[
    {
        "id": 214159,
        "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": 17,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "visits or persons who helped in any other way. We are pleased a number of you who have helped have been able to accept our invitation to dinner here tonight. I would add however that, in spite of their many hours of work, no Council member receives a free dinner this evening!\n\nThe position of Activities Chairperson is demanding and, this year, it has been ably filled by Valery Garrett. Her Committee has consisted of the Reverend Carl Smith, Doctors Elizabeth Sinn, Michael Lau, Patrick Hase and Joseph Ting, as well as Sarah Parnell, Peter Stuckey, Jason Wordie and Geoffrey Roper. The considerable amount of work put in by Geoffrey, planning and organising the two trips to the China Mainland, underwrote their success. We are extremely grateful to all the above members, together with anyone else who made the past year of activities so eventful.\n\nProjects\n\nProjects carried out during 1998/1999, in addition to the photographic exhibition on the Landmark Bridge mentioned earlier, included two projects in conjunction with the British Association of Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA) (see Appendix C). One project was to try to trace seven graves of Europeans buried in Hong Kong or elsewhere in China. The second project, also in conjunction with the BACSA, was to help two of our overseas members, Rosemary Lee and Captain A C Bromfield, research the life of Master Mariner Samuel Cornell Plant, who died at sea in 1921. Research on the latter project is continuing. In another case our member, Dr K Gaseltine, assisted the National Library of China for one week in Beijing (see Appendix C). It is laudable that your Branch has been able to link up with other associations or institutions to undertake these projects and we are extremely grateful to all our members who gave of their time and efforts (and in the case of the library project supported herself financially).\n\nThe RAS Volunteers\n\nIn 1991 a number of RASHKB members, together with members from the Hong Kong Society of Architects, formed a working group to assist the Government Antiquities and Monuments Office with the inspection of buildings. In 1997 this group was reactivated and it now consists entirely of RASHKB members. Believing that one volunteer\n\nxvi",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214568,
        "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": 426,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "TRACING GRAVES IN HONG KONG: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY\n\nDAN WATERS\n\n395\n\nIn a letter dated 4 April 1998, the RASHKB received a request from the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA) to try to trace seven graves in Hong Kong. The BACSA had received these requests from the dead persons' relatives, living in Britain, who were seeking information regarding the whereabouts of the graves. Apart from names and in four cases exact dates (in the other three cases approximate dates) of deaths, no other information was, I was informed, available. We were not told, for instance, the dead persons' religions or denominations which made the search more difficult.\n\nThe first attempt to track down the graves amounted to the best part of a Saturday afternoon which I spent in what, up to the early 1970s was known as the Colonial Cemetery, in Happy Valley on Hong Kong Island. It is now called the Hong Kong Cemetery. This is mainly Protestant although there are a few Japanese and Chinese buried there who were not Christians. On plan, the cemetery is divided into sections. There, with the help of Mr Pau Chi-sing the full-time cemetery attendant, after searching the register, I was eventually able to find three graves. Names, dates of deaths, sections in the cemetery and grave numbers are as follows:\n\nBoyle, Shirley Florence, 5 November 1945, Section 16F, Grave 10232\n\nBoyle, Florence Ruby, 12 August 1968, Section 45, Grave 7423\n\nCornell, Francis Heawood, October 1908, Section 16, Grave 11772\n\nBearing in mind the ages of the graves, with no relatives or friends locally (one supposes) to look after them, they are in reasonable condition. Some settlement has taken place and gravestones are in need of repairs in some cases. Cleaning and re-polishing are necessary. As a result names are not always easy to read which made finding the graves more difficult. The last headstone mentioned above (Cornell), which is surmounted by a cross, has settled especially badly.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214570,
