[ { "id": 204243, "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-1961", "page_number": 11, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n8\n\nand contributions from the community, it built a commodious home for itself with a spacious lecture room and provided accommodation for its very valuable library and museum. In Hong Kong we hope that some facilities may be afforded in the new City Hall for societies like ours but if our plans are to mature we need a meeting place of our own where we can build up an Oriental library which should fill a special need which cannot be supplied by the University, whose library is not readily accessible to the public, or by the new City Hall, whose library will probably be of a wider popular interest.\n\nAs the basis of our projected library we propose to print a sufficient number of our periodical journals to enable us to exchange periodicals with kindred societies in other parts of the world. We also propose in our journal to review books on Oriental affairs which may bring us a useful nucleus of publications. Until we have enough money to buy books it would be greatly appreciated if members who have any books of interest and connected with the objects of the Society would kindly remember that any gifts of books and journals would be most welcome.\n\nThe Branch is greatly indebted to benefactors who have been generous with donations. In Sir Richard Winstedt's message on its formation he expressed the hope that both European and Chinese firms with their accustomed generosity would help to foster the growth of a Branch of high promise. This hope was realised in the donations received of 500 dollars each from Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., and The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, and 250 dollars from Mr. Ellis Hayim. Then in April last year there came a munificent gift from an anonymous donor who is not now resident in the Colony. This was the gift of 10,000 dollars in memory of Arthur de Carl Sowerby, a great authority on the natural history of China, who was the founder and curator of the museum of the Society in Shanghai. These contributions have enabled us to put aside a capital fund which will help us in our aims for the future while yielding a useful interest in the meantime. It is greatly hoped that other merchant houses and individuals in the Colony may, without any direct appeal, emulate the example of these benefactors and help us to build up a Branch of the Society in Hong Kong worthy of the heritage which Professor Drake in his inaugural address coupled with the corresponding task which such heritage implied.\n\nDuring the year there was little change amongst the officers and members of the Council. Mr. Endacott resigned owing to pressure of work and the vacancy was filled in accordance with the rules by the co-option of The Hon. A. G. Clarke. Mr.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204530, "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-1963", "page_number": 11, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "The Honorary Treasurer has submitted a statement of accounts which appears eminently satisfactory. It shows an excess of income over expenditure of $1,708.18. I wish, however, to stress the point that the income from the annual membership fees is $4,779.55 from 240 members but the expenses of the Society amount to $6,605.15. The deficit is made good partly by the receipts from the sale of journals but mainly by the income from capital investments derived from the gift of $10,000 made by a generous and anonymous donor in memory of the late Arthur de Carl Sowerby on the re-establishment of the Society. It is the Council's aim to reserve the income from investments, to build up a fund for a library and for the permanent interests of the Society, and to increase the income from annual subscriptions to meet our annual expenses. For the present annual subscription of $20 members receive all the benefit of the lectures during the year and a free copy of the Journal, which together cost the Society nearly 40 per cent over the amount of their subscriptions. In order to enable the Society to work on a steady basis we need an addition of another 100 members. At the end of 1962 we had on our books 33 life members and 247 ordinary members including 8 overseas members. There has been a gratifying and steady increase each year, but each year many resign on their departure from the Colony, while too many go away on leave and forget to pay their subscriptions. The Treasurer and the Secretary are both busy people who have neither the time nor the staff to collect past dues, and it would greatly lessen their burden if members would make their subscriptions payable by Banker's Orders or become life members.\n\nThe present membership of somewhat over 240 members represents a permanent nucleus of those who are interested in our cultural heritage in the Colony; but as H.E. Sir Robert Black, our patron, said two years ago: \"There are many times this number who are interested both in the cultural life and history of this part of the world, which has great riches to offer to anybody interested in research, or in studying and inquiring about the inheritance which we all enjoy who live here.