[ { "id": 207534, "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-1975", "page_number": 302, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "294\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe innkeeper of the German Inn was Christian Frederick William Petersen. He conducted a tavern and boarding house for sailors until his death in 1896, aged 64. The German Tavern was located on the south side of Queen's Road, not far west from the Gough Street steps. His wife was probably Chinese as baptisms of their children were recorded in the Chinese congregation of the London Missionary Society.\n\nThe Hong Kong Blue Books under 'Ecclesiastical Returns' lists as a place of worship for Europeans the chapel of the Berlin Mission House from 1871 through 1919, though services were probably not held during the war years. From this source we can draw up a list of pastors of this German (Lutheran) congregation:\n\nErnest Klitzke. The inscription on his tombstone in the Colonial Cemetery, Happy Valley reads, \"Pastor of the German Congregation in Hong Kong 1867-1881.\"\n\nChristian Wilhelm Louis. Pastor from the death of Klitzke in 1881 to his own death in July, 1883. He was the son-in-law of Rev. J. L. Ladendorff.\n\nF. E. W. Hartmann, 1883-1890\n\nRichard F. F. Gottschalk, 1891-1897\n\nTh. Kriele, 1898-1904\n\nJ. Müller, 1905-1911\n\nFr. von Probst, 1913\n\nThe attendance at the Chapel, as listed in the Blue Book returns, was never large, ranging between 20 and 40.\n\nThe congregation originally met in the chapel within the Berlin Foundling House, but in 1881 they occupied a small chapel built on the same premises. The China Mail, Nov. 24, 1880, reports the laying of the foundation stone:\n\nThe foundation stone of the new Lutheran Chapel in Bonham Road was laid yesterday afternoon by Pastor Klitzke, of the Berlin Ladies' Association. The Pastor read an appropriate address, and after the ceremonies usual upon such an occasion had been performed, the children of the Foundling Hospital sang a hymn in conclusion. The new Chapel, which is built on the top of the ground storey below the level of the road (made use of as a laundry and quarters for the servants connected with the institution), is to be a small edifice, only intended to seat a con-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213200, "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-1994", "page_number": 22, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "ARTICLES\n\nTHE GERMAN SPEAKING COMMUNITY IN HONG KONG 1846-1918\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nIntroduction - Some Problems\n\nThe documents used for this study seldom indicate the language spoken by the person named in the document. The researcher must depend upon the spelling of the name as an indication of national origin. Such a method is fraught with difficulties and pitfalls.\n\nA document may identify a person as being from Switzerland, but were they German speaking? The family language of a Swiss may be German, French, Italian or Romanish. Someone in Hong Kong with a German sounding name may have come here from England, America or another country where his ancestor had settled. The person may no longer be German speaking, his family having adopted the language of their new community. One prominent Hong Kong family has a distinct German name. They are Eurasian and the family tradition is that their Caucasian progenitor in Hong Kong left Germany at the time of the 1848 Revolution in Germany and settled in England. He subsequently came to Hong Kong as a businessman and later returned to England but without his Eurasian family.\n\nAs the borders of the German states and subsequent nation changed through the years so did the nationality of the residents of these areas. The Chinese Repository published in the 1830s and 1840s lists foreign residents on the China coast. A few of these lists give the nationality of the persons listed. In 1845 the Hong Kong shopkeeper Frederick Funk is listed as French. The name sounds German. He may have been from Alsace or Lorraine where, according to political changes, the inhabitants would have been French or German nationals. The eastern border of Germany also fluctuated. In the 1850s and 1860s there was in Hong Kong a tavern keeper and auctioneer named Henry Winniberg - German sounding, but one record identified him as Polish. A number of Jews with German sounding names settled in Hong Kong, principally after the 1880s. The well-known restaurant family of London apparently came some years later.