[
    {
        "id": 204597,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1963",
        "page_number": 78,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n67\n\nran parallel to the wall of the Legation in which the main gate was situated, and in summer often flooded the road, and at times gave off a horrible stench since many drains ran into it. Meanwhile repairs to the Legation proceeded and Rennie describes, among other things, Colonel Neale doing his accounts, the five hundred Chinese coolies being paid, a temporary strike, and continual trouble over 'squeeze'. The part intended for the members of the Legation to live in was now called 'Legation Court' and Rennie preserved, in translation, an estimate for redecorating the front of these buildings in the Chinese style, the total being one thousand and fifty Mexican dollars.\n\nBy mid-April the weather was growing hot and on April 26th Parkes, Wyndham, Lt. Gow (in charge of the guard) and Rennie made a trip to the Western Hills in search of a temple which could be adopted as a residence during the extreme heat of the summer. The Russians, who had maintained an ecclesiastical mission in Peking since the Treaty of Kiakhta in 1727, had been in the habit of going to the Western Hills in the summer, and probably gave the newly arrived English this tip. Henceforth this was to become the yearly practice of foreign legations in Peking. Meanwhile the first mail from home arrived on April 27th, having been posted in England on February 26th. In this way Rennie's account is full of interesting detail. For instance just near to the entrance to the Legation there was now a line of Peking carts for hire, just as later there was a rickshaw stand, and more recently pedicabs. From this time onwards Rennie described the arrival of various English visitors who were entertained at the Legation.\n\n* Rennie visited it in March, 1861. It was situated in the same street as the newly acquired French Legation, and the members consisted of an Archimandrite together with three ecclesiastical and six lay members. (Rennie, I, 43-4.). This place, known as the Nan-kuan (\"Southern Hostel\"), was originally a hostel for Russian envoys and, since it had a large compound, it was used by Russian merchants who after 1698 received the privilege of sending a trade caravan to Peking at regular intervals. It was situated near the Mongol market. As a result of the Treaty of Kiakhta (1727) two hundred Russian merchants were allowed to come to Peking every third year to trade, and Russia was permitted to build a church in the grounds of the Nan-kuan, and appoint priests. In addition four Russian students and two tutors were allowed to reside there and were subsidized by the Chinese government to study the Chinese, Mongol and Manchu languages. When the first Russian minister to Peking, Colonel Balluzeck, took up residence there in July 1861, the Nan-kuan became the Russian Legation, and the ecclesiastical mission then joined up with another Russian mission at the Pei-kuan (\"Northern Hostel'). See footnote 29 below,\n\n}\n\nI\n\n:\n\nJ",
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    {
        "id": 204598,
        "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": 79,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "68\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nand shown the sights of Peking. This became an agreeable task for the members of the Legation, and there was a constant stream of visitors to Peking enjoying the hospitality of the old Legation right up until its closure in 1959. One of the earliest of these visitors was Sir Robert Hart, the Acting Inspector-General of the Chinese Customs. Meanwhile the business of engaging Chinese clerks, gate keepers, and language teachers proceeded. At various times Rennie mentions such familiar things as burglaries within the Legation, and the virulence of the mosquitoes. By now the Legation was the haunt of curio dealers, many of the things they had to offer being of real value, since the destruction of part of the old Summer Palace by the British and French forces had occurred as recently as the previous autumn, and a great deal of loot was now in Chinese hands. In fact, what with buying antiques, conducting visitors round the sights of Peking, and going to the Western Hills in the summer the members of the foreign legations had already set a pattern during their first year in Peking which has continued much the same until the present.\n\nThe local craftsmen found nothing beyond their capacities, and one Chinese tailor made a fine new Union Jack with the old one to copy from. Rennie remarks: \"The Peking tailors have already mastered the making of European clothing, and several members of the Legation have had things made by them\". The total number of Europeans in the three legations (English, French and Russian) was twenty-two. The first American minister to reside at Peking did not reach the capital until July, 1862. On 23 August, 1861 Rennie records: \"We have been busy to-day getting ready for Her Majesty's Foreign Office a large bird's-eye view of the Leang-koong-foo, made by a Chinese artist. Figures for reference have been painted on it by Colonel Neale, and a key also made. The drawing is very exact, every building being carefully depicted.\" In October buildings next to the Legation on the south side were bought by the British Government from a brother of Duke I-liang. This new area was leased to a medical missionary, William Lockhart, who wanted to set up a medical mission in Peking. By January 1862 the extensive alterations to the Legation had come to an end, and the Chinese interpreter, who had made a good harvest of 'squeeze' out of it, now resigned and departed for Tientsin where the foreign troops were stationed. The time ran out.",
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    {
        "id": 204605,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1963",
