Old Hong Kong-4 — Page 8

DAVIS,

SIR J. F..

297

Reference was made, in the brief history of the Cathedral (2-9-33) to the Governor who laid the foundation stone, Sir John Francis Davis, Bart. He is commemorated in Mount Davis and Davis Street (running from the Praya to Kennedy Town). Sir John was also the first actual Governor of the Colony, the previous holders of office (Captain Charles Elliott, R.N., Mr. A. R. Johnston and Sir Henry Pottinger) having been merely Administrators.

The governance of Sir John Davis proved unpopular, and he was criticised for being so steeped in the ways of the East India Company, in which as Mr. Davis he had been an official, as to have lost the fresh outlook and independence of character which the Colony needed at that time in its Governor. It will suffice to sketch Sir John's career briefly: as a young man, he had served from 1816 to 1817 on the staff of Lord Amherst's mission to China, then joined the East India Company at Canton, retiring therefrom in 1835 when he had attained the post of Chief Superintendent of Trade in South China (the last Chief of the Honorable Company's factory at Canton). It is perhaps due to him that the picture of George IV by Lawrence (see 9-8-33), which had been brought out by the Amherst mission and was later hung in the Company's factory, was brought over to Hongkong, and hung in Government House where it remains to-day; though an old chronicle suggests that the picture had been moved to Macao in the Thirties, and was brought to Hongkong in 1842.

Sir John Davis was appointed Governor of Hongkong in May, 1844.

It may not be generally known that he was a Chinese scholar, having diligently applied himself to the study of the language and people, and was the author of the only really good book on China which had up to then been issued in the English language. He was given a title for his services in the East, by a grateful Queen, and the appointment to the local Governorship followed.