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213206, "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-1994", "page_number": 28, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "7\n\nGutzlaff was not unaware that his Union needed closer supervision. He appealed to German missionary societies to send out agents to assist him in his project. In response the Rhenish Missionary Society at Barmen and the Basel Missionary Society each sent two men in 1847. After a brief orientation period in Hong Kong, they were sent into China where they worked severally in areas where Cantonese, Hakka and Tiu-chau speakers lived. During the second Sino-British war they weathered out the war in Hong Kong and Macao. It was also the time when some took home leave. On the return of Rev. Rudolph Lechler of the Basel Missionary Society in 1861, he built a mission house, school and chapel at Sai Ying Pun. The church and school served the Hakka speaking community in Hong Kong. The congregation is now the present Kau Yan Church on High Street.\n\nThe Rev Heinrich Cocking, also a medical doctor, arrived in Hong Kong in 1855 as an agent of the Berlin Missionary Society. He opened a small dispensary and hospital in 1858 at the foot of Morrison Hill in Wanchai. It was principally for Chinese but German sailors were also treated there.\n\nAgents of the Berlin Ladies Mission for China opened a home for foundling children on the top of Morrison Hill. The Berliner Frauenverein für China had been organised in response to the Rev. Charles Gutzlaff's appeal for support for his vision of the speedy conversion of the Chinese nation. The home was moved to No. 1 High Street in 1861 where it had built a large building, which was named Bethesda. It was not far from the mission house and chapel of the Basel Missionary Society.\n\nBefore the removal to High Street of the Berlin foundling home, German speaking services were held on Sundays at their establishment on Morrison Hill. At an earlier time these services were held in a tavern on Queen's Road East operated by a German. The Rev. Philip Winnes, of the Basel Mission, reported in 1858: “In this manner, I preached until the sailors had enough, and that they had quite soon\". The Hong Kong Blue Books in their ecclesiastical returns list a place of worship for Europeans from 1871 at the chapel of the Berlin Mission House on High Street. A small chapel was built beside the foundling home in 1881. Its entrance was off Bonham Road. The services were moved to the hall of Union Church on Kennedy Road in 1902. They remained there until 1904 when they were moved back to the Bethesda Chapel where services were held.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213212, "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-1994", "page_number": 34, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "13 \n\n+ \n\nDr. Gregory Paul Jordan. The practice became Drs. Anderson and Partners. At the time of the First World War Dr Grove changed his name to Frederick Pierce Grove and served with the British Army. In spite of his former German sounding name he must have been a British citizen. He died in May 1929 in Hong Kong aged fifty-five (Katherine Maddock, Hong Kong Practice, Drs. Anderson and Partners, Hong Kong 1984, Drs. Anderson and Partners, p. 28, 64)\n\nTaverns, Boarding Houses, Cafes and Hotels\n\nGerman merchants and professionals met at the Club Germania for eating, drinking and entertainment. At the other end of the social spectrum the crews of German ships in the harbour frequented the taverns and boarding houses for the same purpose.\n\nSome of the taverns had names which would immediately attract their attention and, hopefully, then patronage, as they found their land-legs on the walk from the wharf to the tavern area on Queen's Road West.\n\nThe German Tavern had the longest history. It is first mentioned in 1858, a year before the German Club was organised. It closed in 1910. Its first proprietor Andrew Rudigan was in charge for a very short time. He died in 1858, aged twenty-six. He was succeeded by Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Petersen, who held the licence for spirits for the tavern intermittently until his death in 1896, aged sixty-four. After his death his widow May was in charge for a brief period. She was his second wife and was Chinese. Three of their children were baptised in the Chinese To Tsai Church. His first wife was an English woman, a native of Bristol. She died in 1878, aged twenty-eight, from the effect of taking cajiput oil (DP 5 Jan 1878). In 1883, Mr. Peterson was charged by the Inspector of Nuisances for keeping two pigs in his kitchen without a licence. The defendant pleaded that he had only kept them there for a few days and had had them slaughtered as soon as he could arrange it (DP 20 Feb. 1883). There may have been pigs in the kitchen, but soon after the tavern opened there had been preaching in the back room. We have already noted the reference of the Rev Philip Winnes to the services held there.