[ { "id": 204636, "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": 117, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "104\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nThere were also examination titles among the organisers and subscribers to the defence office. There were three scholars, who held higher grades of the hsiu-ts'ai or first degree by examination. One was a kung-sheng, another a sheng-yüan, and the third held the grade of lin-sheng, all normally obtained by additional examinations by a literary chancellor appointed from Peking to examine hsiu-ts'ai in the provinces, though occasionally granted for merit. Another was a wu-sheng ±, a military hsiu-ts'ai, an officer by examination, not purchase. These four were WONGs, almost certainly members of the Tong. A fifth, named TSUI, was a tu-szu or first captain and was probably a serving military officer in the locality. The final title is ching sheng #.\n\nOf these various degree and title holders sixteen were named WONG *. The coincidence is probably too great to be accidental and the number of purchases testifies to the Tong's wealth, whilst the presence of genuine scholars, probably from the Cheung Chau branch, and the genealogical record, confirm its gentry status in the late Ch'ing period. There is no doubt that the main Tong was well entrenched and able to exert an \"interest\" with the district ruler and perhaps also with the prefect and viceroy at Canton.\n\n23 HSIAO illustrates the slight degree of local control on another island, Ch'a K'eng, off the coast of Sun Wui district, Kwangtung, in Rural China, pp. 344-348. For his views on the effectiveness of imperial control see pp. 320-322 and pp. 316-320 for the role of the gentry in local affairs. CH'U, op. cit., chapter 10, also examines the problem in general. Krone's article (see note 22), apparently written from long, first-hand knowledge of the western part of San On shows that the district magistrate and his deputy and sub-magistrates had little control over the population (see especially p. 81), and perhaps wanted it less, e.g. \"... the Mandarin of Fuk Wing (a sub-magistrate) confided to me, in a conversation that I had with him that he had nothing to do but to eat, to drink and to smoke”, though over 200 villages were in his charge.\n\n24 The district association is of considerable antiquity in China. They were known in Sung times: see J. Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion 1250-76 (London, Allen and Unwin 1962) p. 222; see also Y. K. Leong and L. K. Tao Village and Town Life in China (London, Allen and Unwin 1915) pp. 78-9 for \"the guild of co-provincials\" and H. B. Morse, The Gilds of China (London, Longmans, Green 1909) pp. 35-48 for the provincial club with a mercantile bias.\n\n25 With consequent language difficulties. See R. A. D. Forrest (a former Hong Kong Cadet Officer) \"The Southern Dialects of Chinese\", Appendix No. 1 to V. Purcell The Chinese in South East Asia (Oxford University Press 1951).\n\n26 The word \"member\" may have too strong a connection with the modern club where one pays an entrance fee and monthly subscriptions. In fact, one was born into membership of these early district associations and participated in their activities by subscription, as required. Mr. LEUNG Yau (see note 28) confirms this for his own association, the Wai Chiu.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205070, "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-1966", "page_number": 26, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY\n\n21\n\nwould \"take advantage of the situation to create suspicion and burn down the buildings of the barbarians and loot and plunder foreign goods. All this they have been wanting to do for a long time, [and] if each robber should rise up at the same time both Canton and Hong Kong will be destroyed.\" \"Danger from without (the foreigner),\" he continued, \"was troublesome enough and must be guarded against, but internal troubles were even more important.”\n37\n\nAlong the coast piracy had again become well-organized. In 1844 a pirate fleet of 150 boats exacted blackmail from all passing native craft and attacked Imperial military outposts. At one point they actually captured the official in charge of the Bogue, cut off his ears, and demanded $60,000 ransom,\n38 A modern historian described the scene thus: \"Pirates swarmed in Hong Kong waters. Lawless European seamen joined the outlaws. Native marine storekeepers on the island (of Hong Kong) not only supplied them with arms and ammunition and disposed of their booty but furnished them also, through well-paid spies in mercantile offices and government departments, with information as to the shipment of valuable cargo and particularly as to the movements of the police and British gunboats. Chests of opium and other valuables were carried off. Men, ships, mail, and cargo disappeared forever.\"\n39\n\nAs in the early days of the century, the Imperial navy was powerless in the face of this piratical power, and it was not until the British navy went into action in 1849 and the pirate fleets were partially destroyed that a semblance of order was restored.\n40\n\nThis, then, was what was \"going on\" in the 1840's.\n\nTo the \"average\" Chinese villager, as to the \"average\" Chinese official, the real problem was the lack of internal peace and order. It is true that the foreigner was being attacked and his property stolen... of this there can be no doubt. But Chinese were being attacked and Chinese property was being stolen too.\n\nFor every barbarian assaulted there must have been hundreds, if not thousands, of Chinese victims as well. The dominant theme of the '40s was not anti-foreignism, or even an over-riding concern with the foreigner and his doings. It was, rather, the alarming spectacle of a large and populous area of south China slipping deeper into", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205363, "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-1967", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "REV. MR. KRONE\n\n―\n\noccupied by soldiers. At Tai-pung, the force consists of a \"Tsam-tseang\" - Colonel; one \"Shau-pe\" two \"Tsin-tsung\"; four \"Patsung\", and seven \"Ngai-wei\" with 800 soldiers, 190 of which are infantry, and 610 garrison soldiers. The annual pay of the whole of the officers amounts to 574 taels, that of the soldiers to 10,866 taels, with an allowance of 3,100 piculs of rice, and 8,640 bundles of straw, besides the income derived from the cultivation of the Imperial paddy-fields.\n\nThese troops have to garrison Tai-pung, Kowloong, Tung-chung on Lantao, and a fort on one of the Ladrone Islands; these four places are supposed to mount 168 guns. There are besides nine guard stations. One of these on the mountain pass behind Kowloong is really occupied by four soldiers, who carry on a profitable trade in selling tea and refreshments. Their duty is to keep the road clear of robbers; but the only object for which they employ the arms they wear is the protection of their own store of cash.\n\nSince the first war with England, a \"Hip-toi\", or Commodore, has been ordered to reside at Kowloong, and to keep a watchful eye on the barbarians at Hongkong. I have not been able to ascertain how many war-junks the Hip-toi has under his command at the various stations of the district. The record of Sanon, “Sanon-che”, only says they are of the utmost importance to guard against the French and other barbarians. Several of the war-junks usually anchor at Namtow, others a little to the N.W. of Ku-shu. The Mandarin at Fuk-wing has one war-junk at his disposal, but his revenue not being enough to support the expense, he was in the habit of letting out the vessel for hire for mercantile purposes. The hirers however converted it into a pirate boat, and it was seized by the Chi-yuen, and the Fukwing mandarin had to bribe his superior officer to avoid further punishment and degradation.\n\nThe amount of taxes and other duties I have not been able to ascertain. They are, however, with few exceptions, regularly paid. One instance occurred a few years ago, when a village, for what reason I do not remember, refused to pay the amount due to government. The Mandarin however had sufficient force to compel them to comply with their demands, and in order to teach them a lesson for the future, he closed and partially defaced their ancestral hall.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205612, "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-1968", "page_number": 154, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nJARDINE, MATHESON & CO.'S FIRST SITE IN\n\nHONG KONG\n\n149\n\nAlexander Matheson told the House of Commons Select Committee on Commercial Relations with China in 1847 that his firm had, without authorisation, commenced building \"to a certain extent\" before the first Land Sale held by Captain Elliott* on 14 June 1841 in Hong Kong. It is commonly assumed that the site of this building was at what later became known as East Point, in the present Causeway Bay area of Hong Kong, where the firm was to build extensive godowns and residences. One writer, for example, speculates that by the time of those first land sales, Jardine, Matheson & Co. had already selected for themselves a \"spacious area at East Point\" and intimates that it was there that they were building in June, 1841.2 However, even on the rather scanty evidence available, it seems clear that the site of this unauthorised building was not East Point but an area on the present Queen's Way, in the old Admiralty Dockyard.\n\nContemporary evidence, in any event, makes it unlikely that East Point was the site. Pottinger, the first Governor of Hong Kong,† gives us a graphic description of East Point as he saw it, possibly in August 1841 but more likely in mid-1842, when he returned from the military expedition against China. He describes its \"wild and uncouth state being one chaos of immense masses of granite and other rocks, that it was hardly accessible by person or on foot, either on the side of the water or the land, that the firm in question, by the application of science and extraordinary labour and by an expenditure of about £100,000 (sic), have not only made it available for their vast mercantile concerns, but have rendered it a credit and an ornament to the colony.\" The site sounds at that time, to put it mildly, somewhat unattractive though it did stand at the head of the Wongneichung Valley and would be well-placed to dominate any settlement there; there is evidence that the firm conceived a plan in 1842 for building a seawall and\n\n* Administrator of Hong Kong January-August 1841 as well as plenipotentiary for the current negotiations with the Chinese authorities. See p. 16 and Appendix I of G. B. Endacott's A History of Hong Kong (London, Oxford University Press, 1958).\n\n† Sir Henry Pottinger, Administrator and subsequently first Governor of Hong Kong August 1841-May 1844. Endacott op. cit. Appx, I.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205615, "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-1968", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "152\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nchose two lots to the west, which were designated at the time 72 and 73.12 It was at this time, however, that the firm definitely moved out to East Point and, immediately on the transaction regarding their property being settled, they proceeded to erect what became their main godowns at East Point.13 The firm had already acquired property in the area of East Point, Wongneichung and Sookunpoo, if only because no-one else seemed interested at the time and it was there cheaply for the asking. In October 1841, they instructed Morgan to obtain a grant of the hill behind East Point, which he immediately did14 and a little later obtained permission from Pottinger to purchase from its Chinese proprietors the slope on the east side of this hill.15 They also purchased from a merchant named Leighton a town lot on which he had built a godown16 and a suburban lot which he had prepared for building. Captain Morgan also secured a town lot on which a bazaar was built (Jardine's Bazaar not to be confused with Morgan's Bazaar near the barracks), and in addition he built a house on Caroline's Hill for himself which was known for a few years as Captain Morgan's Bungalow.\n\nLike most of the other large mercantile houses, Jardine, Matheson & Co. did not move their headquarters to Hong Kong from Macao until 1844. As shown above, there is ample evidence that East Point was not their first choice for the new headquarters, though the facility with which they were able to secure large areas of land at East Point may well have dictated a move even if the circumstances which I have described had not come about.\n\nHong Kong, 1968\n\nDAFYDD Emrys Evans\n\nMr. Evans, who has been on special leave of absence from the University of London, 1966-68, is a lecturer in the Department of Laws, London School of Economics and Political Science.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205716, "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-1969", "page_number": 22, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "16 \n\nT. C. CHENG \n\nDr. Ho died in September 1914 at the age of 55 leaving over ten sons and daughters by his second wife who was a Chinese. \n\nThe fourth Chinese to serve on the Legislative Council was Wei Yuk, son-in-law of Mr. Wong Shing. He had another name Wei Bo-shan17 and Po Shan Road is named after him. He was born in Hong Kong in 1849 of a wealthy family, his father, Wei Kwong, being compradore to the Hong Kong branch of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China (now the Mercantile Bank Ltd.). After many years of Chinese studies under private tutors, he entered the Government Central School. In 1867, at the age of 18, he proceeded to England to attend the Leicester Stoneygate School. In 1868 he went to Scotland and studied for four years at the Dollar Institution. After a European tour, he returned to Hong Kong in 1872 and then worked in China for a short period. When his father died in 1879 he succeeded him as compradore to the bank. He was a very public-spirited citizen, well-known for his charming manners and pleasant personality. In 1880 he was elected a director of the Tung Wah Hospital and in 1887 became its Chairman. