[ { "id": 206105, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 185, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTHE J.O.P. BLAND PAPERS\n\nIntroduction\n\nOne day in September 1967, I received, quite out of the blue, a letter from my former commanding officer during the Second World War, Michael St. J. Packe, to say that he had been entrusted with J.O.P. Bland's private papers, with instructions \"to find a good home for them,\" and asking me whether I would like to have them. Before going further, let me explain that Mr. Packe is himself a historian and wrote an excellent biography of J. S. Mill.* We have kept in touch intermittently since we were demobilized from the First Airborne Division (British) at the end of the war, and I have been to visit him at his home on Alderney. This is the really fantastic part of this chain of coincidences. Here was Mr. Packe, living and writing on the little island of Alderney in the Channel Islands while a near neighbour of his was Mrs. Dolores Coombs, an old friend of the Bland family, who had often visited them at their home at Aldburgh in Suffolk. Bland himself died in 1945 and Mrs. Bland in 1953. His private papers were entrusted to his goddaughter, Miss Ailsa Cochrane, who was to act as his literary executor and to try, if possible, to complete the memoirs which he had begun before his death, and to have them published. Before she could achieve much Miss Cochrane became ill and in 1955 her brother sent these papers to Mrs. Coombs who, in turn, was to act as literary executor. Meanwhile Bland's books on China had been given to Trinity College, Dublin. However, a list of these books, preserved among his papers, shows that they amounted to a modest collection without containing anything rare.\n\nSometime in 1966 Mrs. Coombs was forced by illness to leave Alderney, and it was at this point that she entrusted her friend and neighbour, Michael Packe, with the task of finding a home for these papers. Thus for a period of over twenty years Bland's private papers disappeared from view while two successive literary executors struggled with the task of trying to complete and publish his memoirs. Bland himself, to judge from his instructions to his\n\n* The Life of John Stuart Mill (London: 1954).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206107, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 187, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "182\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nAnother major group of letters consists of correspondence 'out', arranged alphabetically and by date, for the period 1907 - 1935.\n\nA third group consists of correspondence ‘in', arranged in the same way, for the period 1907 - 1945, and includes letters from specialists on Chinese affairs such as Sir Robert Hart, Alfred Hippisley, C. S. Addis, Willard Straight, G. E. Morrison, (The Times correspondent), and Sir John Jordan, as well as letters from various scholars of Chinese history and culture such as H. B. Morse, Henri Cordier, Percival Yetts, Edmund Backhouse and Arthur Waley. This group also contains letters from a variety of literary and political figures, important in their own time, but not specifically connected with China.\n\n7. Nine volumes of pamphlets on China, formerly belonging to Dr. George Jamieson, mainly dating from the period 1836-1898. (A list of titles is available in the Rare Book Department of the University of Toronto Library).\n\n8. Twelve chapters in draft of an autobiography which Bland had started to write before his death. These appear, from a brief perusal, to be somewhat disappointing, mainly social trivia, and were declined by his publishers, William Heinemann.\n\nThe Bland Papers are housed in the Rare Book Department of the University of Toronto Library. (Head of Department: Miss M. E. Brown).\n\nOne piquant twist of fate. When I was staying with Mr. and Mrs. Packe on Alderney in 1951 I apparently met Mrs. Coombs. At that time, however, she was not yet in possession of the Bland papers and I had not yet developed a special interest in modern Chinese history.\n\nUniversity of Toronto, 1969,\n\nPostscript\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nDoes anyone know of the whereabouts of the private papers of Sir Thomas Wade? I am working on his career as British minister in Peking from 1870 until 1882, but so far have failed to find any of his private, as opposed to his public, papers. Is anyone still sitting on them?", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207737, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "110\n\nTIN-YUKE CHAR\n\nAldersey brought over from her Batavia, Java mission school to become assistant leaders in her Ningpo school. Ruth and Laisun had a family of six children: Elijah, Spencer, Willie, Annie, Lena, and Amy.