1862, and was replaced in Japan by Colonel Neale. Alcock had already been made a Commander of the Bath (CB) (1860). In 1862 he was made a Knight of the same order (KCB), and in 1863 received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Oxford University. In 1864, he returned to Japan, and after a year's further residence he was transferred to Peking, where he represented the British government until 1869, when he retired. Later years Although no longer in official