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1883. \n\nWei Yuk's appointment to the Legislative Council was additional to and not in replacement of Ho Kai, and came about as follows. \n\nDuring 1894, the Governor, Sir William Robinson, forwarded to the Secretary of State a petition signed by the Honourable Messrs. Thomas Whitehead, Paul Chater, Ho Kai and other residents in the Colony, asking for unofficial membership in the Executive Council; \"free election of representatives of British nationality in the Legislative Council\"; \"a majority of such representatives in the Legislative Council\"; and freedom of the official members to vote according to their conscientious convictions.18 \n\nThe Secretary of State, Lord Ripon, criticized the petitioners' demands as lacking in clarity on the ground that the petitioners \"asked for the free election of representatives of British nationality without reference to the qualifications of the voters\". Thus if the petitioners intended that only those from the British Islands should vote and be eligible for election, this would exclude the Chinese who comprised nine-tenths of the entire population. He dismissed the claim to have a majority of elected representatives,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205930, "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-1970", "page_number": 10, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "4\n\ntrade and penetration to China and the Far East, and the Society was in part designed to bring together in London members of these societies who had returned to England and allow them to meet and continue publication of their work. It was founded in March 1823 and received its Royal Charter of Incorporation from George IV on 11th August, 1824. It is the oldest and most important Society of its kind in Europe, and its standing as the doyen of Societies promoting the study of Asia has been maintained by the devotion of generations of eminent scholars, explorers, and others who have contributed through its Journal, in public addresses and in many other ways, a rich harvest of knowledge, the practical uses of which serve to promote and aid our understanding of, and our relation with, the East.\n\nBefore the acquisition of Hong Kong the movement had extended to the mercantile community in Canton, under the influence of Sir John Davis who had become a founder member of the Royal Asiatic Society in London, and of correspondents of the Society who included James Matheson.\n\nThe Hong Kong Branch grew out of a Medico-Chirurgical Society founded in 1845. This Society, however, in accord with the contemporary spirit of inquiry, and the enthusiasm for better knowledge of Asia in general and of China in particular, had contemplated setting up a Philosophical Society under the leadership of Andrew Shortrede, Editor of the China Mail who drafted the Society's laws based on those of the Royal Asiatic Society. Sir John F. Davis, then Governor of the Colony, by reason of his known literary and scientific acquirements rather than his official rank, was asked to be President. He suggested that the Society should seek to be admitted as a Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society with which, as a founder member, he was in close touch and with whose active President, the Earl of Auckland, he had had discussions on these lines before he left England.\n\nSo in January 1847 the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was founded and all the members of the Medico-Chirurgical Society who wished to join were admitted on condition of their Society's library being handed over to the new body.\n\nBesides the Governor as President, and Andrew Shortrede as General Secretary and Major General D'Aguilar as Vice President,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205931, "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-1970", "page_number": 11, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "the Society included the hierarchy of the Government, Military, Medical and Mercantile communities.\n\nIn his Inaugural Address as President of the Hong Kong Branch, Sir John Davis stressed the importance of directing the Society's attention to practical projects and to natural history, geology and botany, as well as to literary pursuits, and suggested that he could get the sanction of the Colonial Office to the grant of a moderate piece of ground for a Botanical Garden. Sir John left the Colony in 1848; but, as the result of a stirring appeal by the Rev. C. Gutzlaff at a meeting of the Society in August 1848, the project was approved, although it was not carried into effect until the governorship of Sir John Bowring, and then the Garden was placed under Government control and not under that of the Society.\n\nThe Society was fortunate in enjoying influential Government and press support, including that of the China Mail, and continued under Sir George Bonham who gave the Society a room in the old Supreme Court building to hold its meetings and to house its library.\n\nWith the departure of Sir John Bowring in May 1859, and the death in the September following of the Branch's devoted Secretary, the Society collapsed. The efforts of Dr. James Legge, as well as those of Sir Hercules Robinson, the new Governor, as President, of the Bishop of Victoria and of the Acting Chief Justice as Vice-Presidents and of Harry (later Sir Harry) S. Parkes were of no avail.\n\nThe collapse of the Society came at an unfortunate time and deprived it of the prestige and momentum which it would undoubtedly have gained from the work of some of its famous members. Legge was on the eve of publishing his famous translation of the Chinese Classics, which eventually appeared only through the generosity of Joseph Jardine (and his successor Sir Robert Jardine) and of John Dent, the heads of the two largest merchant houses in the Colony. A little later, in 1865, T. W. Kingsmill had to resort to the aid of the Shanghai Branch for the publication of his studies on the geology of Hong Kong.\n\nIt was thus with a deep sense of responsibility, and also of duty, that it was decided to revive this Society in 1959 after the lapse of a century.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "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": 206289, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "100\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nalias\n\nFung Ming Shan alias Fung Po Hai Fung Chew, another of the founders of Tung Wah, in the 1870s was compradore to A.H. Hogg and Company, but later became the compradore of the Chartered Mercantile Bank. He had received an English language education and may have been a classmate of Ng Choy (Wu Ting Fang) at St. Paul's College, as they were partners in several land transactions in Hong Kong. Fung Ming Shan was one of the signatories in 1878 of the petition of natives of Tung Kwun District to Government concerning the kidnapping and sale of children, which resulted in the organization of the Po Leung Kuk. He was naturalized as a British subject in 1881. He died in 1898, leaving a widow and two sons, one of whom died in 1906.\n\nYet another of the organizing directors of Tung Wah was the compradore of Gilman and Company, Choy Wing Chip **蔡永接 alias Choy Lung Chi. Along with Choey Teo Soon and Chop Aping, he was a partner in the Wing Cheong Shun firm which failed in 1873 owing some 160,000 taels. He was probably the brother of Choy Aloy, who was compradore to J. J. dos Remedios and Company in the 1870s; both were in Hong Kong as early as 1865. Choy Achip died in 1874 and the administration of his estate was granted to his eldest son Choy Afoong.\n\nA compradore family that appears on a number of the various lists and by 1881 had become the largest rate-payer was headed by Ng Acheong alias Ng Ying Cheong(A) who died in 1873. He left an estate of $260,000. The family were compradores to the firm of Messrs. Douglas Lapraik and Company. Lapraik began his career as a jeweller and watchmaker, but by the 1850s had extended his business into commerce and eventually the firm built up a large shipping concern. His compradore first appears on the Hong Kong records in 1855. After the death of Ng Acheong in 1873, a near relative Ng Sang(A) alias Ng Ying Sang alias Ng Chuk Shau succeeded as compradore. He fell victim to the fever of land speculation in 1881 and suffered heavy losses. Concern over his strained financial position so affected his health that he died in 1883. Action was brought by his employers against the Ng family property to cover debts he left in his compradore's accounts. The family had come to Hong Kong from Macao.", "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": 206325, "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": 142, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "136 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\ncensus 13 of the 76 Chinese enumerators were district watchmen; in the 1901 census 5 out of 107 were. In the 1906 census the 120 enumerators were shown round the blocks (census sub-divisions) by district watchmen. They also gave help in the 1911 census, and in the 1921 one the bulk of the force was placed at the disposal of the commissioner of census, who wrote 'each Chinese watchman engaged was in charge of two sections; they helped clear up misunderstandings and kept a check on enumerators'. The Committee was thanked on many occasions by government for its public service; it was praised for the help it rendered to the police during the riots which occurred in 1894 during the great epidemic of plague. The Committee did all it could to help its sister organizations the Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk. Thus district watchmen were always employed on special duties at the Tung Wah Hospital during outbreaks of plague and the Chinese Public Dispensary Committee used Watchmen to prevent the dumping of bodies in the streets. The Po Leung Kuk's two principal detectives were serving district watchmen at the turn of the century. Co-operation was easy because most members of the District Watch Committee had served or were serving on the committees of the Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk. In 1895 head district watchmen were paid $240 a year, assistant head district watchmen $180 and watchmen from $84 to $96. \n\n18 For examples of police corruption in nineteenth century Hong Kong see numerous references in Norton-Kyshe, op. cit. \n\n19 After a distinguished academic career at Edinburgh University, J. H. Stewart Lockhart became a Hong Kong Cadet in 1878; Registrar General in 1887; Colonial Secretary in 1895. In 1902 he was appointed first Civil Commissioner of Weihaiwei and retired from this post in 1921. Among his numerous publications there are several of sinological value. See particularly: 'Contributions to the Folklore of China', China Review, vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 352-353 and vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 37-39; also 'Some Chinese Folk-lore', Folk-lore, vol. 14, 1903, pp. 292-298. Lockhart was local secretary in Hong Kong of the International Folk-lore Society. \n\n20 In 1892 new rules were drawn up under Ordinance No. 13 of 1888, with the advice of the Committee, for the regulation and guidance of the watchmen. 'Copies of these rules have been distributed among the contributors of the District Watchmen's Fund, by whom more interest seems to be evinced in and more assistance asked from the force than formerly': See Report of the Registrar General for 1892. Lockhart also persuaded two Chinese newspapers—the Tsun Wan Yat Po and the Wai San Yat Po—to publish weekly lists of cases brought before the magistrate by the District watchmen for the information of subscribers to the District Watchmen's Fund. Lockhart realised that publicity was good for the Committee: he saw that they got it. The report of the Registrar General/Secretary for Chinese Affairs always contained a section on the District Watch and news about members was given: deaths, resignations, appointments, etc. \n\n21 Wei Yuk (1849-1921) was the son of Wei Kwong, compradore to the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China. He was educated at the Government Central School in Hong Kong and in 1867, at the age of 18, became a pupil at the Leicester Stoneygate School and in 1868 of the Dollar Institution, Scotland. He returned to Hong Kong in 1872 to become assistant compradore in the Chartered Mercantile Bank. He succeeded his father on the latter's death in 1879. Wei Yuk married the eldest daughter of Wong Shing (Huang Shêng). He was the fourth Chinese to be appointed to the Legislative Council, the other three being Ng Choy (Wu Ting-fang), Wong Shing and Ho Kai. He was knighted in 1919. During his public career he served on all the commissions appointed by government to inquire into matters affecting the Chinese. Ho Fook (1863-1926) was the younger half-brother of Sir Robert Ho Tung, reputed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206436, "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": 253, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "227\n\nBARD, Dr. S. M.\n\nBARNES, Mrs. A. M.\n\nBARR, Miss E.\n\nc/o University Health Service, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulum, H.K.\n\nMercantile Bank Ltd., Bombay 1, India.\n\n80 Robinson Road, H.K.\n\nBARRETT, Rev. Cyril, S. J.\n\nc/o Wah Yan College, Queen's Road, East, H.K.\n\nBARRY, Cmdr. R. S.\n\nBASHALL, Mrs. C. G.\n\nBEDLINGTON, Mrs. M.\n\nBELL, G. J.\n\nBERKOWITZ, Dr. M. I.\n\nBERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G.*\n\nBEVERIDGE, R. J.\n\nBIRCH, Dr. A.\n\nBIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D.\n\nBLACK, D.\n\nBLACKMORE, M.\n\nBLAKER, D. J. R.\n\nBLUE, A. D.\n\nBOARD, D. B. M.*\n\nBOEHMKE, Mrs. A. Karl\n\nBONSALL, G. W.\n\nBORGEEST, G.\n\nBOXER, Prof. B.\n\nBRAGA, J. M.\n\nBRAUN, F.\n\nBRIDGES, G. A.\n\nBRIGGS, G. G.\n\nBROOKS, D. E.\n\nc/o Hong Kong Club, H.K.