        "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": 428,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "397\n\nas, post 1945.\n\nOne would expect, bearing in mind that many of Hong Kong's records were destroyed during the Japanese occupation (1941-1945), that these last two would be the easiest of the seven to trace. The help of the staff of the Urban Services Department was again sought. They searched the registers of the Jewish and Muslim Cemeteries, and further searches were again made in the Hong Kong Cemetery and the Catholic Cemetery. But still we were unable to locate the two missing graves. A search was also made by Mr Derek Cheng, cemetery attendant at the Stanley Cemetery, but without success.\n\nIn addition a search was made in the Government Public Records Office, at Kwun Tong, for the birth certificates of Knox and Moss. Again we were unsuccessful. A discussion was also held with an Immigration Department Officer in the Government Births and Deaths Registry. He informed me that unless more information could be obtained, including places of death (for example a hospital), it was extremely unlikely that the death certificates of the two could be traced. Search fees of HK$140.00 for the first and HK$680.00 for a second more general search would be charged for each person. This information has been passed back through BACSA to the relatives.\n\nThe seven dead persons were all British and it is therefore unlikely that they would have been buried in the delightful little Chiu Yuen (meaning bright and faraway) Eurasian Cemetery, on Hong Kong Island, or in one of the many Chinese cemeteries. Although cremation was rare until more recently (in 1958/59 only 1.65 per cent of corpses in Hong Kong were cremated1), it is just possible these two dead persons' bodies were disposed of in this way. Their ashes could have been scattered (very few are in Hong Kong) or placed in an urn, in a niche, in a columbarium. It is even more unlikely that the bones of these persons, being Europeans, would be placed in an ossuary. Again, it is unlikely that either of the two would have been buried on the China Mainland (although Moss, having died 'post 1945, could have been) after the People's Republic Government came to power in 1949.\n\nIt should be mentioned that all four graves that we found were located in pleasant surroundings close to, or under trees. Again the two",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214571,
        "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": 429,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "398\n\ncemeteries, although a little overgrown in places, are generally well tended.\n\nI am grateful for the assistance given to me by the staff of the Urban Services Department, the Public Records Office and the Immigration Department, and by the Reverend Carl Smith in locating, and trying to locate these graves.\n\nAmong the work the RASHKB undertakes, including publishing journals and books, and organising lectures, and local and overseas visits, our Branch also undertakes a number of projects of varying types. Tracing or trying to trace the above seven graves is just one example. By working together with BACSA the RASHKB was also able to provide a community service.\n\nNOTES\n\nDan Waters, 'Chinese Funerals: A Case Study', Journal of HKBRAS, V31, 1991 (1996), P.118.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215683,
        "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-2001",
        "page_number": 460,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "412\n\nHe was 55 years old. His wife died on 28th February, 1921 in the Hong Kong Civil Hospital. Both are buried in Section 12 of the Hong Kong Cemetery. (photograph)\n\nOn reading the report of their funeral in the Hong Kong press, another mystery emerges - that of their two adopted daughters.\n\nIn our research we found mention of them only once, in the detailed report of the funeral in the South China Morning Post of 3rd March, 1921. Theirs was a large funeral conducted by the Bishop of North China and attended by representatives from the large shipping companies as well as the Navy. We read.... 'The chief mourners were the two Chinese adopted daughters of the deceased...,' whom, it goes on to say, were to be looked after by Butterfield and Swire 'pending ascertainment of the provision made for them by their deceased guardians.' Nowhere else have we found mention of these children.\n\nWhat happened to them?\n\nIn publishing this short article we hope to hear from readers who may be able to contribute to the completion of the Plant story.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nOur interest in the Plant family was aroused on reading Simon Winchester's book The River at the Centre of the World. Thanks go to Dr. D. D. Waters, Past President of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Mrs. May Holdsworth, Ms. Charlotte Bleasdale of Swires, Mrs. Merilyn Hywel-Jones from BACSA, the Pyatt family who researched and photographed the Plant grave in Happy Valley Cemetery in Hong Kong, and to Major Arthur Kirby of the Framlingham and District Local History and Preservation Society. Po Leung Kuk in Hong Kong and the Office of Cemeteries and Cremations, Urban Services Department, Hong Kong, also searched their records. All took a sustained interest in this project and gave willingly of their time to help with research.\n\n1 [Hon. Ed. - Does anyone know what became of it?]",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]