SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART
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Council to fill the vacancy caused by the removal of the Chief Justice from that body; and in 1891 he was made a member of the Executive Council. In that year he was also appointed chairman of the Board of Examiners in Chinese and chairman of the Governing Body of Queens' College,17 the oldest Government Anglo-Chinese secondary school in the Colony. In 1895 he was appointed Colonial Secretary in conjunction with his office of Registrar General, 'the first time in the history of the Colony that such a combination had ever taken place and which it was believed was effected for purposes of economy.' At the same time he became Rector of the College of Medicine for Chinese, from which Sun Yat-sen had graduated in 1892. Lockhart in 1895 was, then, the most important official, apart from the Governor, in the Colony and in charge, through his joint appointment, of both Chinese and European affairs.
In 1898 the leasing of the New Territory (as it was first called) from the Chinese Government for 99 years gave Lockhart yet further employment. The New Territory was an area of 365 square miles, consisting of a portion of the Chinese mainland lying immediately to the north of the Colony; it contained about three-fifths of the Chinese county of San-on (Hsin-an), one of the smaller administrative districts of the Kwangtung Province. In March 1898 Lockhart had proceeded to England on leave of absence but he returned hurriedly to the Colony on 2 August 1898 as Special Commissioner under instructions to inspect and report upon the territory acquired under the Convention of 9 June, 1898. Having completed his inspection he returned to England on 31 August, 1898, by The Empress of India, and submitted a detailed report on 8 October, 1898.19 Thus in less than a month Lockhart had visited the entire district to be taken over, had made assiduous enquiries, and had mapped out, as it were, the entire social and economic organisation of the area.
Lockhart returned from his interrupted leave on 3 February, 1899, and on 11 March was appointed to be the representative of the Government of Great Britain for the purpose of fixing the exact boundaries of the extension. By the Convention the boundaries were only indicated generally and provisions had been made for their more exact determination 'when proper surveys have been made by officials appointed by the two Governments.'20 Lockhart