\n\nChan later left his mission work and went to Shanghai in 1853 where he became quite successful through his connections with an English mercantile firm. On a corner of the American Board's property in Shanghai, he built a school house where his wife opened a girls' school. As he was acquainted with Yung Wing and was qualified, he was engaged to accompany the Educational Mission to America in 1872. He took along his wife and six children. His two eldest sons were ready to enter college in two years and his two eldest daughters received part of their education in England.\n\nIn 1875 Chan was detached from the Educational Mission and appointed interpreter to Li Hung-chang, Governor-general of Chihli. Thus, he met Hawaiian King Kalakaua in Tientsin in 1881.\n\nThe February 1887 issue of the Hamilton College Literary Monthly had this letter from Chan, \"We all love the United States, for many reasons. Our hearts are still there, although we are back in China. I am in Tientsin, with the well-known viceroy, Si [Li] Hung Chang, as his Secretary, and Interpreter. Annie, our eldest daughter, is married to a Dane, Captain of the Chinese government revenue cruiser; and is the happy mother of a beautiful son. Elijah, the eldest boy, graduated from the Yale Scientific School in 1887. He then went to Freiburg in Saxony, and remained there eighteen months. On his return to China, he was commissioned to open the copper mines in Eastern Mongolia. His prospects are very bright. He was offered the post of chief engineer for the government railroads, but declined to accept it. He is the first scientific engineer China has produced. His field is the largest ever offered to a single individual, for the mineral resources of China are almost infinite.”\n\nFrom Carl Smith's article, it was learned that another son, Spencer Tsang Lai Sun, married Man Kwai, daughter of the Reverend Ho Fuk-tong (1818-71) of Hong Kong.\n\nA further lead to more information was given by Chi Wang of the Orientalia Division, United States Library of Congress. In Shu Hsin-ch'eng's Chinese book on Chinese Students in Foreign Countries, the interpreter of the Educational Mission was identified by his official name, Tseng Heng-chung. The same is true in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207739, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "CHAN LAI-SUN AND HIS FAMILY:\n\nA 19TH CENTURY CHINA COAST FAMILY\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nProfessor John K. Fairbank of the Harvard-Yenching Institute in an address to the Society during his visit to Hong Kong in 1976, referred to the importance of the study of what he termed \"China Coast Culture\", meaning thereby the type of social groups, values, institutions, etc., that emerged from the commingling of diverse traditions in the port cities of China. He suggested that an understanding of the forces that created this social milieu and an analysis of its structure and operation might provide models for life as it is developing in an age of rapid cultural interchange.*\n\nThis study of one family which was a part of the China Coast culture illustrates some strands in its creation and emergence as a distinct way of life, with its own values and manners. This new life style is seen in such features in the family of Chan Lai-sun as the intermingling of Chinese and foreign home decoration; changed attitudes toward certain Chinese practices, such as the social mingling of sexes, foot binding, dress and the wearing of the queue; the employment in a Chinese setting of language, educational and scientific skills acquired by a Western-style training; and marriage across racial boundaries.\n\nMr. Tin-yuk Char has provided interesting information on the career of Chan Lai-sun. In the light of his suggestion that more information might be forthcoming, I can add a few more facts from material I have collected on the family.\n\nThe careers of Chan Lai-sun and his children are examples of the role marginal Chinese played in the Westernization of China. Chan's mother was probably Malay. His wife Ruth A-tik was born in Indonesia and was not of pure Chinese ancestry. In a list of members of the Presbyterian Mission Church at Ningpo for 1850, she is described as \"Indo-Chinese\". Both as children came under the patronage of foreigners and both received an English language education. Miss Aldersey, the patron of Ruth A-tik, first in Batavia\n\n* This is my interpretation of his remarks and may not be an altogether accurate assessment.