\" Hong Kong provides the greatest opportunity in the world today for a meeting of minds between East and West. East may remain East and West, West, but here, more than anywhere else, if the world is to be one, they must meet.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205935, "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": 15, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "and by Professor Thrower. Again it will be seen that the modest subscription of $30 a year, for which apart from the ordinary amenities of the Society members receive a free copy of all the Society's publications, falls far short of the costs of running the Society. The gap is as usual bridged mainly by interest from investments, bank interest and the sale of journals. Our investments at the end of 1969 showed a market value of $52,855 against cost of $43,554. The origin of our investments was the anonymous gift of $10,000 by a friend in 1947 in memory of Arthur de Carl Sowerby, who was the founder and curator of the Society's museum in Shanghai and a great authority on the natural history of China. This was supplemented by a gift of $5,000 by the late Stanley Smith in aid of the Society's funds in 1965.\n\nThere have been no changes in the Council of the Society during the year except that the vacant office of Vice Chairman in place of Prof. K. E. Robinson was filled by the appointment by the Council under Rule 11 of the constitution of Mr. J. W. Hayes who has been Editor of the Journal since 1966 and whose scholarly contributions to it and his popular tours of historic Hong Kong have been so greatly appreciated. The Council is a hard working body and meets at least once a month, and its activities involve a great deal of time and labour. Every member has his particular function and role to fulfil, apart from his general contribution to the Council work.\n\nIt has been a great pleasure to work for ten years with such harmonious and hardworking colleagues, and I want to thank them for their loyalty and for the unremitting help they have given me over the last ten years. In resigning at this juncture from the Presidency I do so with great regret, but am happy in the knowledge that the future of the Society is in safe hands.\n\nIn conclusion I want to thank the British Council for its continued support and for all the services it provides for the Society. I want last but not least to pay tribute to and thank, both on my own behalf and that of the Society, Mrs. O'Hara of the British Council for her willing and ready help during those ten years which all members of the Council have good reason to appreciate. She is an indispensable repository of the infinite details connected with the secretarial work, and her ready and\n\nPage 15\n\nPage 16", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214314, "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-1998", "page_number": 172, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "136\n\nI am grateful to the Reverend Carl Smith for the following information:\n\nAn announcement from a China mail of 1925. Married, at Shanghai, yesterday, Miss Clarice Sara Moise, to Mr. Arthur de Carle Sowerby, publisher of the China Journal of Arts and Science. Will of wife, Clarice Clara Sowerby, probated in Hong Kong in 1948, written in Shanghai 1933, in favour of her husband Arthur de Carle Sowerby of Shanghai, and son, Arthur Mesny de Carle Sowerby. Sister, Nina Ethel Moise. Will of Sowerby himself: Arthur etc., probated in Hong Kong, 1955, Arthur de Carle Sowerby, scientist, at present residing at Fairfax Hotel (?), 2100 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington DC. Wife, Alice Muriel Sowerby. If predeceased, sister-in-law, Nina Ethel Moise, 6485 San Marco Circle, Hollywood, to receive half; and son, Arthur Mesny de Carle Sowerby, to get the other half. Will written 7th November, 1949. A death record of Arthur de Carle Sowerby, 16th August 1954.\n\nCarl Smith also commented that it was known that Sowerby had children (sic) by a Chinese woman. It would appear that most expatriates in Shanghai were unaware of Sowerby's first marriage in Tientsin to William Mesny's niece, Mary Anne, and that the reference to the 'children by a Chinese woman,' remembering that Mary Anne's mother had been Chinese, suggests that Sowerby's first marriage had been quietly 'forgotten.'\n\ni The bandits were referred to as the Ko-lao Hui, the Elder Brother Society, an old powerful secret society, membership to which was strictly forbidden by the Ch'ing government and punishable by death. Their gangs robbed and killed far and wide as well as causing trouble with their inter-gang feuding.\n\nii The British Residents' Association was formed in 1931 to enable long-term residents to have a say in the running of the Concession. At about the same time, in order to support the authorities in the Concession following the recent troubles and crises, a body known as the Shanghai Fascisti was organised, and led for a while by Sowerby. The Fascists at this time were regarded by many as an honourable force against encroaching communism.\n\niii John Mesny died in 1884 in Hankow leaving a widow and eight children, all under the age of sixteen.\n\niv Davidson-Houston, JV: Armed Pilgrimage : Robert Hale Ltd : London: 1949\n\nv Journal of Oriental Studies Vol. II. No. 1. January 1955 [University of Hong Kong]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 } ]