\n\nc/o H.M. Prison, Stanley, H.K.\n\nUnknown.\n\nc/o Royal Observatory, H.K.\n\nUnknown.\n\nLungotevere delle navi 30, Roma, Italy.\n\nc/o 4A, Horsburgh Grove, Armadale, Melbourne, S.E. 3, Victoria, Australia.\n\nc/o Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, H.K.\n\n7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon.\n\nLong Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland.\n\nUnknown.\n\nc/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K.\n\n15, Lansdowne Crescent, Edinburgh, Scotland.\n\nc/o Education Dept., Lee Gardens, Hysan Avenue, H.K.\n\n4, Shouson Hill Road, A-2, H.K.\n\nc/o Hong Kong University Press, Pokfulum, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 1058, H.K.\n\n167 Laurel Circle, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, U.S.A.\n\nc/o National Library of Australia, Canberra, Australia.\n\n8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K.\n\nc/o The British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K.\n\nc/o The Supreme Court, H.K.\n\nc/o Radio Hong Kong, Broadcasting House, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon.\n\nLife Member\n\nPlease notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206785, "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-1973", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "Vessel Nemesis\n\nMaterial Tons 1839 Iron 630 gross\n\nBuilder Laird & Co., Birkenhead, England.\n\nDimensions\n\n184'0\" X 29'0\"\n\nX ?\n\nEngines and Builder Paddle, Forrester & Co., Liverpool.\n\nRemarks: First iron steamship to round the Cape of Good Hope, played prominent part in the First China War.\n\nLady Mary\n\nWood\n\n1842 Wood 297 net\n\nT. Wilson, Liverpool. England.\n\nMidas\n\n?\n\n250 h.p., Paddle, Fawcett & Co., Birmingham.\n\n56\n\nRemarks: Inaugurated first regular mail service to China in 1846. First P. and O. ship to visit China.\n\n1844 Wood 145 gross\n\nS. Hall & Co., Boston, Mass.\n\n?\n\nTwin screw, Hogg & Delameter, New York.\n\nRemarks: First American, and first propeller-driven steamer to round the Cape of Good Hope; operated first steamship service in China.\n\nIron Prince\n\n1845 Iron 180 gross\n\nJ. Hodgson & Co., Liverpool,\n\n119'8\" x 17'4\" X 11'8\"\n\nPaddle, by shipbuilders\n\nSir Charles Forbes\n\n1846 Wood 211 gross\n\nMercantile\n\n130'1\" x 18'5\"\n\nDock, Bombay.\n\nX 10'2\"\n\nCanton\n\nRemarks: Chartered by P.\n\n1848 Iron 349 gross\n\nand O., and their second ship on Canton River,\n\nTod &\n\nMacgregor,\n\nGlasgow.\n\n172'7\" x 21'4”\n\nX 10'7\"\n\n150 h.p., Paddle,\n\nby shipbuilders\n\nRemarks: First P. and O. ship on Canton River.\n\nA. D. BLUE", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207291, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "INCIDENT: H.K. MERCHANTS & B.E.I. CO.\n\n51\n\nI might have been able to have furnished you and my country with some lasting memorial of services rendered in that naval field where so much fame has so honourably been acquired; but you are aware that my career in that service was cut short by the entire stop to promotion which took place at the close of the American war in the year 1782; and the sea service of the East India Company, which I then adopted, gave but little scope for anything worth relating; however, on one occasion, in China, I was placed in a situation the account of which you may perhaps think worthy of a place in your collection.\n\nIn 1811 I was commodore of a large and valuable fleet belonging to the East India Company, then lying in the port of Canton.\n\nIn Canton all mercantile business is carried on by Chinese appointed by the Government and styled Hong or security merchants; they are selected from the richest and most respectable persons in Canton, and through them only can the supercargoes, our residents in China, have intercourse with the Hoppo, or Viceroy.1\n\nThese merchants have therefore the power of withholding all representations to the Government which may be against their private interest, or otherwise disagreeable to them by exposing the extortions and impositions they frequently attempt on the English.\n\nOn the occasion I am now going to relate the Hong merchants had some pecuniary demands which the supercargoes thought it their duty to resist.— the consequence of which was that misrepresentations were made by them to the Viceroy, and, when the fleet was ready to sail, the port-clearance was refused.\n\nAfter various ineffectual efforts to obtain our despatch, Mr. Brown, the chief supercargo, sent for me and expressed his anxiety at the unlooked-for detention of the very valuable fleet which was ready for sea. He informed me he had sent several petitions by the security merchants to the Hoppo, but he had reason to believe that\n\n1 Hoppo, or Viceroy. This mistake shows how dangerous it is to read the account of an eye witness of that time without making sure that his/her facts are correct. The Viceroy was the Westerners' name for the Governor-general of two provinces. Working in association with him was the Governor (Fu-yuan) of Kwangtung with his headquarters at Canton. Independent of these two great mandarins stood the Superintendent of Maritime Customs for Kwangtung who was the Emperor's direct financial representative at Canton, and was known to the English merchants as the Hoppo, this being a corruption of the Chinese name of the department of government at the capital under which he served, the hu-pu (Board of Revenue).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207335, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n95\n\nentering the harbour, George Woodcock affirms of seamen in the Far East that they 'provided its nearest equivalent to a European proletariat; out of their ranks emerged its shifting population of poor whites and also a high proportion of its adventurers'. He concludes that 'on shore the status of the seamen remained, as it always had been, anomalous. His occupation was essential to the very existence of British communities in the Far East, and yet he was always an outsider, disturbing and distrusted',10\n\nThe author of a booklet issued in 1891 to commemorate the jubilee of Hong Kong claimed that\n\nthe practice of the handicrafts in Hong Kong appears to be entirely in the hands of the Chinese; there is a considerable European population, but few are mechanics, and the Portuguese decline all forms of labour, the aspirations of both running towards the counting-house and the banker's desk.11 The suggestion that there were few European mechanics in Hong Kong is incorrect if we realise that many European overseers in the dockyards and other industrial undertakings and utilities were expected not only to supervise the labour force but to look after and repair machines. Many overseers in such enterprises were skilled engineers, who had served their apprenticeship in the engine-rooms of the British mercantile marine. The Taikoo Sugar Refinery at Quarry Bay, owned by Butterfield and Swire, gave direct employment to fifty or sixty Europeans as well as many hundreds of Chinese. A journalist, J. S. Thomson, wrote of this refinery that it\n\nwas\n\na marvellous study in Scotch sociology. There is a company reservoir and hospital in the hills; a cable to carry European overseers five hundred feet over the gullies to the fever-free bungalows on the cliffs; Company model tenements at inexpensive rents; a Company loan fund for overseers to bring out Scotch wives...12\n\nThe China Sugar Refinery, owned by Jardine, Matheson, also utilised the services of at least twenty-five European engineers, mechanics and overseers. At the end of the century, the Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company employed about 800 Chinese, chiefly natives of Swatow, supervised by European overseers, many of whom were skilled mechanics. Other undertakings, such as the Green Island Cement Company, the Hong Kong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207343, "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": 111, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "# EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n103\n\nThe European lower orders were not, of course, totally neglected by their superiors. The church and the various missionary societies, such as the Mission to Seamen, did their best to elevate the moral tone of the less fortunate. Various institutions were established to cater to their needs—a Sailors' Home at West Point, close to the Seamen's Church, St. Peter's, and a Soldiers and Sailors' Rest at East Point. By the end of the century, there was also a Union Jack Club, a Royal Naval Seamen's Club, a United Services Club, an Institute of Marine Engineers, complete with technical library and librarian, and a branch of the British Mercantile Marine Officers' Association (the last two catered for a merchant navy elite). A Seamen's Hospital had also been opened.\n\nThe military authorities, in turn, strongly backed the work of the Army Temperance Association and the Independent Order of Good Templars, a society of abstainers formed in America in 1851, which had ramified over the Anglo-Saxon world. No doubt all these associations, societies, and clubs did sterling work and restrained some servicemen from seeking the scabrous temptations offered by Tai Ping Shan or Wan Chai; but they did not offer enough to the average soldier or sailor, only tea and buns, prayers and uplift, draughts and dominoes, and the ministrations of lay missioners, missionary ladies, and army and naval chaplains.\n\nIn 1889, the Hong Kong Ladies' Benevolent Society was founded 'for the purpose of rendering assistance in cases of sickness, want, poverty, or distress arising from time to time amongst persons other than members of the Portuguese or Chinese communities'. The society helped defray the passage home of destitute Europeans and educated orphaned European children; in some cases, it paid the rents of the hard-up and obtained employment for those stranded in the colony.\n\nWhat the government felt about poor whites is mirrored in the report prepared by Dr. Eitel in 1880 on the treatment of paupers in Hong Kong:\n\nIn the case of British destitutes, anything done by the Government over and above what is now being done in furnishing such destitutes with board and lodgings in the Gaol, would tend to make the condition of a 'beach comber' or destitute here more eligible than the lot of the hardworking seaman or stoker, and consequently put a premium on loafing and idleness... I would", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207737, "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-1976", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "110\n\nTIN-YUKE CHAR\n\nAldersey brought over from her Batavia, Java mission school to become assistant leaders in her Ningpo school. Ruth and Laisun had a family of six children: Elijah, Spencer, Willie, Annie, Lena, and Amy.\n\nChan later left his mission work and went to Shanghai in 1853 where he became quite successful through his connections with an English mercantile firm. On a corner of the American Board's property in Shanghai, he built a school house where his wife opened a girls' school. As he was acquainted with Yung Wing and was qualified, he was engaged to accompany the Educational Mission to America in 1872. He took along his wife and six children. His two eldest sons were ready to enter college in two years and his two eldest daughters received part of their education in England.\n\nIn 1875 Chan was detached from the Educational Mission and appointed interpreter to Li Hung-chang, Governor-general of Chihli. Thus, he met Hawaiian King Kalakaua in Tientsin in 1881.\n\nThe February 1887 issue of the Hamilton College Literary Monthly had this letter from Chan, \"We all love the United States, for many reasons. Our hearts are still there, although we are back in China. I am in Tientsin, with the well-known viceroy, Si [Li] Hung Chang, as his Secretary, and Interpreter. Annie, our eldest daughter, is married to a Dane, Captain of the Chinese government revenue cruiser; and is the happy mother of a beautiful son. Elijah, the eldest boy, graduated from the Yale Scientific School in 1887. He then went to Freiburg in Saxony, and remained there eighteen months. On his return to China, he was commissioned to open the copper mines in Eastern Mongolia. His prospects are very bright. He was offered the post of chief engineer for the government railroads, but declined to accept it. He is the first scientific engineer China has produced. His field is the largest ever offered to a single individual, for the mineral resources of China are almost infinite.”\n\nFrom Carl Smith's article, it was learned that another son, Spencer Tsang Lai Sun, married Man Kwai, daughter of the Reverend Ho Fuk-tong (1818-71) of Hong Kong.\n\nA further lead to more information was given by Chi Wang of the Orientalia Division, United States Library of Congress. In Shu Hsin-ch'eng's Chinese book on Chinese Students in Foreign Countries, the interpreter of the Educational Mission was identified by his official name, Tseng Heng-chung. The same is true in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207994, "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-1977", "page_number": 33, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "BRUNEI A HISTORICAL RELIC\n\n17\n\nand ruled over people not territory per se. The structure was somewhat feudal in social terms. \"Everyone owned somebody else; everybody was owned by someone\" is not too inaccurate a description of society. Southeast Asian traditional society was, and is, hierarchical. Headmen of villages owed allegiance and tribute to a riverine chief; the chief (pengeran or dato) in turn owed allegiance and was protected by a higher chief, a prince, or his sultan. The feudal dues of protection downward and allegiance and tributary payment upward pertained. The sultan was a despotic ruler, but a limited despot, restrained in practice by a council of the chief princes of the royal blood, whose sanction was usually necessary in important matters. One of the chief functions of the council was to provide for the succession.