[
    {
        "id": 212475,
        "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-1991",
        "page_number": 29,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "ports. He received a lot of honours from many countries including a baronetcy and other decorations from Britain and China. He was said to have been a “leading expert in insurance, shipping and the import and export business,” and also \"director of eighteen of the leading companies in Hong Kong and Shanghai, chairman and largest shareholder of a number of them.\" We know little of the details of his investments in the modern business in Hong Kong, Canton, or Shanghai, but we understand that he had an investment in some guandu-shangban enterprises and had close relations with Chinese officials. He was probably a multimillionaire by the turn of the century. It was known that when he worked in Jardines, he had been the manager of Jardine's affiliates, the Hong Kong Fire Insurance Co., Ltd. and the Canton Insurance Co., Ltd. He had invested in refined and raw sugar in Shanghai and most of the Yangzi and northern ports of China. He owned a lot of landed properties in Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, Tsingtao (Qingdao), and London. He was a director of Humphreys Estate and Finance Co. Ltd., Hong Kong Reclamation Co., Ltd., and Hong Kong Hotel Co., Ltd. at the end of the nineteenth century.\n\nLaw Pak Sheung was the first comprador to the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank when it opened in 1865, and remained the chief comprador until his death in 1877. Law came from the port of Whampoa in Canton. His life in Hong Kong proved very successful. He was an organising director of the Tung Wah Hospital from 1869 to 1871. It became the leading Chinese charitable institution in Hong Kong.\n\nPage 10\n\nLaw died in 1877. He had interests in at least five businesses as mentioned in his will. He might also have had other business interests which were in the name of his sons or other relatives. The five firms mentioned in the will were a ship chartering office, a store, a gold dealer's shop, a native bank, and a general trading company. These he left to his third son Lo Hok Pang (Luo Hepeng), who succeeded him as comprador. In 1879, two years after the death of Law Pak Sheung, his son was said to have had connections with Chinese banks and had invested in a number of firms. He was regarded as one of the leading businessmen in the Chinese community; this was in addition to his position as a comprador. Law might also have had business interests in Canton or elsewhere which were not mentioned in his Hong Kong will. The testator's shares in insurance companies and a Chinese newspaper are signs of one who has moved away from strictly Chinese business enterprises, though the insurance shares were not large, but these were",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
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    },
    {
        "id": 216357,
        "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-2003",
        "page_number": 116,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "65\n\nshe continued to be kept i.e. paid ($30 a month) by me till I went home on leave in 1866, we never lived together afterwards and very rarely met. Between 1858 & 1864 she gave birth to three children. In 1866 the connection was dissolved and Ayaou was then presented with $3000 when she surrendered her children to my agent and herself married a Chinaman. The children were sent to England and it was arranged that W. Hutchins my lawyer should take charge of them: I then entrusted him with £6000 for their benefit. They were described as my wards and were named respectively Anna, Herbert and Arthur. At the time W. Hutchins took charge they were lodging with one of the employees of Smith, Elder & Co. Anna died some years ago: [,] Arthur went about the same time to Canada and recently Herbert left England to join him there. I never saw any of the children of Ayaou's since they left China, and, while in China, I believe I only saw Anna twice or three times, Herbert once, and Arthur never. As they were all born while Ayaou was kept by me I decided to provide them respectably, and did so, rather than leave them to their fate in China. Ayaou was a very good little girl & well-behaved but we were not married, and she was not my wife, and her children were illegitimate.\n\nI was married to Hester Jane Bredon in 1866: [,] she is my wife: [.] I was never married to any other: [,] her son Edgar Bruce is my only legitimate son, and is the legitimate heir to the Baronetcy!\n\nI certify the above statement to be true in every respect,\n\nRobert Hart (signature) Peitaiho, 19th August 1905\n\nDeclaration 2., Item 12:\n\n1. In the year 1857 when in China I formed a connection with a Chinese girl named Ayaon.* At that time it was a common practice",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216359,
        "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-2003",
