Abstract: This paper looks at the changing perceptions and attitudes of Westerners residing in China between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries; it sets out a case study focussing on the writings and biographies of one family (Isabelle & Rev. Alexander Williamson, Veronica & Paul Henry King, and Louis Magrath King & Rinchen Lhamo), who over three generations became involved in Western moves to compel China to ‘open up’ to a Western-led system of global commerce or ‘free trade’, as well as Western systems of political and religious thought after the Opium Wars of the mid-nineteenth century. The first generation of this family arrived in China hoping to introduce the perceived benefits of Western morals and modernity through the means of Christian missionary work. Subsequent generations, however, became fully integrated into the expatriate treaty port milieu in Customs and Consular Service roles which necessarily engendered a different kind of working relationship with the Chinese, and, arguably, thereby altered their viewpoint and helped to modify their sympathies towards Chinese cultural and political sovereignty. Ultimately, this enabled them to realise and see beyond the finite limitations of the system of ‘informal empire’ which the Western powers sought to impose upon China.