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208005, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 44, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "28\n\nLEIGH WRIGHT\n\nThe state of Brunei annual report for 1956 describes the water city, Kampong Ayer, this way,\n\nSet in a wide sweep of the river, this river town is in its way unique. At high tide under favourable conditions of light it takes on quite a remarkable beauty; viewed at close quarters it is even more remarkably ramshackle. The houses are grouped together in small villages, being connected by precarious plank walkways, and there the inhabitants carry on their multifarious activities in much the same way as if they were on land.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 See e.g. O. W. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce; a study of the origins of Srivijaya, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967); and D. E. Brown, Brunei: the structure and history of a Bornean Malay sultanate, (Brunei: Brunei Museum, 1970).\n\nThese works have drawn upon the earlier studies of such scholars as W. P. Groeneveldt (1880) and Lien Sung (1919).\n\n2 See Brown, op. cit., Ch. XI.\n\n3 The fullest account of the Moro wars is in E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson, The Philippine Islands, 1493 - 1898, (Cleveland, 1903 -09).\n\n4 Lord Stanley of Alderley (ed.), The first voyage round the world by Magellan, by Antonio Pigafetta, (London: Hakluyt Society, 1874).\n\n5 J. Hunt, \"Some particulars relative to the Sulo islands in the Archipelago of Felicia”, in Malayan Miscellany, I, (Bencoolen, 1820).\n\n6 James Horsburgh, Directions for sailing to and from the East Indies and China, (London, 1811), the navigational handbook for generations of British sea captains. This work drew heavily upon the surveys of eighteenth century seafarers such as Alexander Dalrymple (1774) and Thomas Forest (1780).\n\n7 S. B. St. John, Life in the forests of the Far East. (London, 1862), Vol. 2, pp. 248-49.\n\n8 British Parliamentary Papers, 1854-55, XXIX (253),\n\n9 Sarawak Gazette, 26 April, 1872.\n\n10 Henry Keppel, The expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido for the suppression of piracy, with extracts from the Journal of James Brooke, Esq. of Sarawak, (London, 1847),\n\n11 S. Baring-Gould and C. A. Bampfylde, A History of Sarawak under its two white rajahs, (London, 1909), pp. 82-83.\n\n12 Lennox Mills, British Malaya, 1824-67, (reprint: Kuala Lumpur, 1966), p. 248.\n\n13 British interests in Borneo are treated extensively in, L. R. Wright, The Origins of British Borneo, (Hong Kong, 1970).\n\n14 See L. R. Wright, \"The Foreign Office and North Borneo\", in Journal of Oriental Studies, Vol. VII, No. 1, (January 1969).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212708, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 17, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "2\n\nof bonnes bouches relating to him and his family. The information, its presentation and language tell us more about William Mesny than about Chinese life. A considerable part of his writings consisted of piecemeal notes or essays written to emphasize, probably unconsciously, both his prominent standing with important Chinese and his foresight as a man of ideas. He played up so many of the episodes in which he was involved that it is difficult not to minimise and even to discount what in practice must have been his quite significant achievements. Three major subjects regularly featured in Mesny's Miscellanies, his economic and political foresight which was inevitably spurned by westerners and Chinese alike; his activities as part of the Chinese imperial military forces in Kueichou quelling a rebellious minority ethnic group; and his wives and women in general.\n\nIn one of his forthright, self-congratulatory moments he wrote, \"The Editor of Mesny's Chinese Miscellany feels that he has a sort of an inspired mission in China to set forth, preach and proclaim the inspiring and magic-working words of Reform and Progress to the inquiring multitudes amongst China's 400 million black-haired people.'\n\nWilliam Mesny (pronounced “May-knee' in Jersey), was brought up in the bilingual Channel Island community speaking English and French. He left home when he was nearly twelve to travel far afield but without ever losing pride in being a Jerseyman and British.