\n\nBrunei on the northwest coast was well located in a flourishing trade center between China on the north and the Arabian-Indian dominated trading system of south Asia. Brunei suffered the fate of most maritime southeast Asian states when European mercantile monopolizing practices entered Asia. The Dutch and the British eventually wrested the dominance in the south Asian trading system from the Muslims. At the same time Spanish encroachment from the north considerably limited Brunei's power. The result was a falling-off of trade and a shrinking of revenues. A long, slow decline set in. The sultan's power, his ability to collect revenue and tolls and to command respect for his title, shrank until he could be said to hold authority only over the immediate coastal and riverine areas close to Brunei Bay.\n\n17\n\nWhile Spain neither acquired nor probably coveted Borneo, the impact of Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries, plus the declining fortunes of Brunei, caused a vacuum of sorts around Borneo which was filled by pirates. The pirates of the area were nominally Muslim seafarers from southern Philippines and Borneo -- some were impecunious princes of the royal houses of Sulu and Brunei -- who raided shipping and coastal villages; whose communities were, by the 19th century, located all around the northern coasts of Borneo in territory nominally within the sultan's realm. As he could neither tax nor control the pirate communities, and as his revenue-income was shrinking or already non-existent, the sultan often condoned piracy. Sultans and princes invested in pirate cruises and shared the profits. Brunei Town became one of the major pirate", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208032, "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-1977", "page_number": 71, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "TWO ESSAYS ON THE CH’ING ECONOMY OF HSIN-AN, KWANGTUNG\n\nJOHN THOMAS Kamm*\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nThe British Crown Colony of Hong Kong was carved, in three successive steps, from the Chinese county of Hsin-An (新安). These essays represent attempts to reconstruct modes of economic activity which prevailed in this remote county during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This reconstruction will eventually serve as the groundwork on which an analysis of mercantile capitalism, in terms of its impact on local Chinese social structure, will be built.\n\nIn the first year of Wan-Li (1573), Hsin-An Hsien was formed from the division of Tung-Kuan Hsien (東莞縣) into two jurisdictions. Except for a brief period during the reign of the Kang-Hsi Emperor, the county remained one of the fourteen counties of the Kwangchow Prefecture throughout Ch'ing. As with most other magistracies in rural imperial China, Hsin-An was characterized by a high degree of self-government. The magistrate seldom intervened in local affairs, and relied heavily on the indigenous social order for the day-to-day administration of the countryside.\n\nThe dominant stratum of the local hierarchical order consisted principally of landlord-gentry patrilineal descent groups, commonly referred to as great clans (大族). Of these clans, the Tangs (鄧) and especially that branch of the clan which resided in Kam Tin (錦田) -- were probably best representative. Much of the data presented was collected during field work into the social history and oral tradition of this Punti \"power brokerage.\"\n\n*\n\nMr. Kamm states, The essays were written in fulfillment of seminar requirements for an A.M. at Harvard University's Regional Studies-East Asia program. The work is based largely on research undertaken in the New Territories (including a brief stint as coordinator of an NTA-Yuen Long \"oral history\" project in Kam Tin) and in the archives of the Public Records Office, Hong Kong. Writing and editing was supervised by Professor Yang Lien-Sheng of Harvard during late 1974.\n\nNOTES\n\nThe cession of Hong Kong Island was ratified by the Treaty of Nanking (1842). The Kowloon peninsula was added in 1860. Britain obtained the New Territories (on a 99-year lease) in 1898.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209285, "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-1981", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "174\n\nNG LUN NGAL-HA\n\ndemonstrated on his occasional visits to his native village while he was a student in Hawaii and in Hong Kong.\n\nAs to the promotion of commerce, Sun's ideas were very much inspired by Ho and Cheng, both of whom were of the comprador merchant class preoccupied with commercial interests. Yet, as an eye-witness of the economic prosperity of Hong Kong, a free port under the Western and British commercial system, Sun's ideas were much more than echoes of the above thinkers. His exposition on this aspect went much deeper than the section on industrial development, which was then not a main feature of the Hong Kong economy, and which he knew about merely from his reading. The three important measures prescribed by Sun for the promotion or free flow of commerce were not original. They were the abolition of internal customs barriers, protection of merchants by government against extortion and the building of railways and ships to ensure facilities for transportation. Yet the examples he cited as being carried out by Western nations, especially Britain, were evidently learnt in Hong Kong. He pointed out that the merchant class in Western countries had long been actively involved in government policies and their overseas commercial expansion had received military support from their governments. In return, it was the financial support of the merchants which enabled Britain to conquer India, territories in Southeast Asia and Africa, and also to annex Australia. Sun wanted to prove that commercialism was the road to the nation's wealth and power and that merchants were a very influential class in the nation. The privileged position and influence of merchants and the mercantile houses were in fact evident in Hong Kong since the first day of its founding. Very often, the Governor and even the home government had to yield to their requests and demands, and all the unofficial seats in the Hong Kong Legislative and the Executive Councils were taken by prominent merchants and members of the General Chamber of Commerce.18 To show that Chinese merchants, if given chance and encouragement, would also be able to help in building up a modern China, Sun pointed out that a great part of the railway network in Southeast Asia was built by overseas Chinese investment. \"If government would give assurance for proper interest and profit, these merchants would certainly be willing to invest in their native country\", Sun remarked.\n\nSince Sun had received a major part of his formal education in Hong Kong, he was able to experience personally the advantage of a Western education, especially the professional training at the medical", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209412, "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-1982", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "47\n\nOnly the first two belonged to houses which had property in the Settlement, but Mr. Langley was the manager of the Oriental Bank which was not registered as a landrenter. At some time during the meeting \"the fact of Mr. Langley not being a land-holder and his being disqualified in consequence, was then argued\", but most of those present thought that it was \"competent for the Landholders to elect at a Public Meeting any person they might choose to take charge of their affairs”.\n\nThus the affair was closed, and during the following ten years there were only renters on the Municipal Council; but in the edition of June 29 1861 a letter to the editor of the North China Herald was printed, which drew attention to the fact that a non-renter was allegedly a member of the Municipal Council. This letter, by \"A Landrenter\" partly read:\n\n\"Sir. It is a generally received axiom that the possession of landed property renders its owner conservative; and on this good principle I was always under the impression that the Municipal Government of this Settlement was founded. Much then was I surprised to find the meetings of landholders purporting to be convened for them alone were attended by non-renters and from amongst them one of our Municipal Councillors was chosen My only reason for troubling you with this letter is to ascertain the opinion of my fellow-landholders as to the eligibility of non-renters to hold Municipal offices .\". The person referred to was probably Mr. William Howard, manager of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, who resigned as from June 28 1861.38\n\nThe opinion of the \"fellow-landholders” was aired at a Public Meeting of March 31 1862, during which the stand of a decade before was reversed in a resolution passed unanimously: \"That before choosing gentlemen for the Municipal Council for the coming year it be resolved that non but bona fide foreign Renters of Land shall be able to become members of the Municipal Council.\"30\n\nThus the matter was after all decided in favour of the landowners, the final Constitution only adding a very high threshold, to bar anyone who might not be considered “respectable”.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209656, "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-1982", "page_number": 313, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n291\n\n$45 whilst Annisced Oil pays $5 duty and the value is about $145 altho' last year it was about $115.\n\nI am Yours very sincerely David Welsh\n\nIt has not been possible from the China trade directories available in Hong Kong to find out anything about David Welsh. The first quarterly intelligence report from the British Consul at Pakhoi, dated 5th February 1878, states \"There are only two foreign mercantile residents, both British\" (F.O.228, v.616, p.411), and it is probable that Welsh was one of them, report continues that one of these was a general merchant and commission agent, while the other had formerly been a hotel keeper in Canton, now describing himself as an auctioneer, but who had come to Pakhoi without any clear idea of his intentions.\n\nThe\n\nA further report by Acting Consul T. L. Bullock stated that duties had to be paid at both Licuchow and Chiu Chow on Pakhoi goods, and that transit passes were not issued because of the lack of instructions from the Superintendent of Customs at Canton, exactly the same situation as has been described at Kiungchow (F.O.228, v.616, p.432-6). A little later in the file is a copy of a letter from David Welsh to Bullock dated 13 March 1878 (p.443-5), in which he reminded the Consul that he had written three months before (letter not traced), pointing out the desirability of being able to obtain transit passes. In support of this he quotes the rates of Lekin payable at Nanning (南寧) in Kwangsi. \"The result of the issue of Transit passes would of necessity be the opening of Pakhoi to foreigners practically as hitherto it has only been theoretically open.\" He concludes with statistics of the trade, mainly in yarn, piece-goods and cotton, from Macao to Pakhoi.\n\nOn May 14, 1878 there is a despatch from the Chargé d'Affaires in Peking, Hugh Fraser, to J. G. Stronach, H.B.M. Consul in Pakhoi, referring to previous correspondence from Bullock, and saying that the Acting Consul in Canton had been asked to persuade the provincial authorities \"of the inexpediency of withholding a treaty right\" (F.O.228, v.616, p.469).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209926, "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-1983", "page_number": 185, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "163\n\nnot get the academic attention they deserve. A recognition of their sociological significance will pose a different set of questions in the study of industrial entrepreneurship. A central issue in the field of Japanese industrial growth, for example, has been the supply of modern entrepreneurs from the traditional samurai class. Most researchers, in my view, are preoccupied with determining the extent of samurai participation in industrial leadership (See Hirschmeier 1964; Yamamura 1974). It should not be surprising to find that the samurai's performance as entrepreneurs was lacklustre if their industrial importance lay elsewhere. Their strict code of honour, their willingness to observe regulations, and their devotion to service most probably qualified them to become loyal and competent industrial bureaucrats instead of leaders. Similarly, in the comparative studies of Chinese and Japanese modernization, the differences in their traditional class structure have been noted. Both structures were hierarchical, but the Japanese one was 'feudalistic' in the sense that class boundaries were rigid and impermeable, whereas the Chinese one did not bar individual mobility. From this difference, observers usually deduce implications for capital accumulation. Since the status of merchant in Japan was hereditary, it facilitated the formation of mercantile capital. Chinese merchants, on the other hand, would urge their sons to become officials and convert their wealth into land to gain gentry status, thus commercial capital as well as talent were dissipated (Levy 1955). But the different stratification system might also have far-reaching consequences for the emergence of a stable and dedicated middle managerial stratum in the two societies. My hypothesis is that the pervasive ambition to move up the social ladder in Chinese society tends to deny the Chinese industrial entrepreneurs dependable executives. I cannot fully substantiate this idea here. Let me simply suggest some of the likely consequences of this hypothesized absence of a dedicated managerial stratum in the Hong Kong cotton spinning industry. This deficiency does not necessarily hamper the overall vitality of the industry. Rather, it can create its own kind of dynamism. One spinner, B22, attributed the success of Hong Kong textile industry to the prevalent desire for self-employment:\n\nJapanese and South Korean workers are very obedient. But", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210262, "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-1984", "page_number": 233, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "212\n\nJ.H. HAAN\n\nCRYDER, William Wetmore 1858-1859, 1859-1860\n\nJunior partner in Wetmore & Co.;23 from May 25, 1857 partner in Wetmore, Williams & Co.24\n\nCUNNINGHAM, Edward 1852-1853, 1854-1855\n\nBorn 1823, died 1889.