164
JAMES HAYES
foreign nationals offering their services and having them accepted, the Rules and Regulations published in 1899 provided (Section 8) that no person was eligible to become a member of the Corps unless, inter alia, he was a British subject. It is interesting that neither the 1920 Ordinance nor its Regulations continued this requirement. It reappeared in the 1933 Ordinance, but only to the extent that all officers had to be British subjects, nothing being said about the men. We have corroboration that there were members who were not British subjects in the 1930s because the Commandant's Report in the 1937 Year Book mentions that 31 Dutch and German members had resigned during the past twelve months because they "were in danger of losing their national status should they continue to serve"39
It is not certain who was the first Hong Kong Chinese to join the Volunteer Corps. As stated above, he would not have had to have been a British subject until 1893. After that date he would have had to have been one and, in addition to age and health requirements, would have also had to be proposed by two members of the particular unit of the Corps to which he sought admission and be approved of by the Commanding Officer of the Unit and of the Commandant of the Corps, with his name, and those of his proposers, posted for not less than five days before admission (Section 9 of the 1899 Regulations). It is unlikely that these rules were designed to keep out Chinese. Indeed the thought that they might join probably never entered the framers' heads. It was not likely that Chinese would have been interested anyway, unlike Europeans other than British subjects, some of whom may have looked back with regret on the free and easy days of early volunteering in the Colony. As it happened, Hong Kong Chinese had more chance of admission than foreigners, as Hong Kong birth provided British nationality; and by this time many sons of the educated, well-established Chinese business families of the Colony would have qualified for entry had they been sufficiently interested in what, after all, would have been a strange environment. The 1920 Ordinance made no stipulations on nationality, which probably explains why a faded picture of the Armoured Car Company in 1926, shown at the Centenary Exhibition in 1954, features the late Sir Man-
39 Y.B., 1937, p. 6.
Page 180
Page 181
164
JAMES HAYES
foreign nationals offering their services and having them accepted, the Rules and Regulations published in 1899 provided (Section 8) that no person was eligible to become a member of the Corps unless, inter alia, he was a British subject. It is interesting that neither the 1920 Ordinance nor its Regulations continued this requirement. It reappeared in the 1933 Ordinance, but only to the extent that all officers had to be British subjects, nothing being said about the men. We have corroboration that there were members who were not British subjects in the 1930s because the Commandant's Report in the 1937 Year Book mentions that 31 Dutch and German members had resigned during the past twelve months because they "were in danger of losing their national status should they continue to serve❞ 39
It is not certain who was the first Hong Kong Chinese to join the Volunteer Corps. As stated above, he would not have had to have been a British subject until 1893. After that date he would have had to have been one and, in addition to age and health requirements, would have also had to be proposed by two mem- bers of the particular unit of the Corps to which he sought admission and be approved of by the Commanding Officer of the Unit and of the Commandant of the Corps, with his name, and those of his proposers, posted for not less than five days before admission (Section 9 of the 1899 Regulations). It is unlikely that these rules were designed to keep out Chinese. Indeed the thought that they might join probably never entered the framers' heads. It was not likely that Chinese would have been interested anyway, unlike Europeans other than British subjects, some of whom may have looked back with regret on the free and easy days of early volunteering in the Colony. As it happened, Hong Kong Chinese had more chance of admission than foreigners, as Hong Kong birth provided British nationality; and by this time many sons of the educated, well-established Chinese business families of the Colony would have qualified for entry had they been sufficiently interested in what, after all, would have been a strange environment. The 1920 Ordinance made no stipulations on nationality, which probably explains why a faded picture of the Armoured Car Company in 1926, shown at the Centenary Exhibition in 1954, features the late Sir Man-
39 Y.B., 1937, p. 6.
Page 180Page 181
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.