COURTS(14)
Continuation.
262
The foundation stone of the new Supreme Court building, which stands on part of the reclaimed land forming the Praya Central, was laid on November 12, 1903. The building itself was not occupied until 1912. There is an interesting reference to the Court's history in the Hongkong Telegraph, which referred to the stone-laying ceremony, in its issue of that day, as follows:-
* A granite block, bearing a suitable inscription in letters of gold, has been swung plumb and laid true into its appointed place. In a hollow in the great stone are placed, for the edification of archaeologists of some future generation, copies of the newspapers of Hongkong and specimens of each silver and bronze coin of the Colony, of the latest minting. The official ceremony performed by His Excellency the Governor with the aid of the traditional silver trowel, spirit level, and mallet, attended with the appropriate speeches pronounced by the leading public servants, heads of the departments charged with the erection and future occupation of the massive pile, in the presence of the elite of the community is over. Now that the foundation stone of our new Law Courts is laid, it is of interest to recall the original precincts and past peregrinations of our Supreme Court."
The paper then refers to the original sitting of the Court, as follows:
On the 4th March 1844, ten o'clock in the forenoon, in a temporary building near Government House, the first Criminal Court for trial by Jury was held in China. The then Governor, Sir Henry Pottinger, and the Lieut-Governor, Major-General d'Aguilar, both sat as judges. The Governor sat in plain clothes, the latter in uniform. Mr. Burgass officiated as Crown Prosecutor and Mr. Hillier as Registrar. In addressing the Grand Jury, Sir Henry Pottinger stated: "I wish to God my share in the investigation on which we are about to enter had fallen into more qualified hands, but I can at least promise that I sit here to exercise the most rigid impartiality as well as to temper justice with mercy, and I am assured that you will most cordially and anxiously unite with me in the same feeling." Mr. Patrick Stewart was chosen foreman of the jury and two cases were tried.
The holding of a criminal court in the Colony gave undoubted satisfaction to the inhabitants, though disappointment was expressed that the Judge appointed under Charter, the 26th June, 1843, had not yet arrived when the first sitting took place. The Honourable John Walter Hulme, Chief Justice, and Mr. Robert Dundas Cay, Registrar of the Supreme Court, landed in Hongkong on the 8th May 1844. The Supreme Court was then (from October 1 of that year, 1844) held in a building situated in Wellington Street, until February 1848, when it was removed into the much more commodious buildings in Queen's Road. Its former location, where so many noteworthy incidents had taken place, was soon put to quite a different purpose, and as Mr. J. W. Norton-Kyshe tells us in his valuable work, the History of the Laws and Courts of Hongkong, "the Irishmen of the place celebrated St. Patrick's Day by giving a public dance in the hall of the Old Court House: a worthy manner of washing off the many sorrows that had been enacted in the place."
On several occasions, the Court had to delay its sittings owing to the necessity of repairing the Queen's Road building, and in August, 1892, it had once more to transplant its domain to allow of urgent modifications in the edifice, and the tribunal sat temporarily in the Masonic Hall in Zetland Street.