\n\nMercantile assistant Russell & Co. 1845-1849; partner 1850-1857, 1861-1863 and 1867-1877;25 part of 1849 and in 1850 he stayed in Canton,26\n\nUnited States Consul 1851-1854; Consul for Sweden and Norway 1853-1864.27\n\nMember Recreation Ground Committee 1861;28 trustee British Episcopal Church 1863;29 member of the NCBRAS, as resident until 1870,30 as non-resident until 1877,31\n\nMember Committees I, III, IV, VI and VII.\n\nApart from his political functions, Cunningham's philanthropic attitude was praised from several sides. Cordier called him \"one of the most public-spirited men Shanghai has ever known\"32 and S.W. Williams dedicated the fifth edition of his \"Commercial Guide\" to \"Edward Cunningham Esq. of Shanghai (...) as a mark of respect for his character as a philanthropist and merchant (...)\".\n\nAt the time of his return to the United States he took with him a large bell which is now in the possession of the Museum of the American China Trade, Milton.33\n\nLater a street was named after him (Cunningham Road). Portraits. Author.34\n\n315\n\nDENT, Henry 1863-1864, 1864-1865\n\nPartner in Dent & Co. from July 1, 1860.36\n\nConsul for Portugal 1863-1865.37\n\nMember of the Commission Provisoire that ran the French Concession 1865-1866.38\n\nTrustee British Episcopal Church 1863, treasurer Recreation Fund 1863-1865;40 trustee Chinese Hospital 1865.41\n\nTreasurer NCBRAS 1864,42\n\nMember Committees IV and IX.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210265, "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-1984", "page_number": 236, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "215\n\nHe was known as a philanthropist; one of his charitable acts was the donation of a sum of money to the NCBRAS with which the library could be enriched.\n\n88\n\nFounder of the school at Boone Road that bore his name (1891).* Hanbury Road was named after him. Author.\n\n90\n\nHEARD, George Fairley 1863-1864\n\nCame to China as secretary of the American envoy John Ward.1 Partner in Aug. Heard & Co. from June 1, 1862.\n\nHEINSSEN, Rudolph 1864-1865\n\nThe first representative of the German firm Siemssen & Co. who established a branch office in Shanghai January 1, 1856.1 Consul for the Hanseatic Towns 1864-1865.\n\n94\n\nHOGG, James 1865-1866\n\nMercantile assistant Lindsay & Co.,2 partner from July 1, 1854.3 Partnership with E. Jenner Hogg as Hogg Bros. from January 1, 1861.\n\n97\n\nConsul for Italy 1863, 1864.\n\n98\n\nMember Committees I, IV, VII and IX.\n\nHOGG, William 1852-1853\n\nResided in Hong Kong in 1846,99 from 1847 in Shanghai,100 Partner in Lindsay & Co., 1858.102\n\n101 interest in which ended June 30,\n\nConsul for Hamburg 1852-1855(?),103\n\nMember of the Committee to study the erection of a new building for the Shanghai Library 1852;104 trustee British Episcopal Church 1853-1855.105\n\nHOWARD, William 1861-1862\n\nManager of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, Shanghai branch, from November 8, 1859.106\n\n躲", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210267, "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-1984", "page_number": 238, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "217\n\nLANGLEY, Edward 1851-1852\n\nManager of the Oriental Banking Co.\n\nLATIMER, Nichol 1865\n\nBorn 1830, died 1865.\n\nWith Archibald Little and John Nutt he was the founder of a firm that operated in Shanghai under the name of Nichol Latimer & Co. in Kiukiang and Chinkiang as Latimer, Little & Co, from January 1, 1864,\n\nHe was one of the managers of the Shanghai Steam Navigation Co. 1865.130\n\nMember of the NCBRAS 1865.131\n\nPublisher of the North China Herald 1863-1865, in the issue of which of September 30, 1865 his death (on Sept. 28), due to an overdose of morphia, was announced.\n\nHe was buried at Shantung Road Cemetery.\n\nMACDUFF, Hector C.R. 1850-1851, (1854-1855)\n\nMercantile assistant MacVicar & Co.133, later partner in Smith, Kennedy & Co. in which his interest ended June 30, 1855.134 Trustee British Episcopal Church 1854-1855.\n\nMAN, James Lawrence 1856-1857\n\nAt first lived in Canton.136\n\n135\n\n137\n\nAuthorized to sign for George Barnet & Co. March 31, 1865, the date on which that firm moved to Shanghai; partner from August 6, 1855;135 interest ended March 31, 1862.139\n\n140\n\nTrustee British Episcopal Church 1855-1856, 1856-1857 and 1857.141 Portrait.\n\nMEDHURST, Dr. Walter Henry 1854-1855\n\nBorn 1796, died 1857.\n\nSent out by the London Missionary Society to the Far East, where he lived in Malacca and Batavia before taking up residence in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210269, "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-1984", "page_number": 240, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "219\n\n161\n\nLived in Canton and Macau, 1841-1849, where he was a partner\n\nin Nye, Parker & Co. and Vice-consul for Chile.\n\nLater partner in Bull, Nye & Co.\n\nBuried at Shantung Road Cemetery.\n\n162\n\nORNE, Charles W. 1857-1858\n\nMercantile assistant Russell & Co., partner from January 1,\n\n1857.\n\n163\n\nPROBST, W. 1865-1866\n\nFirst lived in Canton, then Shanghai.\n\nUnknown in which firm he was employed; Consul for Oldenburg 1861.\n\nMember of the Shanghai Society for Relief of Distressed Foreigners of All Nationalities, 1865.\n\n166\n\nMember of the Recreation Fund Committee; NCBRAS till 1870 (non-resident).\n\n168\n\nHis wife died November 28, 1864 at the age of 28.\n\n169\n\nRANKEN, Andrew Archibald 1856-1857\n\nmember\n\nPartner in Smith, Kennedy & Co., May 1855 till December 31, 1858.\n\n171\n\nTrustee British Episcopal Church 1857; member Committee Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society 1858.\n\n172\n\nPortrait.\n\n173\n\nREID, David 1863-1864\n\n174\n\nHe was among other interests a real estate agent; partnership with John George Dunn as Reid & Co. from January 1, 1864. Member of the NCBRAS 1873-1878 (last year as non-resident). Trustee Recreation Fund Committee 1872, 1873. Member Committee VI and VII.\n\nREID, Robert 1859-1860\n\nPartner in Birley, Worthington & Co. 1862.\n\n178\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210709, "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-1986", "page_number": 60, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "43\n\nClub and Fraser Smith and represented the Club in legal proceedings. After one case Fraser Smith unsuccessfully proposed at an Annual Meeting that his fees be not paid, alleging that he had been actuated by prejudice in advising that there were grounds for expelling Fraser Smith from the Club. I have found no evidence that Francis ever rode or owned horses. However he did run on one occasion. That was in 1880 in the Veterans Flat Race during the Civilian Athletic Sports. He was unplaced off a twenty yard start. T.C. Hayllar won off thirty-five yards.\n\nHe was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the China Association and the Navy League, and in 1895 accepted the Presidency of the British Mercantile Marine Officers Association. He was also a member of the Gun Club and the Rifle Association. He joined various literary and debating societies. He supported Dr. Cantlie in the formation of the Odd Volumes Society in 1893 observing that he had been connected with many similar ventures during his thirty-three years of residence.\n\nHe was an inveterate lecturer, his subjects ranging from Jesuitism in 1872 through maritime and Asian affairs to the theory of British Advocacy in 1897. He was still lecturing in the year of his death. He was said to be an entertaining, clear and simple lecturer though the China Mail said that his chief fault as a public speaker was \"inartistic redundancy\".\n\nIn 1889 at a meeting of the Literary Society he expressed hope for an elected Legislative Council and objected to heads of departments being members of the Executive Council. In 1893 at the Odd Volumes Society on the subject \"What does Hong Kong want\" he gave the answer “public spirit”, and attacked incompetent officials and harmful legislation.\n\nIn 1899, again at the Odd Volumes Society, he disagreed with the view of an earlier speaker that the British Nation was more vulgar than others and deficient in imagination and gave his own view that the British were disliked by others because of their national self-complacency and arrogance which resulted from the accomplishment of great deeds.\n\nHe played chess and kept open house in his chambers for chess players at 4.30 p.m. on Wednesdays. In 1894 he was involved in a living chess tournament organised to raise funds for the Union Church and held in the grounds of the Hon J.J. Keswick at East Point. In 1897 he took part in the founding of the St. Cecilia Society established to cultivate a taste for music and was its President.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210853, "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-1986", "page_number": 204, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "187\n\nsoon the pet of the pious section of the San Francisco community.\n\nEveryone was impressed with this suave, intelligent and seemingly religious young Chinese gentleman. The Rev. Albert Williams, founder of the First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, after meeting A-chick, reported that \"his answers to questions touching matters of Christian doctrine are intelligent and satisfactory. He is associated with his uncle, accompanying him in a mercantile venture, and will remain in this city. I have much hope, that through his instrumentality we may bring the gospel more directly to bear upon his interesting country.” A-chick was viewed as a potential medium for missionary endeavour.\n\nSoon after A-chick's arrival, a Bible class for Chinese was organised by a Presbyterian Elder. Its first members were A-chick \"and his companions.” Among these was Lee A-kan, a former classmate at the Morrison Education Society School in Hongkong.\n\nIt was realised, however, that if the Chinese in San Francisco were to be reached by the church, it was not enough to have classes for them in English. The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions was asked to send a Chinese-speaking missionary to San Francisco.\n\nThe Board sent the Rev. William Speer.\n\nMr. Speer had been in Canton for about three years, returning to the United States in 1849. His wife Cornelia Breckenridge and an infant daughter died within a few months of each other and are buried in the Protestant Cemetery at Macau near the grave of Dr. Robert Morrison.\n\nAfter his arrival in San Francisco, Mr. Speer began looking up the Chinese who had been connected with missionary churches or schools in China. He called on Tong A-chick. By then the young man was already in a position of leadership in the Chinese community and was recognised as a man of wealth.\n\nOf the meeting Mr. Speer remarks: “A-chick is regarded by the American community here as a man of more than common ability-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211114, "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-1987", "page_number": 175, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "150\n\nTo rally support, the Governor invited representatives of the largest merchant firms to sit in on the meeting. Everyone at the meeting was in thorough agreement that a Chinese consul would be a great blow to trade in Hongkong.\n\nThe Hongkong merchants were convinced the Chinese were already pursuing a policy of harassment of legitimate traders. A consul would only expose them to additional pressures.\n\nSir Richard put forth the thesis that China could not expect the same rights as other Treaty Powers. He argued that China was different because all of its treaties with foreign powers had been entered into at the point of a gun.\n\nIn spite of China having to make concessions, Governor Sir Richard claimed it still wished to be a hermit nation. It stubbornly resisted foreign demands for unrestricted trade and access to its markets by foreigners.\n\nThe mercantile interests were ever pushing for the right to reside and trade anywhere in China, but on the condition that they also enjoy extra-territorial privileges. They did not wish to be subject to Chinese law.\n\nThis view arose from a conviction that the institutions and customs of the European nations were superior to those of other parts of the world. Therefore, it was the duty of \"civilised\" nations to protect their citizens from becoming subject to the laws and customs of places that did not share their tradition.\n\nIn support of the argument that China should not enjoy the rights of other Treaty Powers because of its reluctance to enter the community of nations, Sir Richard pointed out that while China had been given the right to send a minister to the Court of St. James in London, it had not done so. It was, therefore, inconsistent of China to wish to place a consul in Hongkong.\n\nIf China was peculiar, so too was Hongkong. Sir Richard asked the Colonial and Foreign Offices to weigh the matter in the light of \"the special and exceptional circumstances of this very peculiar", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211125, "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-1987", "page_number": 186, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "161\n\nBLOCKADE FINDS A CHAMPION\n\nThe Chinese petition to the Queen concerning the evils of what was called the Chinese “blockade” of Hongkong was followed by a public meeting held at the City Hall in September 1874, to draw up resolutions to present to the Government in Britain.\n\nThe meeting began with the calamitous forecast by the chief manager of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, Mr. James Greig, that Hongkong's junk trade was threatened with complete extinction and the acts of China in patrolling the waters near Hongkong were an outrage.