\n\nMesny was born at La Croiserie Vingtaine in the parish of Trinity in Jersey on 9 October 1842, the eldest son of William Mesny of Alderney and Marie Rachel née Nicolle, second daughter of Philip Nicolle of du Nord, Jersey. Mesny's father was described in one place as a cobbler, a local preacher preaching several times a year in French and English Wesleyan chapels, and a member of the Royal militia (probably the Jersey Militia). Mesny writing elsewhere in his Miscellany described his parents as poor; his mother was 'bed-ridden' and his father, though a Wesleyan local preacher, was forced to work for a living in attendance on divers engaged in the harbour works, and often repaired his own shoes to save the expense of having them repaired at a shoemaker's. Mesny's father and his grandfather, Guillaume Mesny, were both said to be of St Martin, Jersey, whilst Mesny himself claimed that his roots lay in the ancient family of Megny d'Auregny [i.e. Auregny Alderney]. It has also been recorded that Mesny's father and grandfather had both been born and brought up in Alderney with the father moving to Jersey at some stage. Guillaume's brothers included the great grandfather of Miss Lucie", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212709, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 18, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "3\n\nMesny, currently of St Lawrence in Jersey.\n\nMesny was sent to a dame school at the age of five run by a widow named Todd with two grown-up daughters to help her. After a visit by a school master Mesny was sent to his school but complained that as the school master did not appear to understand how to manage him, he often played truant, went bird nesting and fishing, and rode his grandmother's mare, Old Violet, without saddle or bridle. The schoolmaster complained to Mesny's father about his behaviour and having been chastised in a very painful manner he decided to leave school and go to work. In his 'Recollections', part of his obituary, he was said to have been educated at the National School, St Anne's in Alderney, which presumably is where he was taught by the schoolmaster who did not understand him.\n\nAt the age of eight he obtained a job in a brickfield making dabs and helping to make bricks, at four pence a day. The brickfield soon closed and when another opened up some distance away he got a job there at six pence a day. But again this did not last long and he was out of work. He then got himself a job as a stone cutter at eight pence a day, a job he liked. The stone cutters had a smithy for repairing and sharpening their tools and he soon learnt how to sharpen and temper the tools in a fairly satisfactory manner. At this point the Government decided to build forts along the coast of Jersey and Mesny obtained work there at much better pay. He was soon taken along as an assistant by the architect who gave him a shilling a day to carry the plans and instruments for him. Mesny soon learnt how to draw simple plans and use the theodolite, and after the first year proved so useful that his pay was increased to one and sixpence a day. This was a great help to his parents, especially when Mesny obtained extra work with the contractor of the works as an assistant in the blasting department. Here he learnt how to make cartridges for mining and blasting under water, and also how to blow the bugle to warn of blasting. When the work was completed in 1854 he was discharged with excellent testimonials and was filling in time. One day wandering near the quay he heard that the cutter Napier was leaving for Cherbourg and was one hand short. His offer of service was taken up and he jumped aboard in the clothes he stood up in and shouted to a friend to tell his parents that he might be back in a week or ten days. The Crimean War was then in full swing and the naval port of Cherbourg was full of soldiers and sailors going to the Crimea. When he returned to Jersey he was paid", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212766, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 75, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "60\n\nfor 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.\n\nNOTE\n\nTcheng 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.\n\nAppendix B\n\nChronology\n\nas claimed by\n\nWilliam Mesny\n\n[Extracted from details within the Miscellanies]\n\n9 October 1842\n1847\n\nMesny born in Jersey\n\n?\n\n1850\n\n1850-1854\n\n1854\n\n1860 December\n\n1861 February\n\n1861\n\n1861-1862\n\n1862 February\nMarch\nApril 1862\nMay 1862\n\nDame School\n\nNational School St Anne's, Alderney\nLeft school\n\nWorked at brick making, stone cutting with a smithy and on Channel Island fortifications. He also worked in blasting and as an architect's assistant.\n\nLeft home, went to sea and sailed to Africa, Australia and the Americas\n\nArrived on the China coast and disembarked at Shanghai\nLeft Shanghai for Hong Kong\n\nRomantic interlude with Huang family in Hong Kong where he bore the name of Huang Chin-fu\n\n3rd Turnkey Hong Kong Gaol\n\nReturned to Shanghai aboard the SS Aden\n\nTravelled up the Yangtze and arrived at Hankow\nMaster of the Hat Liang-wang on the Yangtze based in Shanghai, running the Taiping blockade:\n\nWounded and captured by Imperial Chinese gunboats at Kuan Yin Shan on the Yangtze\n\nRescued by the gunboat HMS Banterer and secured the release of\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 } ]