\n\nPetersen for some years was associated with another German, Peter Henry Schmidt, a licensed boarding house keeper who was in the business of recruiting crews for merchant vessels. In 1875 the licensing board", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213214, "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-1994", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "Colonel Mosby had been sent to Hong Kong by the United States State Department to investigate and eradicate reputed abuses that had arisen in the affairs of the Consulate. His report to Washington was published as a pamphlet. The report claimed that Mr Smith had been instrumental in the perpetration of great frauds on the United States Government. The court found Consul Mosby guilty of slander. Before sentence, Mosby spoke in his own defence. \"It has been proved that when I came here Peter Smith was what was known as 'the shipping master' at the American Consulate. He had a desk and a clerk, and he had a monopoly of the shipping business. He was a powerful man at that time, so far as American shipmasters and sailors were concerned” (CM 10, 11 Jan. 1881). Upon losing the lucrative business of shipping master for the American Consulate, Peter Smith applied for a spirit licence for a house on Queen's Road West which he wished to name the City of Hamburg. The Superintendent of Police questioned whether a boarding house keeper should also operate a tavern. However, the licence was granted, but only for a year and with the caution that if there were any complaints regarding its conduct, the spirit licence would not be renewed (CM 4 Jan. 1881). Smith did not live long to enjoy his accumulated wealth. He died in December 1882, aged forty-seven.\n\nOther taverns which would have attracted the German sailor on shore were the City of Hamburg 1861 to 1976, Bremen Tavern 1866, City of Bremen 1866 to 1867 - when the name was changed to Scandinavian Tavern, the Prussian Eagle 1870, and the Hamburg Tavern 1861 to 1878. Several of the proprietors of these establishments followed a pattern set by Peter Smith in marrying women from Macao families. William Gardner, who was born at Strassburgh in 1834, married, in 1863, Cecilia Libina de Jesus Correa. Her sister Melena Rita Correa married William von den Busche in 1864. Both Gardner and von den Busche were associated with the Hamburg Tavern. John Juster took over the Hamburg Tavern from William Gardner in 1871. He had been born in Hanover in 1834 and married in Hong Kong, in 1875, Maria Antonia Botelho, a native of Macao. Louis Kuchmann held the licence for the Land We Live In for twenty years. In 1886 the licence was transferred to Tevel Silbermann, probably a German Jew. Kuchmann had one daughter, possibly by a Chinese wife. She married in 1885 Carl Holm, captain of a German schooner.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213215, "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-1994", "page_number": 37, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "16\n\nKirchmann transferred his tavern to Silbermann. The Land We Live In passed through a succession of proprietors with German, Jewish or Polish sounding names, Gustav Neubrunn, Moritz and Adolph Freimann, Bernat Cohen, Moses Tchetchilnızkı and lastly David Freeman. The Tavern was closed in 1912. The licensees of two other establishments suggest Jewish proprietorship: The Central Hotel, 1890 to 1906, Isaac Samuel Greenstein, 1907 to 1912, Ichel Gruman; and the Globe Hotel, 1894 to 1909, Isydor Silbermann, the nephew of Tevil, Ephraim Fischel Zellermayer 1910, and Adolph Weingarten 1911 and 1912. Both the Central and the Globe were closed in 1913.