\n\nHe proposed the first resolution: \"That this meeting regards with feelings of amazement and alarm the organised invasion by the Hoppo of Canton of the freedom and sanctuary of the port and harbour of Hongkong.\"\n\nThere was one person at the meeting who had not been carried away by the ground-swell of indignation which pervaded the mercantile section of the community.\n\nThe unofficial member of the Legislative Council and senior partner in Hongkong of Jardine, Matheson and Company, Mr. James Whittall, stated his opinion that the commerce of Hongkong was not suffering from the blockade.\n\nIndeed, he claimed that trade had improved after some recent sluggishness and was as large as it ever had been.\n\nFurthermore, China had a perfect right to levy and collect duties on cargoes.\n\nSeveral speakers questioned the accuracy of Mr. Whittall's estimate of the progress of Hongkong trade. One drew attention to the Harbour Master's report for the previous year which showed a decline in junks entering and leaving the harbour.\n\nBut Mr. Whittall stood firm. He reminded the meeting that his company did a very large business and he ought to be fully acquainted with the situation.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211136, "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-1987", "page_number": 197, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "172\n\nspeaking as a diplomat and not a merchant.\n\nIn the instructions Wade had sent to Robertson, he had strongly urged the establishment of a branch of the Chinese Imperial Customs in Hongkong.\n\nThe Governor of Hongkong, Sir Arthur Kennedy, endorsed this proposal as a possible solution to the problem. In a despatch to London he stated that he was “convinced that the shortest, best and only remedy for disputes and differences which have existed for years, endangering our good relations with the Canton Government is the recognised establishment of a branch of the Chinese foreign inspectorate in Hongkong itself.\"\n\nIt was not until 1886 that provisions were made for establishing a Maritime Customs collecting station at Kowloon and the Hong-kong Government allowed its Commissioner, a British national, to reside in Hongkong.\n\nWAR OF WORDS OVER CHINESE CONSUL CONTINUES\n\nThe manner in which the appointment of a Chinese consul for Hongkong was announced in 1891 provoked a demand from the expatriate merchants that they be allowed a greater voice in determining policies that affected Hongkong.\n\nThey resented that they had not had an opportunity to express their opinion before the decision regarding the appointment had been made.\n\nThe Colonial Office had informed the local government of its intended decision and had received in reply the opinion of concerned government officials in Hongkong, but the mercantile community had not been consulted.\n\nIn November 1890, the Governor was asked if he had any objections to the proposal. This was followed by a telegram in January 1891 informing him that the Chinese had proposed that Mr. Tso Ping-lung, consul at Singapore, be transferred to the new office in Hongkong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211493, "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": 209, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "\"THE ONE BRIGHT SPOT IN SHANGHAI” \n\nA HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY OF \n\nTHE NORTH CHINA BRANCH OF \n\nTHE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY \n\nHAROLD M. OTNESS* \n\n185 \n\nThe North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society had its beginning on September 24, 1857, as the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society. From its inception Shanghai had a reputation as a city of commerce rather than an intellectual and cultural center. As Henri Cordier, a key figure in the development of the society's library, dryly recalled in his retirement, \"some spirited gentlemen thinking that tea, silk, and Manchester goods, however important they were from a mercantile standpoint, were not sufficient food for the mind, created a literary and scientific association\".1 Eighteen men, six of them missionaries, gathered in the Reading Room of the Shanghai Library, then a membership circulating library, to elect officers. Three weeks later the group met again to hear the inaugural address of its president, the Rev. Elijah C. Bridgman, an American highly regarded as a Chinese linguist and the publisher of the Chinese Repository. His address called for the increase of opportunities for understanding between foreigners and Chinese. He emphasized the need for more Westerners to undertake seriously the study of Chinese with the ultimate goal of enlightening the Chinese. In the rhetoric of his trade and times he stated, \"let the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society set itself in battle array, and let each and all of its Members be prepared and resolved to quit themselves like men\".2 \n\nRev. Bridgman was not mobilizing for war, but rather proposing a learned society which would conduct a regular series of lectures and the publication of a scholarly journal. He also called for the establishment of a library: \n\nof such diversified work, and for so many labourers, an extensive apparatus is needed; especially do we want a \n\n* Southern Oregon State College Library", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211619, "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-1989", "page_number": 34, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "recounts that the crew of the Sulphur landed on Hong Kong island on Monday 25 January” and as 'the bona fide first possessors' drank the health of Queen Victoria on Possession Mount. Then 'On the 26th the squadron arrived; the marines were landed, the union hoisted on our post, and formal possession taken of the island, by Commodore Sir J. G. Bremer, accompanied by the other officers of the squadron, under a feu-de-joie from the marines, and a royal salute from the ships of war'.\" Bremer himself was no more expansive. In his official despatch to R. More O'Ferrall M.P. at the Admiralty, written on 24 February but received only on 8 June 1841, Bremer reported that on 26 January he proceeded to Hong Kong ‘and took formal possession of the island, and hoisted the colours on it, with the usual salutes and ceremonies'.\n\n12\n\nNews of the acquisition of the island of Hong Kong became public knowledge in England on the morning of Friday 9 April 1841, but yet again there was no description of the ceremony of possession. On this day Elliot's circular of 20 January was printed in The Times, and it was discussed in an optimistic editorial: it was considered good news because Hong Kong was much more convenient for trade than Macao and a settlement there would be able to maintain itself independently of the Chinese.\" By the following day the tone of the editorial had changed. Its author wrote that 'the nominal cession of the island of Hong Kong to the British crown, though apparently promising considerable advantages to our mercantile interests, has been clogged with conditions which in practice may substantially defeat them', and then referred to the island as an 'insulated and unfrequented locality'. One factor which may have been decisive in settling on Hong Kong in the negotiations was, as the merchant James Matheson noted, the Chinese language, for such, he felt, is its ambiguity that it is difficult to fix in it a definite meaning.\" Matheson believed that, when Ch'i-shan remarked in one of his communications ‘as we have granted you territory you do not now require another port', Elliot in consequence gave up thoughts of British access to a port in northern China in the hope that he could hold Ch'i-shan to an interpretation of the Chinese characters which meant that the British had been granted the territory of Hong Kong rather than merely being given a trading factory there.'5\n\nTwo letters to The Times published in the same week expressed dissatisfaction with the new British acquisition. The first was dated Macao, 22 January and was presumably written by a merchant: 'Regarding the terms of Captain Elliot's treaty with the Chinese, I have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211770, "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-1989", "page_number": 185, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "160\n\nminority in the foreign community.' The effects of this discrepancy on the local dramatic scene will be dealt with later.\n\nBy far the greater part of those who came out to China were active as merchants or mercantile assistants; in general, they were in their late twenties or early thirties, and lived together in the hong of their firm. During business hours they traded in silk, tea, opium, and sundries; leisure was sought mainly in sports: racing, fives, bowling, cricket; by some in the Shanghai Library (established 1849), or the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (founded 1857). All, however, seemed to love the amateur theatricals that were put on several times a year.\n\nII. Theatrical Criticism\n\nIn order to appreciate the information that has come down to us about the theatre in early Shanghai, some attention should first of all be paid to the way in which contemporaries wrote about it. (For reviews see the Calendar of Performances).\n\nThe main, in fact the only, source as regards the early history of the foreign settlement in Shanghai is the “North China Herald”, a weekly that was founded in August 1850. A daily edition, the “North China Daily News” was begun in 1864, but the surviving copies date back only as far as July 1866. Other papers were published in the period under discussion, notably the \"Shanghai Recorder\" (1862-1869), but of these too all trace is lacking, with the exception of one volume (1865) of the \"Shanghai Commercial Record”, the overland edition of the \"Shanghai Recorder\". So we have perforce to rely mainly on the \"North China Herald\"; and, to be sure, a worse source can be imagined. In its pages at the least we find the facts about which plays were performed and what kind of musical entertainment was enjoyed. That is, until about the beginning of 1866, for after that date there is a noticeable decrease in theatrical notes. Then one has to resort to the Daily News.\n\nAll articles, which could be as long as a column, were anonymous, or, in a few cases, signed with an initial or a pseudonym. Not that it matters very much, for generally speaking the critic, if we may call him so, went to considerable lengths to avoid any harsh treatment of the amateurs on the stage. Apparently it was not deemed proper to pull the rug from under a handful of well-meaning gentlemen who devoted their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211783, "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-1989", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "173\n\nat Shanghai\" occurred on Friday September 19 1856\" and by a remarkable coincidence it also marked the introduction of a brand new instrument to the China Coast music lover, viz the Saxophone. This, though, was not how it was announced. The artist, Ali Ben Sou Alle, who had studied at the Paris Conservatoire and made a career in France and England as a clarinetist, was of Turkish descent and had seen fit to rename the instrument invented by Adolphe Sax in 1840 into something recalling his fatherland: the Turkophone. He had made a tour through Asia and in Hong Kong his success had not been unequivocal.\" In Shanghai, reception was somewhat mixed (cf Calendar: 19.9.1856). Apart from the \"Turkophone” he handled the \"Turkophonini” (which may have been the soprano saxophone), the clarinet, and an instrument \"which we trust our Scottish friends will pardon us for pronouncing something worse than the bagpipe”. \n\nAs details of the activities of other artists that visited Shanghai will be found in the Calendar of Performances it seems hardly necessary here to elaborate on them. But attention should be drawn to the first lady singer\" who engrossed the public there in July 1863: Miss Amelia Bailey. On a second trip some months later, in October and November, she drew \"crowded houses small wonder in a place with so many soldiers and bachelors.\n\nIV. The Actors\n\n>72\n\nJ\n\nFor those that did not belong to the taipan class, that is, those not partners in a firm but lower mercantile assistants, the freedom to engage in whatever activities they wanted in their spare time was limited. Employees out on their first term called griffins were usually not allowed to marry because the firm did not feel like paying for home leave for an entire family. Another restriction put in their way was that commonly there was a clause in their contract which ran: \"All horse and pony racing, or riding in races, and all acting in public theatricals is forbidden without the consent of the resident partner”.73\n\nHere the reasons were partly financial as the employers feared that the youngsters might be carried away with the rehearsals, with disadvantageous consequences for the job they were supposed to do; and partly social, in that the senior merchants were perhaps afraid that the juniors would prove to be more popular on the stage than they themselves. Of those that were permitted and willing to don sock and buskin it is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211810, "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-1989", "page_number": 225, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "200\n\nrash decision to marry the first that came\". Another actor who was to become a local Roscius. Mr. Phunago BRUSHWOOD, \"gave the somewhat unusual stage character of a double-faced farmer (Wurzel) all the selfish cunning and irritable tone which it needed\". Other parts were taken by Miss Polly DEXTER, Mr. HEAVISWELL, Mr. Jehoshaphat SNAKES and Mr. PLEADWELL (as the lawyer!).\n\nIn Box and Cox Messrs PROTEUS, BRUSHWOOD and Mrs. CLAY \"kept the audience in a roar\" (NCH 22.2.1857).