        "page_number": 86,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n75\n\nWilkinson's book is a gay account of student life with work and play nicely balanced. He mentions many things which must have been familiar to generations of inmates of the Foreign Legations at Peking, such as paying calls on the European residents, buying a pony, choosing a reliable 'boy', the continual battle against 'squeeze', the danger of theft and so on. For pleasure not only was there the bowling alley, which provided the chief amusement inside the Legation during the winter, there was also skating on an improvised rink nearby. Three of the students once skated down the canal to Tungchow, a distance of about twelve miles. There was also the usual entertaining. \"Balls and concerts were given at some of the Legations and at the Inspectorate-General of Customs (where a number of young European men were employed). Dinners everywhere. But the pleasantest of all, perhaps, were the carpet dances (with the carpet up) at two or three houses. We shared the misfortune of most European communities in the East: an undue preponderance of the male. Dancing men were at a discount.\" At Chinese New Year the students generally put on a pantomime or a Christy Minstrel Concert. By this time there was a weekly arrival of mail throughout the summer, and a monthly one during the winter. In the spring and autumn the Peking race meetings were held at a place a mile or so from the western wall of the city. The race-course boasted a tiny grand-stand but Wilkinson is careful to state that these were pretty amateur races; they were picnics first and race meetings second. In summer there was tennis on the Legation lawn, and in the grounds of the residence of the young European employees of the China Maritime Customs, as well as garden parties at the American Legation. The courts in the British Legation lay east and west, and since it was too hot to play until sundown one of the players had to perform with the sun full in his eyes which made play somewhat erratic. For summer dress the students wore a patrol jacket of white drill with trousers to match. In July and August they usually moved to a temple in the Western Hills where they could go for rambles. The main disadvantage of this life came from rain and rats. One summer it rained prodigiously and they were almost washed out of their temple. As for rats an ingenious student subdued them by training four owls which he had bought. They spent the day roosting one on each post of his bed, but at night went into action",
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    {
        "id": 204607,
        "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": 88,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n77\n\nQueen. While we were waiting for our examiner, a sudden desire seized Gordon to show his loyalty, after the custom of the country; so he dropped down in front of the portrait, and solemnly knocked his head nine times on the floor, kotowing in proper form. He seemed much inspirited by it, and had a feeling that he was now in some way under the special tutelage of Her Majesty, and could be trusted to floor the paper.\n\nThe impression given by Wilkinson's account is that student life in Peking at that period held much that was enjoyable.\n\nHowever, there was plenty of work for them to do on being sent to their posts. As one observer wrote in 1900 \"Our Legation ... is a bigger establishment than that of any other country, owing to the fact that the British Consular Corps in China has exceptionally large requirements. In the Legation the Student Interpreters, who subsequently become Consular Assistants and Consuls, learn the language of their adopted country and to some extent their future political, judicial and commercial work. After two years at Peking they move on to a Treaty Port and begin to put theory into practice. There are often as many as twenty of them in Peking at a time, besides an efficient staff of older men who act as the Chinese Secretaries.”21\n\nMeanwhile trouble was imminent and another visitor at this same period mentions the marines. Describing the Legation Quarter he wrote: \"The familiar redcoats of British marines drilling on the lawn lent perhaps an extra touch of homeliness to the well-kept grounds. For in view of possible troubles, most of the foreign legations were provided last winter [1895- Ed.] with a special guard drawn from the fleets in the Gulf of Tchih-li. They have since been for the greater part withdrawn. ... As if to heighten the contrast, the Chinese authorities had also assigned to each legation a special guard of their own braves who were encamped along Legation Street.\n\nIn 1900 the marines were to lend a more than homely touch to the scene inside the Legation. By mid-May of that year the anti-foreign massacres inspired by the Boxers had alarmed the Europeans, who were coming into Peking for protection.\n\n20 Ibid., 266-7.\n\n21 Clive Bingham, A Year in China 1899-1900 (London, 1901), 47-8.\n\n22 Valentine Chirol, The Far Eastern Question (London, 1896), 42-3.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 204608,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1963",
        "page_number": 89,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "78\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nguard was reinforced by marines from the warships in the Gulf of Chihli, and arrived in Peking on May 31st. Seventy-five was the number fixed for the French, British, and Russian contingents. On June 10th, an immediate attack on the Legation area was expected, while at the same time reinforcements were awaited from Tientsin. On June 20th, the German Minister, Baron Ketteler, was murdered by Boxers on his way to the Tsungli Yamen, the Chinese department dealing with Foreign Affairs. As a result, all the women and children in the various Legations, together with the non-combatant men, gathered inside the British Legation, since this was alone regarded as capable of any serious defence. In here, there were eventually over eight hundred people, including the Ministers of eleven different nations and some Chinese Christian converts. At this time, the Legation was only half its final size, being roughly 700 yards long and 200 yards wide, but containing eight different walls, some of them very thick, which made it good for defending.\n\nMeanwhile, the German Minister's interpreter, Cordes, who had been wounded, was brought into the Legation, and a hospital was hurriedly set up, under the charge of Dr. Poole of the British Legation, with Dr. Welde of the German Legation as his assistant. The nurses consisted of one fully trained and certificated nurse (Miss Lambert of the Church of England Mission), who was made Matron, and a number of partly trained missionary women under her, together with Fuller, a naval sick-berth steward, who had been sent up with the marines. One of the partly-trained missionaries was Jessie Ransome, who kept a diary of the siege, giving the story of the hospital work. As she recorded:\n\nThe first thing to be done was to find a building which could be set apart for a hospital, and this, in the crowded state of the British Legation, was not very easy. It was decided to use the Government offices and reading-room, commonly known as the Chancery, and two rooms were hastily cleared and prepared for use, one as an operating theatre, and the other as a ward. Even then, we had not an idea of the task before us, thinking that a few days would certainly bring Admiral Seymour and his column to our relief; and so it was only by degrees, as our patients increased in number, that we cleared out more rooms and even encroached upon",
