SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART
57
duties, and shown around various government departments. Lockhart then went by river steamer up to Canton to recruit a language teacher and learn Cantonese; but at times cadets were sent to Peking to learn Mandarin, the national language, because the Hong Kong Government always needed some officials who could converse in Mandarin with Chinese officials from the North.5
E.H. Parker, then serving in the Canton Consulate, tells us that: 'on the arrival in 1879 of a Hong Kong cadet (i.e., Lockhart) to study Chinese in Canton, I lent him “Old Ow”, who took the youngster up country and taught him Cantonese very well.' Ou-yang Hui 歐陽惠 -- known affectionately to several generations of cadets as 'Old Ow' was a Cantonese scholar who had once worked in a yamên in Hunan but had fallen out of favour with officialdom. Parker also says of ‘Old Ow' that Lockhart ‘always cherished a noble veneration for his memory; and, indeed, he it was who, as a cadet, first introduced “Old Ow" to "outer" barbarian life'. In 1893 Lockhart wrote that 'Old Ow' 'enjoyed a high reputation among several distinguished foreign students of Chinese for his power of ready and lucid explanation'. A few years after Lockhart's return from Canton (he became a ‘passed cadet' in 1882), he persuaded the old Cantonese scholar to come to Hong Kong and obtained for him a clerical post in the Registrar General's Department, in which Lockhart was then employed. In this department 'Old Ow' soon became a venerated institution, a lovable but formidable eccentric who deeply impressed young cadets with his Mandarin airs and graces and oddities. After his death, his portrait in oils was placed in the Registrar General's Office, a remarkable tribute to a relatively humble employee of the government.
Lockhart soon made his mark in the Hong Kong Civil service and his rise was rapid. He was appointed Superintendent of the Opium Revenue in March 1883; Assistant Colonial Secretary and Assistant Auditor-General in August of the same year; Acting Registrar-General in 1884 and 1885; Registrar-General in 1887, a post he occupied until 1901; and Colonial Secretary in 1895, a post he combined with that of Registrar-General. But in nineteenth-century Hong Kong departments were stringently staffed. In 1884, for example, when Lockhart worked as Assistant Colonial Secretary, apart from his superior, the Colonial Secretary, there were only five other assistants: a chief clerk and four junior clerks.
SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART
57
duties, and shown around various government departments. Lock- hart then went by river steamer up to Canton to recruit a language teacher and learn Cantonese; but at times cadets were sent to Peking to learn Mandarin, the national language, because the Hong Kong Government always needed some officials who could converse in Mandarin with Chinese officials from the North.5
E.H. Parker, then serving in the Canton Consulate, tells us that: 'on the arrival in 1879 of a Hong Kong cadet (L.e., Lockhart) to study Chinese in Canton, 1 lent him “Old Ow”, who took the youngster up country and taught him Cantonese very well.' Ou- yang Hui 歐陽惠 --known affectionately to several generations of cadets as 'Old Ow' was a Cantonese scholar who had once worked in a yamên in Hunan but had fallen out of favour with officialdom. Parker also says of ‘Old Ow' that Lockhart ‘always cherished a noble veneration for his memory; and, indeed, he it was who, as a cadet, first introduced “Old Ow" to "outer" barbarian life'. In 1893 Lockhart wrote that 'Old Ow' 'enjoyed a high re- putation among several distinguished foreign students of Chinese for his power of ready and lucid explanation'. A few years after Lockhart's return from Canton (he became a ‘passed cadet' in 1882), he persuaded the old Cantonese scholar to come to Hong Kong and obtained for him a clerical post in the Registrar General's Depart- ment, in which Lockhart was then employed. In this department 'Old Ow' soon became a venerated institution, a lovable but for- midable eccentric who deeply impressed young cadets with his Mandarin airs and graces and oddities. After his death, his portrait in oils was placed in the Registrar General's Office, a remarkable tribute to a relatively humble employee of the government.
Lockhart soon made his mark in the Hong Kong Civil service and his rise was rapid. He was appointed Superintendent of the Opium Revenue in March 1883; Assistant Colonial Secretary and Assistant Auditor-General in August of the same year; Acting Registrar-General in 1884 and 1885; Registrar-General in 1887, a post he occupied until 1901; and Colonial Secretary in 1895, a post he combined with that of Registrar-General. But in nineteenth- century Hong Kong departments were stringently staffed. In 1884, for example, when Lockhart worked as Assistant Colonial Sec- retary, apart from his superior, the Colonial Secretary, there were only five other assistants: a chief clerk and four junior clerks. The
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