\n\nMrs. Petersen and the German Hotel Trade\n\nIn 1911 Frederich Reichmann, a German national, sought an interim injunction from the court to restrain Mrs. Uschmann and her husband from operating the Station Hotel in Kowloon. Mr. Reichmann charged that Mrs. Uschmann had broken a contract they had signed in November 1909, when he purchased from her for $30,000 her interest and good will in the Oriental Hotel on Queen's Road Central. The contract contained a clause preventing her from conducting in Hong Kong the business of innkeeping, publican or restaurant. The purpose of the clause was to prevent her from attracting to a new establishment the German trade. A summary of evidence presented in court provides information on the background of both the parties in the case. Mrs Uschmann claimed in her defence that the good will of the Station Hotel was the property of her husband, Robert Albrecht Uschmann, and that she was only his assistant. She had been connected with establishments licensed to sell spirits for some twenty or twenty-five years. She became the proprietress of the Thomas' Hotel on the south side of Queen's Road between Ice House and Duddell Streets. The hotel when she took it over had become bankrupt and was closed. No good will went with the transaction. Mr. O E. Owen, then proprietor of the Grand Carlton Hotel, but a former employee of Mrs. Uschmann in 1904 when she and her former husband, Mr. R.A. Matthaey, were operating the Occidental Hotel in Kowloon, stated to the court that it was his opinion \"that the Station Hotel would compete with the Grand\" (Mrs. Uschmann had changed the name of the Thomas' Hotel to the Oriental Hotel and Mr. Reichmann, in turn, had changed it to the Grand Hotel) because of her \"long association with the hotel business and her intimate knowledge of the German community.\" In fact, \"The German customers used to call her 'Mother' as a pet name\" (HKT 6 June 1911).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213216, "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-1994", "page_number": 38, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "17\n\nFrederik Reichmann had left Germany in 1897 at the age of sixteen. For some time he was in London where he rose to the position of chief inspector of the popular restaurants of Lyons and Co. He then spent a short time in Australia where he married the daughter of Mr. A.B. Crew, a former head of the Land Record Office in Sydney. Mr. Crew wished to set up his new son-in-law in business in Hong Kong. As a German, Mr. Reichmann was eager to take over an establishment that had most of the German trade.\n\nThere are a number of difficulties presented in the material available on the background and identity of Mrs. Uschmann. In the correspondence concerning German women and children interned in 1914 it was stated that Miss Petersen is the daughter of Mrs. Uschmann and that she had a sister in the Colony that might be willing to support her. The sister was probably Mrs Arthur G. Seidel. On a list of the internees the names of Mrs. Uschmann, Mrs Seidel and Miss Petersen follow each other. The next clue for establishing relationships is the obituary of Mrs. John Sanderson Smith, who died on 9 March 1936, aged forty-one. She was born in Hong Kong and had been the proprietress of the Station Hotel which had been closed in March 1930. She was survived by her husband, J.S. Smith of the firm of Lubing and Smith, two sisters in Shanghai, a brother in London and a brother-in-law A.C Seidel. Wreaths were sent by \"Sister Maggie, Harry and family, Sister Martha, Arthur and family, Sister Lizzie, Franz and family\" (CM 9 May 1936, emphasis supplied). This information can be related to the children of Christian Friedrich William Petersen and his wife Mary recorded in the baptismal register of the London Missionary Society's Chinese congregation. Maggie Mary born on 15 October 1887, Martha Louise born on 5 January 1889 and Henry William born on 4 January 1892. These were presumably the brother and sisters of Mrs. Sanderson Smith who was born in 1895 but not recorded as baptised in the church records. If these conclusions are correct it would identify her mother, Mrs. Uschmann, as the wife of Mr. Petersen, the long-time proprietor of the German Tavern. Mary was his second wife. He died in 1896 aged sixty-four leaving his wife to administer his estate which was valued at $16,000. Was Mary Petersen a Chinese? Children of Caucasian parents were not baptised in Chinese congregations, except under the most unusual circumstances. On the other hand, if she were Chinese, why would she have been interned as a German alien in 1914? The statement in 1911 that Mrs. Uschmann had been connected with the German trade some twenty or twenty-five years suggests that she...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213217, "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-1994", "page_number": 39, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "18\n\nbegan her long association as the wife of Mr. Petersen, the proprietor of the German Tavern.\n\nAfter his death she was left with several small children and by the year 1904 was married to R.A. Matthaey. He became bankrupt in February 1907, having operated the Occidental Hotel in Kowloon since 1904. His wife in October 1907 opened the Oriental Hotel on Queen's Road in the building formerly occupied by Thomas' Hotel. By November 1909 she had become Mrs. Uschmann.