In the years after the "opening" of China following the Opium War (1839-42), footbinding became an emblematic cultural marker in Western discourse on China. With unprecedented access to China, missionaries, traders, and diplomats produced a massive archive of writings on the Middle Kingdom and its people, some of it aimed at ending the traditional practice of footbinding.

But what did footbinding mean to Britons who visited or lived in China before the Opium War? Somewhat surprisingly given how much they hoped to see the end of the Canton System and its restrictions on foreign trade, most Britons who discussed footbinding took a relativistic approach. Even in the mid-1830s, as attitudes hardened and calls for a more aggressive policy against China became louder, some Britons continued to make comparisons between footbinding and other "unnatural" practices such as the corseting of European women's waists. These comparisons continued during the Opium War, which provided unprecedented opportunities for British military men and surgeons to encounter Chinese women and girls with bound feet.

Although they may seem primitive or backward to modern readers, these observations reveal a sophisticated interest in China – of course to help open it to foreign trade and Christian evangelization, but also to understand it on its own terms. They also demonstrate that, contrary to usual assumptions, some Westerners viewed China, its people, and their civilization less critically during this period than after the Opium War and the opening of the treaty ports.