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for many years. Neither refer to Wm Mesny, though Sam Couling in 1917 in his Encyclopaedia Sinica does run to a short paragraph describing in very round terms, the then still living Mesny.
NOTE
Tcheng Ki-tong. I have been unable to find the date of publication of his first edition of Les Chinois, Peints par Eux-meme; however, in the preface to the English seventh edition of Bits of China by Tcheng, published in English in London in 1890, Tcheng writes 'The friendly welcome accorded by the English Public to my Chinese Painted by Themselves has encouraged me to publish this translation of my last work, (from the French Les Plaisirs en Chine).' Mesny publishing this book crit as late as 1905 suggests an ulterior motive, perhaps no more than an instinctive urge to highlight yet again his tireless and tenacious claim to recognition as the foreign authority on things Chinese.
Appendix B
Chronology
as claimed by
William Mesny
[Extracted from details within the Miscellanies]
9 October 1842
1847
Mesny born in Jersey
?
1850
1850-1854
1854
1860 December
1861 February
1861
1861-1862
1862 February
March
April 1862
May 1862
Dame School
National School St Anne's, Alderney
Left school
Worked at brick making, stone cutting with a smithy and on Channel Island fortifications. He also worked in blasting and as an architect's assistant.
Left home, went to sea and sailed to Africa, Australia and the Americas
Arrived on the China coast and disembarked at Shanghai
Left Shanghai for Hong Kong
Romantic interlude with Huang family in Hong Kong where he bore the name of Huang Chin-fu
3rd Turnkey Hong Kong Gaol
Returned to Shanghai aboard the SS Aden
Travelled up the Yangtze and arrived at Hankow
Master of the Hat Liang-wang on the Yangtze based in Shanghai, running the Taiping blockade:
Wounded and captured by Imperial Chinese gunboats at Kuan Yin Shan on the Yangtze
Rescued by the gunboat HMS Banterer and secured the release of
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