\n\n3.3.1857 (Tue)\n\nDramatic readings from Charles Dickens by Mr. Benjamin SEARE. Th: C\n\n―\n\nR: In the Herald of February 28 it was announced that \"we are apprized by 'Circular' that an entertainment of a novel character in Shanghai, but one which has greatly attracted the fashionable and literary world elsewhere, will be given by Mr. Scare in the Hall of the Shanghai Theatre on Tuesday Evening next the 3rd prox. The subject - The Early Writings of Charles Dickens is a theme affording scope for great versatility of talent. (...) The Community are much indebted to Mr. Scare for his gratuitous offer of an evening's intellectual amusement to diversify and enliven the monotony of Shanghai life. The Circular notifies that the divertissement will commence at half past 8 & precisely, that no personal invitations will be issued and that a syllabus of the Lecture will be placed in each seat for the use and acceptance of its occupant”. Then, in the issue of March 7, a report was published: \"A large and select circle of residents had met in the New Theatre\". It became a kind of one man show by Mr. Seare, as the \"requirements of versatility and mimic power were most successfully supplied. (...) The lecturer was perfectly at home in each and all of the various characters as they turned up, passed from one to another with an ease that was admirable and portrayed each with a force of comic power which elicited much applause, and, to select the most appropriate compliment we can bestow, did justice to the author. All in all the audience was \"kept in a roar”. Mr. Seare concluded with some general remarks on the necessity of some recreation of this kind in a community so distant from home and so isolated and comprising at the same time so much intelligence and ability\" (NCH 7.3.1857). One wonders how Mr. Seare was able to give these lectures free of charge; had he been a touring artist that would of course have been impossible. But as it turns out he was a mercantile assistant in the employment of Gilman & Co (this according to the Shanghai Almanac for 1858). In May 1865 he gave another performance (see 27.5.1865). No further details are available about the programme, but no doubt the characters from The Pickwick Papers figured largely in it. Who, after all, can resist Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Jingle and Sam Weller? Dickens himself began readings from his own works one year later, in April 1858, in Britain and the United States.\n\n26.3.1857 (Thur)\n\nJ.B. BUCKSTONE: \"A Kiss in the Dark\" (1840)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nM.B.W. JERROLD: \"Cool as a Cucumber\" (1851)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nH. DANVERS: \"A Conjugal Lesson\" (1856)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nTh: N.N. (CH\n\nR: In a witty mind \"The Man on the Bund\" informed us that \"by way of introduction there was a kiss — and in the dark too! — perhaps the sweetest kiss of all, administered with enviable gusto by Mr. SNAKES as Fathom. Mrs. Pettibone submitted to it with less indignation than the fact of her being so much respected led us to suppose. But then, it was to punish the odiously jealous Mr. Pettibone who would insist on making\n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211893, "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-1989", "page_number": 308, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "283\n\nBatavia Roads to carry to and fro from the ship to the shore. These boats are always used by ships in Batavia and are paid four rupees or guilders a day. They are pulled by four Malays except when the wind allows sailing. The head man came on board. They had plenty of rice and fish with them which they ate with their fingers, as all Musselmen do. They are regular Mohammedans,\n\nThe one who stayed on board could speak a little English, and on the next evening I got alongside of him to try what I could make of him. I asked him a few questions but could not understand his answers, so I thought I would give up. At last he said, \"You not know her! You not sabby her? Her name Roleston. Not you sabby Roleston?\" I was very much surprised, as you may imagine, to hear him repeat that name, and how to think of it I could not imagine. What, thought I, can he know about Roleston, and whoever could he be talking about? At last I made out that there is a mercantile house in Batavia of that name, who have a ship of the same name, and this man had served the ship with his boat only a few days before, during the time she was loading. He was a fine intelligent-looking man, for a Malay.\n\nThe captain became more unbearable every day. From morning to night it was nothing but curses, grumbling, bullying, and threatening.\n\nOn Saturday night, June 30th, we stopped off Amsterdam, a small island about 12 miles from Batavia. Here I sat on deck and with the glass looked over the island, which was about a quarter mile off. It looked very pretty by moonlight. There were several native huts on the shore and in the interior, and at night each had a light burning, which looked pretty among the trees.\n\nIt is very pleasant to be sailing among these islands, all covered thick with trees wherever there is room for one to grow. It is truly sailing as the poet says:-\n\nAmid the green islands of glittering seas\n\nWhere fragrant forests perfume the breeze.'\n\nOn Sunday, July 1st, we had several boats come off to the ship from parties in Batavia who were canvassing for trade and patronage. One of them brought a Portuguese, who from being born and brought up in the tropics was as black as a negro. He delivered his card, and was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212325, "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": 267, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "244\n\nParsees. At one time, with a German Chairman and an American Deputy Chairman, the Board had no British members. The financial failure of Dent, in 1867, had the effect of freeing the Bank from dependence on any one enterprise and brought about more independent management control. Within months of setting up its headquarters in Hong Kong a branch was opened in London, and further branches were established in San Francisco (1875), New York (1880), Lyons (1881) and Hamburg (1889). By the 1880s The Hong Kong Bank had become banker to the Hong Kong Government, and to this day it is, in effect, the Central Bank of the Territory.\n\nWorld War I proved a difficult period, and its German directors resigned shortly after hostilities commenced. The Bank resumed its leading position in China and the Far East in the 1920s and 30s. Like the Chartered Bank, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank's branch in Shanghai operated without interruption all through the Cultural Revolution.\n\nToday 'Wardley' is the name of an investment company associated with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. In 1864, Wardley House (demolished in 1882 when its new bank building was completed) was the first premises of the Bank. William Henry Wardley was a staff member of Gibb Livingston. He started his own firm about 1850. Although the company was taken over by F.B. Johnson and James Bowman the name was retained. It stopped trading about 1861, before the Bank was established. But the name, Wardley, has been perpetuated.\n\nThe Mercantile Bank\n\nThe old Mercantile Bank can be traced back to October 1853, with the founding of the Mercantile Bank of Bombay. Within two months it had become the Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, a co-partnership of four Indian proprietors and four British. An office was opened in London almost immediately, and other offices, in 1854, in Madras, Colombo and Kandy. In 1855 branches started at Calcutta, Singapore, Canton, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Comparing these dates with the Chartered Bank, Mercantile got off to a quicker start, although both banks were established in the same year. Mercantile had a branch in Hong Kong, for example, four years before Chartered.\n\nSkipping a century, in 1958 the name was shortened to ‘Mercantile", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212326, "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": 268, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "245\n\nBank Limited', partly to remove the impression, prevalent at the time, that it was an Indian, and not a British, bank. In the same year, a share exchange took place with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation for the entire share capital of Mercantile.\n\nIn 1967 in Hong Kong, the 'Disturbances' (spill overs of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic) resulted in a flight of capital which reduced deposits in banks fortunately only temporarily. The following year, as a number of members served on both the London Committee of the Hong Kong Bank and Mercantile's counterpart, it was decided to disband the London Committee of 'Mercantile'. Finally, the full amalgamation of the Hong Kong Bank and Mercantile took place in 1982-3.\n\nInsurance\n\nIn the early days of trading in Canton insurance posed something of a problem for the small European community. Members formed a local underwriting syndicate (on the Calcutta pattern) to provide facilities for marine insurance. The Canton Insurance Office was established in 1804 (other records say 1805), and for the first 30 years of its existence it was managed alternately by Jardine's and Dent and Company, changing every three years. A great deal of trust appears to have existed between the Chinese hong merchants and the European traders, and a document shows that Chinqua, a Chinese businessman, promised to make good any loss suffered by a merchant in France, to whom he was shipping tea, without having to prove loss by the return of goods.\n\nThe Union Insurance Society of Canton was established in Canton in 1835, by a number of far-sighted British Merchants under the guidance of Dent and Company. After Dent's went into liquidation, in 1864, Union Insurance became a separate entity. It had already moved its headquarters to Hong Kong in 1842, which is still its home even though it has offices and representatives in many cities in the Far East and agencies throughout the world.\n\nIn 1861, Hong Kong had 73 merchant houses and 18 of these acted as agents for insurance companies. Jardine's has retained its early interest in insurance, and, in 1868, when the Hong Kong Insurance Company was formed, it became the agent. This, a century", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212472, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "6\n\nCantonese Compradors\n\nCanton, the first Chinese city opened for foreign trade, has a long history of interacting with the West. The Co-hong which was set up by the Qing government, had created a system of hong merchants, linguists and compradors in response to the quest for foreign trade. As William Hunter mentions, the position of a comprador in a foreign mercantile house was important. Almost everything around the house, varying from examining silver, internal accounting, employing servants, cooks and coolies, to interpreting and even mediating with Chinese merchants were the responsibility of the comprador. Though the Co-hong system was terminated after the first Opium War, compradors still survived and started a new era of development. It was natural that Cantonese compradors formed a dominant group at the beginning of the Canton system, since most of the Chinese foreign trade was conducted in Canton. However, to account for the rise of Cantonese compradors in modern China, several factors should not be ignored. First, recruitment of new compradors by personal or regional ties, when compradors became private merchants. Before 1843, compradors had been licensed by the government and guaranteed under the officially dictated hong merchant hierarchy. Second, the disappearance of the limited trading system in Canton and opening of Hong Kong and other Chinese coastal cities accelerated the increase in the number of Western mercantile firms. Third, Western merchants, particularly the British, relied upon Chinese compradors in conducting business.\n\nGuarantorship\n\nHow did a person qualify as a comprador? First, proficiency in English was preferred but business connection was considered more important by the Western merchants. Personal trust was usually critical. The Nanjing Treaty privatized Chinese foreign trade. Compradors replaced the hong merchants as agents for foreign firms and as guarantors for Chinese merchants doing business with foreign merchants. After 1842 with the abolition of the Co-hong system, some of the former hong merchants engaged in private tea or silk business, and compradors became private agents for foreign firms rather than government-mandated agents. Former linguists, after leaving the hong merchants, served mostly as clerks of the new maritime customs or as customs brokers. As scholars pointed out, more than a mere recommendation from a former hong merchant or another Cantonese known to the agency house, personal guarantee\n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212473, "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": 27, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "became the norm in the new comprador system. The guarantor might simply agree to compensate for losses to a firm caused by its comprador.' While the foreign firm depended on the guarantee system to ensure a comprador's trustworthiness, the comprador himself relied heavily on personal and regional ties in recruiting his own staff or keeping their own posts as hereditary.\n\nWong Kong, a Cantonese native of Shunde, serving in a compradorship to Messrs. Smith, Archer & Co. in Hong Kong, showed in his will his intention for his sons to become compradors in the future. He had arranged that trustees of his properties should provide a sum of not more than five thousand dollars as the sureties ordinarily requested by foreign firms. He wrote,\n\nShould any of my said sons become compradores or assistants in any Mercantile Houses or places of business; It is my desire that my said trustees shall become his or their sureties in any sum not exceeding five thousand dollars and that my said trustees if they shall think proper so to do; shall so long as they continue such sureties retain in their hands so much of the principal money and property to which such son or sons shall be entitled under this my will and shall amount to such sum or sums for which they may so become sureties but in such case or cases the income arising on such property so retained shall be payable to my said son or sons.4\n\nAlthough Wong had not stated which foreign firm his sons were going to enter or whether he had recommended them to Messrs. Smith, Archer & Co. or not, from the above we can see that a surety of about five thousand dollars as well as a personal guarantee were usually required.