[
    {
        "id": 211526,
        "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-1988",
        "page_number": 243,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "219\n\npremier and treasurer of Manitoba in 1885, and while there was quite prominent in the political affairs of the province, being sent to England to negotiate a large loan. On his return from England, he was ordered to Hongkong, to take a position in the diplomatic service. Before leaving this country, he came to Portland with a letter of introduction from Sir William Van Horne of the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Theodore B. Wilcox of the Portland Flouring Mills Co.\n\nRennie at that time knew nothing about the flour business, but he made such a good impression on Mr. Wilcox that he was engaged by the Portland miller to put in the time he could spare from his diplomatic duties, in selling flour. He was successful from the beginning, and in 1895 his business had grown to such proportions that he resigned from the government service and devoted all of his attention to the flour trade. He was a tireless worker, and as he had very liberal contracts with Mr. Wilcox, he was soon enjoying a very large business. On this business he always endeavored to stamp his own personality.\n\nWhile the Wilcox brands were soon famous from Vladivostok to the Malabar coast, and far into the interior of China, it was Rennie alone, of whom the Chinamen knew, and with whom they dealt. This great success and the attendant profits it brought, was probably responsible for Rennie's belief that he could make a grand success out of the milling business.\n\nHis studied effort to keep his own name and personality in the foreground, had given him great prestige in Hongkong and other trade centres across the Pacific, and to him it seemed easy to transfer this prestige from the Americans to a mill of his own.\n\nApparently confusing flour making with flour selling, Mr. Rennie plunged into the business on a big scale. Had he been content to feel his way with a small mill, where the capacity could be increased as the demand for the product developed, he might have made a success, or at least the failure would not have been serious. But Rennie, the greatest flour salesman in all the Orient, had aspirations to be a great miller, and with the money he had saved during his successful career as a salesman, and several hundred thousand dollars subscribed by English capitalists at Hongkong, he built a two thousand barrel mill. The capital",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212310,
        "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-1990",
        "page_number": 252,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "224\n\nraw silk for their mills. Adanison arrived in Shanghai, on their behalf, in 1852. In 1858 he formed his own firm, exporting tea and general merchandise, and set up branches in Hong Kong, Foochow and Hongkow. There were ten European employees.\n\nIn 1872, the firm appointed a shipping clerk in its Shanghai office named George Benjamin Dodwell. He was 20 years old, born in Derby, and was paid 400 pounds for the first year of service, with a room, fire, light and medical bills met by the firm. Dodwell was allowed five per cent of all profits of the shipping business on everything earned above 700 taels per annum (equivalent to 2,100 sterling). He also had a share in other profits in an attempt to stop him branching out on his own account. Another condition of appointment was that he should 'not indulge in racing of horses and ponies'. This contrasted with the conditions of service for Jardine's who were not against their employees having a wager.\n\nIn 1876, Adamson Bell and Company's tea shipments (at the end of the nineteenth century nearly 60 per cent of China's exports consisted of tea and silk) were only marginally behind those of Jardines and Butterfield and Swires. For much of his work Dodwell was assisted by the firm's compradore. Nonetheless, a considerable amount of financial risk was involved. Dodwell and A.J.M. Carlill finally took over the bankrupt Adamson Bell Company [which is still known as Tien Cheang (天昌) meaning heavenly prosperity] on May 1st, 1891.\n\nCanadian Pacific Railways (CPR) chartered sailing ships to import goods from China and Japan. Dodwell had entered into a three-year contract with Sir William Van Horne of CPR. But, as business was good, CPR decided to run its own fast mail line in place of hiring old Cunarders.\n\nDodwell was told his contract would not be renewed, but he was asked to continue to manage the CPR services at the Far Eastern end. Van Horne was impressed by Dodwell as a man, and he offered him full control of the new CPR shipping line if Dodwell would abandon his newly established firm and join CPR as an employee. He was offered a salary and commissions totalling at least 4,000 pounds a year. Dodwell declined, preferring to head his own new enterprise which he had rescued, and would rebuild, from bankruptcy.\n\nIt is the worst day's work you have ever done, Dodwell\",",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212311,
