In 1828, after his second marriage, he made his first voyage abroad then practiced law in Boston for a time. He sailed for Canton in 1833 on behalf of opium trader John Perkins Cushing, settling for some time in Macau where Lady Elizabeth Napier, wife of British emissary William John, 9th Lord Napier, found him "very intelligent". While he was there, his portrait and those of three of his four children by second wife were painted by the English portraitist George Chinnery. In Asia, he entered a succession of trading firms, and in 1842 he became a full partner. In 1844, Sturgis retired to Boston to rejoin his children who had been sent there to school after their mother's 1837 death in Manila. He married, for a third time and decided to return to China with his family in 1851. The steamer on which they crossed the Atlantic arrived too late to catch the onward ship from London. In their interval there, Sturgis was asked by the senior member of Barings Bank to become a partner. He accepted and ultimately became head of the firm, succeeding fellow American Joshua Bates. In England, he lived at 17 Carlton House Terrace in London, and Givons Grove in Leatherhead. Although he never renounced his U.S. citizenship, Sturgis did not return to the United States and died in England in 1887.
Personal life
Sturgis married three times. He married his first wife, Lucy Lyman Paine, on April 3, 1828. Lucy was a daughter of Henry Paine and Olive Paine. Her paternal grandfather was Robert Treat Paine, the lawyer and politician who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and served as the Massachusetts' first Attorney General. Lucy died, aged 22, on August 20, 1828, just four months after their marriage. On September 28, 1829, Sturgis was married to his second wife, Mary Greene Hubbard, a daughter of John Hubbard and Jane Hubbard. Before her death in Manila on September 17, 1837, they were the parents of four children, the youngest of whom died in infancy:
Nathaniel Russell Sturgis, who married Susan Codman Welles, a daughter of Benjamin Welles. After her death, he married Margaret Cenos McCulloh, a daughter of Speaker James W. McCulloh.
Lucy Lyman Paine Sturgis, who married Col. Charles Russell Codman, an uncle to Ogden Codman Jr.
After the death of his second wife, he married, for a third time, to Julia Overing Boit on June 4, 1846. a daughter of Eleanor Auchmuty Boit and John Boit Jr., one of the first Americans involved in the maritime fur trade. With Julia, he had four more children:
Julian Russell Sturgis, a novelist, poet, librettist and lyricist who married Mary Maud de la Poer Beresford, a daughter of Colonel Marcus de La Poer Beresford, in 1883.
Sturgis died at his country seat in Leatherhead, Surrey on November 2, 1887. His widow also died there, less than a year later, on May 31, 1888.
Descendants
Through his daughter Lucy, he was a grandfather of Anne McMasters Codman , and lawyer Julian Codman, who was a vigorous opponent of Prohibition and was involved with the Anti-Imperialist League. Julian married Nora Chadwick, a daughter of Dr. James Read Chadwick. Through his son Russell, he was a grandfather of architect Richard Clipston Sturgis who was successor to his uncle's practice. He married Esther Mary Ogden and was the father of Richard Clipston Sturgis Jr., also an architect.