\n\nMr. Reichmann must have lost his case against Mrs. Uschmann as from 1911 to 1914 R.A. Uschmann was the licensee of the Station Hotel at Nos. 11 and 13 Nathan Road. The hotel was closed during the war but in November 1919 Mrs. Louisa Jane Stewart Brown applied for a spirit licence. In 1921 her name is replaced by Mrs. A.B. Sanderson Smith. A summary of the history of the Station Hotel was published in the South China Morning Post at the time of its closure in 1931. The proprietors Mr. and Mrs. Sanderson Smith closed it at the end of March after it had been in existence some twenty years.\n\nTwo houses on Nathan Road were occupied as residences when purchased by the Procurator of the Dominican Mission in 1908. In the following year Mrs. Uschmann established a boarding house. Then an annex in the rear facing Hankow Road was purchased by the Dominicans. Mr. J. Sanderson Smith arrived in Hong Kong in 1921 and married Mrs. Uschmann. In my opinion, the account is incorrect in stating he married Mrs. Uschmann. I conclude from the evidence presented above that he married Miss Petersen, the daughter of Mrs. Uschmann.\n\nMr. Reichmann, though he lost in his attempt to stop competition in the German hotel trade, continued offering hospitality to them until the outbreak of the First World War. Before that, he had applied for British nationality but he had not yet received it. In considering the treatment to be given to enemy aliens, the Provost Marshall recommended that special consideration be given to Mr. Reichmann. He had been a valuable source of information to the British military authorities and was considered to be of value in keeping tabs on what was happening in the German community. However, events overtook the recommendation as soon after, almost all the Germans in the colony were either interned or deported. (CO129/413 - information from Provost Marshall regarding Germans on List, 8 Oct. 1914) The list of spirit licensees for November 1914 states that Mr.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213218, "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-1994", "page_number": 40, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "19\n\nReichmann's application for the Grand Hotel was not granted as he was a German national. He applied again in 1915 but to no avail. Though he was unsuccessful, the application suggests he was not interned with his fellow countrymen. After peace returned, he again sought a decision on his application for naturalisation (CO129/455, p37, 11 July 1919).\n\nI have presented this material in what some might consider excessive detail because it relates a connected history of accommodation for travelling and resident Germans from 1859, when Petersen's German Tavern was opened, to 1931, when his daughter retired from the management of the Station Hotel in Kowloon and closed its doors.\n\nCafe Weissmann\n\nThe Cafe Weissmann opened in 1904. In 1914/15 the name was changed to Wiseman, a less Germanic spelling. Lane, Crawford and Co. had acquired a controlling interest in Weissmann Ltd, so its Cafe was not considered to be alien enemy property. The licence for spirits was transferred from Rembold Ekhardt, who had held it from 1909, to Ellen H.K. King,\n\nAccording to Jarrett, the author of the column \"Old Hong Kong\" in the South China Morning Post (23 Sept. 1933), Hans Weissmann was a ship's baker who began business near the Bowrington Canal. If this is accurate, he must have begun his Hong Kong career at the Hong Kong and China Bakery Co. It was a limited company with the controlling interest being held by Lane, Crawford and Co. Mr. Weissmann opened a restaurant in a small room in the Beaconsfield Arcade in 1904, but he soon moved to the south-east corner of Queen's Road and Wyndham Street. Here, in addition to his \"Refreshment Room\", he had a \"Tiffin Room\" at No. 1 Wyndham Street. At the same time, the business became a limited company (DP20, 27 Apr 1905). The management of the restaurant was taken over by Carl Fiedler in 1908. A year later, the business was moved to No. 14 Des Voeux Road Central. Mr. Fiedler was not long after replaced by Rembold Ekhardt, who conducted the business under various names until 1914.\n\nCafe Weissman became Cafe Wiseman in 1914. No. 14 Queen's Road was redeveloped in 1926 as the Exchange Building. Lane, Crawford and Co. had its store there and for several years Cafe Wiseman became the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 } ]