[
    {
        "id": 207011,
        "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-1974",
        "page_number": 82,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "\"OH FOR THE JOYS OF ENGLAND\"\n\nLT. ORLANDO BRIDGEMAN'S LETTERS FROM CHINA AND HONG KONG, 1842 - 1843\n\nROBIN MCLACHLAN*\n\nLieutenant Orlando Bridgeman was a minor participant in British activities in China in the early 1840's. Mention of this quite unimportant subaltern is not likely to be found in any of the dozens of histories and memoirs narrating the First Anglo-Chinese War and the early years of Hong Kong. However, Orlando Bridgeman has left us his own personal record of his sojourn in the Far East in the form of several entertaining, if somewhat illegible, letters preserved in the archives of the Nottingham County Record Office.1** His correspondence home provides the rare opportunity of seeing what life could be like in the Far East for a very homesick and bored young British officer on his first overseas service. The impression that Bridgeman gives of life in China and Hong Kong is quite different from the more romantic and adventurous picture provided by more experienced and hardier souls. For Bridgeman, his time there was little more than an adventure in misery.\n\nLimited biographical information on Orlando Bridgeman can be gleaned from Hart's Annual Army Lists and Burke's Peerage.2 His full name was Orlando Jack Charles Bridgeman; he was born in 1823, the younger son of Captain Orlando Henry Bridgeman (1794-1827) and his wife, Selina. Both parents were the children of British aristocracy; his father was the third son (of four) of Baron Bradford and his mother was the daughter of the Earl of Kilmorey. The careers of the four sons of Baron Bradford comply with the popular stereotype of careers followed by the sons of eighteenth and nineteenth century British nobility. The eldest son, of course, succeeded to the family title; for the second, third and fourth sons there were careers in the navy, army and church respectively. Following their schooling at Harrow, both Orlando Jack Charles Bridgeman and his brother, Francis Orlando Henry, followed their\n\n* Mr. McLachlan is a member of the Department of Far Eastern History at the Australian National University.\n\n**The notes to this article will be found at the end.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207018,
        "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-1974",
        "page_number": 89,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "BRIDGEMAN'S LETTERS FROM CHINA AND HONG KONG\n\n83\n\nThere is a gap of several months between the second-last and last of Bridgeman's letters. The last letter was written on October 29, 1843 following his release from hospital where he had been ill with dysentry.23 He told his sister that he was still ill and very weak, but (perhaps on account of illness) he was coming home—at last.\n\nLittle information can be found on Orlando's subsequent life and career. We know that he continued with the 98th Regiment as a lieutenant until sometime in 1845, when he was transferred to the 11th Regiment of Hussars (Prince Albert's Own).24 Undoubtedly to Orlando's delight, this regiment was stationed in England, first at Newbridge and then at Coventry. Bridgeman served as a lieutenant with the 11th Hussars until sometime in 1847 when he appears to have quit the army.25 From 1847 until his death on October 4, 1913 at the age of ninety, he seems to have led a completely obscure life.26 The 1914 edition of Burke's Peerage described him as a “late” lieutenant in the 11th Hussars, a post he had held almost seventy years before. He died unmarried,\n\nReading Orlando's letters today one is inclined to picture him as something of a whining prig who found cause for complaint with everyone and everything. At his best, one might be charitable and describe him as retiring and sensitive. With his concern for the effects of the noon day sun and his distaste for unnecessary perspiration, he certainly was not suited to the rigorous and hard life of punitive expeditions in an expanding empire. Neither did he desire to join the rowdy drinking of his fellow officers, but preferred the company of his singing canaries. A Flashman he was not. Or was he? As with any historical document, one must keep in mind for whom the documents were written, in this case a sister. What sort of letter did he send his brother Francis, a captain in the 45th Regiment? We will probably never know, but one hopes that he told his brother that he joined Captain Balfour's farewell party, for a cup of tea at least.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207019,
        "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-1974",
        "page_number": 90,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "84\n\nROBIN MCLACHLAN\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Nottingham County Record Office, Bristowe Papers - DDBB 113, items 31-39. The dates and places of writing of the seven letters relevant to this paper are: No. 33, Hong Kong, February 12, 1843; No. 34, H.M.S. Melville on the Yangtze off Nanking, August 16(?), 1842; No. 35, Chusan, October 11, 1842; No. 36, Hong Kong, November 25, 1842; No. 37, Hong Kong, December 18, 1842; No. 38, Hong Kong, May 6, 1843; and No. 39, Hong Kong, October 29, 1843. (Further footnote reference will be by item number, i.e. 33-39).\n\n2 H. G. Hart, The New Annual Army Lists for 1842 to 1847 (London: John Murray, 1842-1847), p. 250 (98th Regiment) and p. 137 (11th Hussars); and, Sir Bernard Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire (London: Hurst & Blacket, 1857), p. 110 (Bradford).\n\nThe original Orlando Bridgeman lived in the seventeenth century and among other accomplishments was the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. See the Concise Dictionary of National Biography, I (to 1900), p. 143.\n\n4 No. 34.\n\n5 No. 35.\n\n6 No. 34.\n\n7 No. 37.\n\n8 No. 35.\n\n9 No. 36.\n\n10 No. 36.\n\n11 No. 37.\n\n12 No. 37.\n\n13 No. 37, Postscript on inside of envelope, dated December 28, 1842.\n\n14 No. 33.\n\n15 No. 38.\n\n16 No. 37.\n\n17 No. 39.\n\n18 No. 39.\n\n19 No. 35.\n\n20 No. 34.\n\n21 No. 35.\n\n22 No. 38.\n\n23 No. 39.\n\n24 Hart, 1846, p. 137. Bridgeman now rated the distinction of a footnote detailing his experiences in war. It read \"Lt. Bridgeman served in the 98th with the Expedition to the North of China in 1842, and was present at the attack and capture of Chin Kiang Foo, and at the landing before Nankin.\"\n\n25 Ibid., 1847 and 1848, p. 137.\n\n26 Burke, 1914, p. 286 (Bradford). I have not been able to locate a newspaper obituary for Bridgeman. As he spent his last years in Shrewsbury (11 Berwick Road to be exact) there may be an obituary in the press of that district.\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
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]