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    {
        "id": 204610,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1963",
        "page_number": 91,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "80\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nGamewall, an American Methodist, became almost legendary. We get a pen picture of Gamewall in the diary of the Rev. Roland Allen, who was chaplain to the Anglican Bishop in North China at this time. \"Mr. Gamewall was almost voiceless, but still pursued his weary round of the Legation on his bicycle, overseeing the fortifications, and carrying out every suggestion of the military council with untiring zeal.\"25\n\nOutside the Legation Chapel (by now filled to overflowing with missionaries) stood a stone kiosk with a bell inside it, erected to celebrate Queen Victoria's Jubilee. This Bell Tower stood in the middle of the Legation at a point where four ways met. As Allen explained: \"The Tower stood in the midst of tree-shaded ways beautiful from every point of view, sheltered, too, more than most spots from shot and shell. It was only once struck; no one was wounded there. It was well suited to be the centre of the life, as it was by nature the centre of the structure of the Legation.\" People used to collect there in groups to discuss the latest news and rumours. The bell itself was used as an alarm in case of a general attack, when it was rung furiously, and in the case of fire when it was tolled. All round the kiosk were posted up notices for the guidance of the besieged as well as cables, messages, edicts and rumours. Here also was posted up, from time to time, an official census of the inhabitants of the Legation. For instance on August 4th Jessie Ransome entered in her diary the census figures just posted up on the Bell Tower which gave a total of 883 men, women and children. One of the few amusing incidents of the siege was only known to the besieged some time afterwards. On 16th July, 1900 the Belfast newspaper, Northern Whig, had published an account of\n\n25 Rev. Roland Allen, The Siege of the Peking Legations (London, 1901), 161.\n\nA photograph of the six fighting parsons' can be found in Archibald Little, Gleanings from Fifty Years in China (Philadelphia, 1908), 289.\n\n24 When Professor L. Carrington Goodrich passed through Hong Kong in 1962 we spoke about the siege of the Foreign Legations and he told me that he was one of the children of missionary parents who sheltered in the Legation chapel. His father was the Rev. Chauncey Goodrich, remembered today by students of Chinese as the author of A Pocket Dictionary and Pekingese Syllabary, which was first published in 1891 and is still in print, See A. H. Mateer (Mrs.) Siege Days (New York, 1903), 217-18 and photograph opposite page 44. For another photograph see Arther H. Smith, China in Convulsion (New Jersey, 1901) II, 494.\n\n27 Allen, op. cit., 119.\n\nH",
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    },
    {
        "id": 204613,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1963",
        "page_number": 94,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n81\n\nthe death of Sir Robert Hart during the siege, and on July 21st it carried a long letter from the President of Queen's College, Belfast, which served as a somewhat premature obituary notice for Hart, who, in fact, lived until 1911.**\n\nThe relieving troops finally entered the British Legation on August 14th, when a Company of mounted Sikhs rode in at about 3 p.m. accompanying General Gaselee and his staff. So ended the siege which had lasted from June 20th until August 14th, a total of 55 days. Fortunately no overwhelming damage had been done to the British Legation, though many of the roofs were badly smashed about and bullets and shells had gone through most of the buildings. One last ironic touch; immediately after the raising of the siege the commissariat functioned so inefficiently that the besieged had to forage for themselves and for some days got less to eat than during the fighting. Meanwhile those who had 'enjoyed' the hospitality of the British Legation during the siege departed and the work of clearing up and repairing the damage began.\n\nThe actual damage suffered by the British Legation buildings was slight in comparison with the damage done to the other foreign Legations. The outer walls were badly damaged and had to be rebuilt, but one small section on the north-east corner facing the Imperial Canal was sufficiently unharmed to be left intact, and on its surface someone painted in black nine-inch letters the words \"LEST WE FORGET”. Most of the buildings in the compound were soon repaired and the Legation again looked substantially the same as before the siege. However, as part of the settlement after the Boxer troubles and the siege of the Legation Quarter Britain acquired considerable ground on the northern and western sides of the old Legation. This consisted of land formerly occupied by the Mongol market, by the Imperial Carriage Park and by the Hanlin Academy, which was burnt out during the fighting. This newly acquired land was later used for\n\n28 Born in 1835 Hart came out to China in the Consular Service in 1854 and spent his first three months as an interpreter at Hong Kong. After various consular appointments he was permitted by the British Government to resign from the consular service in 1859 and to join the newly formed Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs service as Deputy-Commissioner of Customs at Canton. In 1863, at the age of twenty-eight, he was appointed Inspector-General of the Maritime Customs, a post which he held until his resignation in 1908.",
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