[
    {
        "id": 206284,
        "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-1971",
        "page_number": 101,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG\n\n95\n\ntwo European partners of the firm, with the intention of building Chinese houses of a better type to accommodate the wives and families of the growing class of well-to-do compradores. Previously the compradores had not brought their families to Hong Kong but they remained in their home village or in Canton. The editor of The China Mail comments that \"Messrs. Dent and Company have shown both wisdom and kindness in disposing of their land for such purposes.\n\nChiu Wing Tsun (†), one of the purchasers, and his elder brother, Yuk Ting (†), had both been compradores in Dent and Company. Their nephew Chiu Yee Chee () was compradore at Shanghai and became one of the organizers of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company in 1872. Chiu Wing Tsun died at Macao in 1873, leaving property in Hong Kong estimated at $111,000.27 Yeong Lan Ko (☎), the other Chinese purchaser of the Dent property, had succeeded his relative Yeong Atai (*) alias Yeong Chun Kum, to the position of first compradore of Dents at Hong Kong upon the latter's death in 1870. Yeong Lan Ko alias Yeong Sun Yow (), and also known as Asam (), was one of Hong Kong's largest landowners. In 1876 he was the nineteenth largest rate-payer and in 1881 had risen to fifth position. He died in 1884 at Pak Shan, the family village in Heung Shan District.\n\nBefore Dents sold their property, the few substantial Chinese who had family residences in Hong Kong were located at the former Middle Bazaar site. When the inhabitants of the Middle Bazaar had been relocated at Tai Ping Shan, the Government replotted the area and laid off new lots which were meant to be bought principally by Europeans for their residences or business houses.28 Two of the more substantial Chinese bought lots at the sale in 1844: Ying Wing Kee (*) alias Ng Wing Kee (**), a compradore and merchant who died in 1849, and Tong Kam Sing, a contractor who died in 1845. Other Chinese of this class soon bought lots from European owners, that they might establish family houses in a better part of town. These included Wei Akwong, compradore of Bowra and Company and later of the Chartered Mercantile Bank; Ho Sek, compradore of Lyall, Still and Company; Lee Kip Tye, a Fukien broker who began his Hong Kong career as a Government interpreter;",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206299,
        "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-1971",
        "page_number": 116,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "110\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nBoarding School at Singapore of the American Board. One was Leung Tsun Tak (梁遵德) who was employed as an interpreter at the Hong Kong Magistracy. He was a son of Leung Afat (梁亞佛) an ordained evangelist of the London Missionary Society,49 The other lad was Wei Akwong (韋阿光) whom Bridgman had picked up sick and starving on the streets of Macao some years previous. Akwong, unlike the other Chinese we have been mentioning, never received baptism. At first he assisted Bridgman in his missionary work in Hong Kong, but when Bridgman moved to Canton in 1845 Akwong remained in Hong Kong. He became compradore for the ship chandlers and storekeepers Bowra and Company, but in 1855 was appointed Supreme Court Interpreter in Chinese and Malay. In 1857 when the Mercantile Bank of India, London and China opened its Hong Kong office, Wei Akwong became the bank's compradore. He retained this office until his death in 1878 and was succeeded by his son Wei Ayuk (韋亞玉) alias Wei Bo Shan (韋寶臣). Wei Akwong was a recognized leader of the Chinese community, and his name appears on numerous petitions and memorials. Like Wong Shing he sent his sons abroad to study. His eldest son Wei Yuk married a daughter of Wong Shing, and followed in the footsteps of his father-in-law by serving on the Legislative Council from 1896 to 1917.50 He was knighted in 1919 and died in 1922.\n\nThe Bishop of Victoria had under his patronage upon his arrival in Hong Kong in 1850, a young Chinese whom he had met in England. Chan Tai Kwong (陳大光) was a native of Pun Yu District of Kwang Tung, but he turned up in England in 1845 as a young man aged eighteen. How he got to England and what he was doing there, I have not been able to determine, but in 1849 the newly appointed Bishop of Victoria met him and took him under his patronage, with the hope that he could be trained as an evangelist among the Chinese. Soon after coming to Hong Kong, Tai Kwong was sent to Singapore to marry Gay Eng, also known as Sarah Hughes, a pupil in the school for Chinese girls conducted by Miss Grant. Upon his return to Hong Kong he was placed on three years' probation before ordination, but the Bishop did license him to preach to the prisoners in the Victoria Gaol. Chan Tai Kwong, however, had difficulties in adjusting to his new position. His experience in",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212496,
        "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": 50,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "30\n\nenterprises,\" but also challenged their foreign counterparts by planning, organising, and managing most of the modern Chinese enterprises. As Thomas Rawski has pointed out, Western firms in Chinese treaty-ports such as Shanghai were ineffectual on their own; they had to rely on Chinese compradors to conduct business with their Chinese associates. Cantonese compradors were in such a position that they could dominate the main business in Shanghai during the nineteenth century where they had fully shown their special entrepreneur genius.\"\n\nNotes\n\nAssessment of recent studies of Chinese ethnic groups is mainly quoted from Emily Honig (1992) pp. 6-7\n\n2\n\nAs Yen-p'ing Hao mentioned most of the Cantonese compradors came from the coastal prefectures of Guangdong province as Zhongshan, Nanhai and Panyu See Hao (1970a). p. 13\n\n1\n\nFor sample of letter of recommendation for comprador used in the 1870s, see Appendix\n\n+\n\nHKRS#144-245 Wong Kong (August 1867)\n\n4 Hao has explained why Western firms in Japan employed Chinese instead of Japanese compradors. See Hao (1970a), pp. 51-9\n\n6 The first three British firms opened were Dent & Co. (first established Canton, 1832), and Gibb, Livingston & Co. (1836 in Canton)\n\n7 Wei came from the Zhongshan prefecture, his father was a comprador to two American merchants Benjamin Chew Wilcocks and Oliver H. Gorden. He followed a missionary and moved from Canton to Hong Kong. In 1852 he entered Bowra & Co. as a comprador and five years later when the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China established a branch in Hong Kong he joined the Bank as its first comprador. See Smith (1985), pp. 62-9 and Wei A Kwong's will, HKRS#144-368: Wei A Kwong (October 1866), Wei Yuk's brother Wei Long Shan went to Shanghai to learn business in 1871. He returned to Hong Kong after twelve years and then became comprador to the Eastern Extension and Great Northern Telegraph Co. from 1882 to 1902. He was also assistant comprador at the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank from 1885 to 1895.\n\nIn the absence of sufficient sources, it is difficult to assess Wei's wealth accumulated during his comprador's years.\n\nThe Ho family, beginning with Ho Tung, was called a comprador family. Ho introduced his two brothers Ho Fuk and Ho Kom Tong as assistant compradors to Jardine who later succeeded him; his adopted son Ho Sai Wing was the Hong Kong Bank's comprador through thirty-four years from 1912 to 1964. Ho Sai Wing's brothers: Ho Sai Iu was comprador of the Mercantile Bank of India, Ho Sai Kwong of David Sassoon & Co.; Ho Sai Leung of Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ho Sai Ki of Arnhold & Co. Ho Sai Wa, son of Ho Kom Tong was an assistant comprador in Mercantile Bank. See Group Archives of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Comprador Files. Ho Sai Wing. Ho Fuk (Ho Fook)'s son was said to have assisted him in Jardine's work.\n\n10 This company was said to have close business relations with Shanghai's Ting Tai firm.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
        "rank": 0
    }
]