        "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-1990",
        "page_number": 253,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "230\n\nVan Horne threatened, \"I will crush you. Don't you attempt to start a steamship line of your own. If you do, we will run you off the Pacific.\"\n\nDodwell retired from the East in 1899, the year his firm became a limited company.\n\nIt has continued to prosper. But much of its success in earlier days was due to the personal contribution of Dodwell himself. Profits increased from his shipping department. He also played a prominent part in the shipping world as a whole. G.B. Dodwell, a man of high principles, died in 1925.\n\nGilman's\n\nRichard James Gilman, a tea-taster, who worked for the old established company of Dent's in Canton, set up a partnership, known as Gilman and Bowman, in a Canton factory in 1840. By 1863 the firm was also represented at Kiukiang, Hankow and Tientsin, employing 21 staff. In many ways the firm was similar to Dodwell's, but on a smaller scale, and it was substantially involved in shipments of tea from Shanghai and Foochow in the 1870s.\n\nGilman's was also active in the import-export trade and shipping, and in 1862 it was appointed agents for Lloyd's at Canton, Hankow, Foochow, Hong Kong and Macau. In these ports its reputation in shipping circles was high, especially after the famous tea race of 1866. 'Taeping (sic) Yeung Hong' (KF) (Great Peace Foreign Firm) chartered the 'Taiping' (named after Gilmans) which beat 'Ariel', the rival ship, by 20 minutes over a 99-day voyage from Foochow to London.\n\nGilman's also played an important part in promoting the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, when it was established in 1864, and it was represented on its Board in its earlier days.\n\nGilman's failed, however, to heed the warning that there was a growing preference for Indian and Ceylon teas in Britain, and, heavily indebted to its London agent Ashton & Company, it came close to bankruptcy. Gilmans had to abandon its Shanghai and Hankow branches in the 1880s. But, with the huge demand for joss sticks in Southern China, the agency for the Australian Sandalwood Company helped",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216477,
        "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": 236,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "186\n\nalthough for the first few years after their wedding, the family home remained in Suffolk while he went to sea. It was in the village of Hoxne that their eldest son Robert Benjamin was born in 1860 to be followed by Emily Ada in 1864. Young Samuel came along in 1866 after the family had moved to Framlingham and was given the second name Cornell. It would appear from an entry in Harriet Plant's New Ladies' Memorandum Book 1829 in which she recorded important family events, that Cornell was a family name, possibly the maiden name of her mother or Samuel's mother. One entry records a visit to Chedburgh, a village in Suffolk, by a Mr and Mrs TH Cornell. Whatever the origin, Cornell was the name by which he was known throughout his life both inside and outside the family. Cornell's younger brother Charles Henry was born in 1870 and it was not long after that time that the family moved to London and into a house in Tottenham. Perhaps this move away from the country into the big city came about as a result of Samuel Plant's promotion to becoming a ship's master.\n\nIn 1881 he was in command of the Iron Ship Reigate, made of iron but powered by sail, for the trade with India. It so happened that the 1881 Census took place on the very day that Reigate was in Middlesbrough when, in addition to Captain and crew, those on board included Harriet Plant, the Master's wife, with Cornell and Charles, the Master's sons, all shown as passengers. But in truth, none of them were passengers - the 14-year-old Cornell had joined the ship for his first voyage while his mother and brother were there to see him off.\n\nThe start of a life at sea\n\nThe Reigate set sail from Middlesborough in early May, 1881 for the long passage round the Cape of Good Hope to Madras with no stops along the way. This was young Cornell's introduction to a life at sea and being a dutiful son, he spent some time every Sunday writing a few paragraphs of a voyage letter to his mother in strong, well-formed copper plate writing. It is a remarkably well written letter for a fourteen-year-old young man that now forms part of the Plant Archive at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Although the letter is in good condition, the writing on one side of the paper occasionally obscures the writing on the other side but it is still clear enough to make a full transcription. The letter is almost 2,000 words long but the following extracts give some idea of the young man who wrote them and the dramatic events that he experienced.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]