        "page_number": 118,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "67\n\nShortly after this incident in his letter to his London agent and confidant, James Duncan Campbell (ibid: 1478), Hart responded to the attempts at blackmail by one of his wards, Herbert, who demanded money from him:\n\nMy principle, in a general sense, is to \"face the music\" and pay no \"blackmail\" - but this has to be whittled into fitting form so as to cause as little worry as possible to others. I wish you had dipped deeper into my purse and sent off Herbert with £100 instead of only a \"Five Pound Note\".\n\nIn the same letter, Hart also referred to an incident in 1904 involving the two wards (ibid: 1479):\n\nI dare say we shall hear more of Herbert and Arthur from Canada: already a year ago someone who signed \"E. B. Hart\" wrote me from Canada saying a young man was moving about using my name (possibly Arthur) and asking me to authorise denial!\n\nIn the end of the letter Hart also wrote a post script mentioning that Lady Hart and her daughter, Nollie, planned to visit America, even this caused him disquiet (ibid);\n\nLady H. and Nollie propose visiting America this autumn: I don't want to dissuade them, but it is possible Herbert may find them out and something disagreeable may occur.\n\nIt indicates that Hart was concerned by these recurring troubles. He realised the repercussions of his 'mistake' were far from over. It is in this context that he wrote the first statutory declaration - Declaration 1, dated 19th August 1905, only 8 days after he wrote the letter mentioned above to Campbell. In the declaration, Hart, after detailing his non-marital relationship with Ayaou and the illegitimacy of his three children by her, declares clearly that \"I was married to Hester Jane Bredon in 1866; she is my wife: her son Edgar Bruce is my only legitimate son, and is the legitimate heir to the Baronetcy!\" It is obvious that although Hart was annoyed with Herbert for his attempts at blackmail, Hart's main concern is not money but the inheritance of his title. The fact that Herbert himself made claim in the newspaper - \"eldest son of Sir Robert Hart\" - and also the possibility that Arthur moved about using Hart's",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216361,
        "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-2003",
        "page_number": 120,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "69\n\n6\n\npossible conflagration” (ibid: 1478). Although both Hart and Lady Hart were deeply concerned about the issue, they may each have had a different focus. For Hart, his main priority was his considerable reputation as Inspector General (I.G.) of the CIMC - a position of importance spanning almost forty years at this stage (1905) and inheritance of his title - the Baronetcy, while Lady Hart's main concerns were domestic matters and family interest. She married Hart in 1866 when she was 18 and Hart was 31 years of age (Bell, 1985: 24). After marriage, she spent ten years living with Hart in Beijing and then prepared herself to see the wider world. She left China in 1882 and did not return again until 1906. She “enjoyed living alone” (Bell, 1903), “a house in a good part of London, together with a handsome allowance and costly presents, all provided by Hart” (Bruner, Fairbank and Smith 1986: 323). Although Hart did not tell her anything about Ayaou and his three children by her in the first few months of their falling in love, he did later confess to the \"mistakes\" he made. She took Hart's advice and married him for the future and established a firm marital relationship with him. However, she certainly did not want to see the previous relationship between Hart and Ayaou causing any trouble during her married life. The incident orchestrated by Herbert must have worried her and made her feel the need for a legal document to prevent her family from being troubled by the wards or their descendants after Hart's death, perhaps particularly, with regard to the inheritance of his title and property.\n\nHart's confession to the relationship with Ayaou\n\nIn Declaration 1 and 2, Hart gives a full statement of his relationship with Ayaou. This provides us with a version of his confession that might well indicate the way in which he confessed to the relationship before. Although Hart completely severed his relationship with Ayaou before returning home on leave in 1866, it seemed it was not possible for him to look to the future without some shadow of the past. Hart felt all the awkwardness of his position when confessing to his fiancée Miss Hester Jane Bredon. In his diary, 13 June 1866, Hart writes:\n\n“Let the dead past bury its dead:”- that is easy enough: what is not so easy is to keep the future free from intrusiveness on the part of the products of the past. Does complete confidence mean “to have no secrets for the future”, or “to reveal all that has been done in the past”? (Smith, Fairbank, Burner 1991: 384)\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]