\n\nCantonese Predominance\n\nForeign firms doing business in China relied upon their local compradors, and before the rise of Zhejiang and Jiangsu compradors in the early twentieth century, most of these compradors were Cantonese. From scholar Yen-p'ing Hao's study, whose data were mainly based on archives of American and British firms, all of the 24 compradors employed between the 1850s and 1860s by Augustine Heard & Co. were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212474, "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": 28, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "Cantonese, while only four out of 16 compradors from Russell & Co between the 1830s and 1870s were non-Cantonese. Jardine, Matheson & Co. employed 18 Cantonese from its total 32 Chinese compradors between the 1850s and the 1900s, however only three out of the rest were non-Cantonese and 11 were from uncertain native places. Dent & Co. totally had twenty-one compradors in the period of the 1830s to the 1860s. Non-Cantonese were not recorded but nine were reported as of uncertain native places. Moreover, as Hao pointed out, Cantonese had a supremacy amongst Chinese compradors not only in China but also in Southeast Asia and Japan. They were regarded to have talent in tea trade, whereas Zhejiang compradors were especially skilled in silk trade and banking business. Zhejiang compradors overshadowed their Cantonese counterparts in Shanghai by the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. It is of interest that Western merchants always went to explore business in Asia with their Cantonese compradors, particularly in Yokohama and Nagasaki. Perhaps this might be linked to the local influence of Cantonese merchants in the above places.\n\nThe comprador system was soon imported to Hong Kong when British firms flocked to open their business there. It lasted until the Second World War; longer than at any other Chinese coastal city. During the growth of early colonial society in Hong Kong, by the 1850s the Chinese community was beginning to develop leaders and most of them were successful compradors, merchants, and contractors. Typical of this emerging Chinese middle class were Cantonese compradors like Wei Yuk (Wei Yu), Robert Ho Tung (He Dong), and Law Pak Sheung (Luo Bochang). They formed the core of leadership in the local Chinese community.\n\nWei succeeded his father Wei Kwong who came from Choy Mei village near Macau as the comprador of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China in Hong Kong in 1879. In 1896, he was appointed an unofficial member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, being the fourth Chinese to this post (the first was Ng Choy [Wu Tingfang]). Wei held a lot of appointments in public and private organizations and represented Chinese interests in the government.\n\nHe Dong acted as Jardine's Hong Kong comprador from 1883 to 1900. He was among the richest of the Chinese compradors in the treaty", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212476, "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": 30, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "in a period when Chinese were only allowed to invest in European insurance companies. But at the same time, he still had large interests in traditional business.\n\nCantonese compradors in Hong Kong, of course, should not be considered as only a few persons; they could probably be identified from archives of the firms they worked for. However, we are limited by sources, which make it quite difficult, but not impossible, to assess compradors' wealth which they had accumulated when they were in office. Furthermore, most of the wealthy Chinese in Hong Kong, including compradors at that time, had investments or property in China. From their business activities, a Canton-Macau-Hong Kong linkage is shown in their wills deposited in the Hong Kong Public Records Office.\n\nNames of the Cantonese compradors in Hong Kong were probably Cheang Hoong of Philips Moore & Co., Wong Kong and Kwong A Hang of Smith, Archer & Co.; Ng A Cheong of Douglas Lapraik & Co., Law Pak Sheung of Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, Wai A Kwong of Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London & China, Law Sai Nam of McBain & Co., Lau Cheong of Gilman & Co. (Fuzhou), Au Yeung Shing of Russell & Co., Sung Chin Tseung of Messrs. Turner & Co., Tong Mow Chee (Tang Maozhi) of Jardine, Matheson & Co. (Tianjin), and Choa Chee Bee of China Sugar Refining Co., Ltd. They all left wills in which some indicated business connections with Canton, Macau, and Hong Kong. For example, the will of Wai A Kwong written in 1866 reads:\n\nI am a native of Tsin Shan in the District of Heung Shan, Empire of China, at present residing in Victoria, Hong Kong, and holding the office of compradore of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China. At the age of eleven years, I left my native place and proceeded to Macau, where I obtained employment as a domestic servant to a Portuguese; at the age of thirteen, I was sent down to Singapore by the Reverend E. C. Bridgman, missionary to the Chinese, and became the first pupil of the Morrison Education Society. I returned to Hong Kong in the year 1843, and I have ever since lived under the just and equitable rule of the British Government. I married in Hong Kong and have several children, all born in this colony. By industry and thriftiness, I have acquired and am possessed of sundry houses, lands, shares in business, and other property and effects. Knowing\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212477, "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": 31, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "11\n\nthat all men must die and not knowing when I may be called away, I deem it right while still in bodily health and full possession of mental faculties to make my will.\n\nWei A Kwong, the father of Wei Yuk, had a typical story of success. He was a Zhongshan native; he left his hometown and worked in Macau as a teenager. His father was a comprador to two American merchants, Benjamin Chew Wilcocks and Oliver H. Gordon. It was known that Wei was forsaken by his family and had to resort to begging on the streets of Macau. He was later sent to Singapore where he studied under the auspices of the Morrison Education Society in a school of the American Board of Commission for Foreign Missions. This changed his life. He returned to Hong Kong and began his career. He served as comprador in Bowra & Co. and then in the Mercantile Bank of India, London and China until his death. Wei wrote his will in 1866. He prefaced it with a brief account of his life, particularly mentioning that he was the first student of the Morrison Education Society and that he first came to Hong Kong in 1843. He had \"ever since lived under the just and equitable rule of the British Government.\" Though we cannot prove to what extent his exposure to Western culture was related to his Christian education, he succeeded in becoming a leading member of Chinese society in Hong Kong. This contrasts with the will of Sung Chin Tseung, which reads.\n\nSung Chin Tseung, otherwise literary appellation Sung Ching, otherwise Ngok Shan, native of Kat Tai village, of Kong Sheung Division, Heung Shan District. I followed my deceased father, Mr. Shau U, to Hong Kong in 1842 to trade in foreign business as compradore. Further, in 1854, thanks to the kind support of Mr. Ryrie and others of Messrs. Turner and Co., Hongkong, I took over the office of compradore and up to the present thirty odd years.\n\nBoth Wei and Sung were natives of Zhongshan. They came to Hong Kong for business in the early 1840s when Hong Kong was already a British colony. Though they lived in Hong Kong, they maintained connections with their hometown, as Sung's father, Soong Ke, stated in his will written in 1864:\n\nIn the 21st year of Tao Kwong (1841), I came to Hong Kong and employed myself in business all the time with foreigners, always being diligent and making little profit sufficient to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212478, "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": 32, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "12\n\nsupport my wife and family. In 6 year of Hum Foong (1856) being advanced in age, I handed over all my property to my eldest son Cheng Chuen to manage and sign my name Soong Ke in all business transactions, and he has already managed for several years. In consequence of my having to return home to my native place in the present year to build an ancestor's hall out of my own money, and consequently coming and going I took sick and a large carbuncle broke out on my thigh, getting worse day by day, being now about sixty years of age and my constitution is weak.\n\nHong Kong-Shanghai and Shanghai-Canton-Hong Kong Networks\n\nCantonese compradors were predominant in the nineteenth century. They occupied most of the compradorship in foreign mercantile establishments. They were influential in Hong Kong, enjoying a high status in the business community. Cantonese compradors filled the new posts by personal ties, extending their influence from one place to another. For example, Xu Run was introduced by his uncles Xu Yuting and Xu Rongcun who had been working as compradors to Dent & Co. in Shanghai for many years. Xu was first employed as an assistant comprador and later succeeded his family members as compradors: one of his sons to a German firm; one of his cousins as Dent's Kiukiang (Jiujiang) comprador; and another cousin as Shanghai comprador to Carlowitz & Co.\n\nLikewise, Zheng Guanying was also introduced by his relative in Shanghai to serve the compradorship in Butterfield, Swire & Co. Tang Tingshu was introduced by his Zhongshan colleague called Acum (Lin Qin) to James Whittall, the Jardine's Shanghai manager, then he became a comprador to Jardine, Matheson & Co. Tang later guaranteed his elder brother Tang Maozhi as the firm's Tianjin comprador and this brother later succeeded him as chief comprador in Shanghai when Tang Tingshu was relocated to work at the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Co. in 1873. The post was held by the Tang family for several decades. The last was his grandson Tang Jichang. Those three compradors came from the same Zhongshan prefecture and had an inter-relationship. Zheng was a relative to Tang by marriage and also knew the Xu family for generations.\n\nZheng had guaranteed a Zhongshan townman named Yang Guixuan", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "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 }, { "id": 212497, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "31\n\nLo was suspected to have cheated an amount of 20,000 taels as bad debt from the Bank See Group Archives of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Comprador Files Law Pak Sheung\n\n|| Ibid. Lo Hok Pang was said to be involved in certain bankruptcy cases See Comprador Files Lo Hok Pang\n\n12\n\nFor an important article that explores the studies on early Chinese in Hong Kong, see Carl T Smith (1993), Hong Kong Chinese Wills 1850-1890\n\n13 See HKRS#144-98. Cheang Hoong (December 1856), 245 Wong Kong (August 1867), 254 Kwong A Hang (January 1872), 268 Ng A Cheong (October 1870), 349 Law Pak Sheung (February 1877), 368 Wei A Kwong (October 1866), 457 Law Sai Nam (December 1881), 470 Lau Cheong (June 1880), 661 Au Yeung Shing (December 1886); 733, Wong Shi Lai (June 1888), 734 Sung Chin Tseung (January 1888), 1161 Tong Mow Chee (December 1894), and 1465 Choa Chec Bec (June 1890)\n\nHKRS#134-144; Soong Ke (December 1864)\n\n15 See Zheng Guanying. Da Guangzhou shangwu zonghu yi bingting zhuamban zhangcheng ershisi tiao (To draft the twenty-four opening ordinances of the General Chamber of Commerce of Canton), in Xia Dongyuan (1988a), pp 593-6\n\n16 HKRS#144-273 O Kee Cheong (October 1872)\n\nHKRS#144-1504: Leung Kiu (April 1887)\n\n18 HKRS#144-394 La Hing (January 1879)\n\n19 See Carl T Smith (1993), p 11, 15-6\n\n20 For Western merchants who came with their Cantonese compradors to Shanghai, see Hao (1970), pp 51-3\n\n21 According to Leung Yuen-sang's study, Wu Jianzhang came to power because of the rise of mercantile power in post-1843 local politics when there was an absence of official-gentry leadership during the British invasion and capture of Shanghai in 1842 The vacuum was filled by Cantonese merchants and compradors They were sought because of their foreign language skill and foreign knowledge During Wu's office, nearly all the jobs in the government were filled by Cantonese See Leung (1990), pp. 53-6, 147-50, Toyama Gunji (1994), Shanghai dotai Go kensho (The Shanghai Taotai Wu Jianzhang), pp 45-54. and Zhang Wenqin (1989), Cong fenguan guanshang dao maiban guantiao, Wu Jianzhang shilun (From Feudal Official Merchant to Compradorial Bureaucrat), pp 31-54\n\n21 Leung Yuen-sang (1982), Regional Rivalry in Mid-Nineteenth Century Shanghai: Cantonese vs Ningpo Men, pp 34-6.\n\n21\n\nThough Li Hongzhang was a central bureaucrat, through the guandu shangban enterprises in Shanghai and Tianjin, he had successfully extended his influence in this region discussed through the \"Shanghai-Tianjin Connection\" See Leung Yuen-sang (1986), The Shanghai-Tientsin Connection: Li Hung-chang's Political Control over Shanghai during the Late Ch'ing Period, pp 315-30\n\n24 Ibid, pp. 45-6\n\n24\n\nWang Gungwu (1990). China and the Chinese Overseas, pp 175-6\n\nHKRS#144-1152 Li Chu (December 1896)\n\n27 HKRS#144-1087. Lee Chak (May 1894)\n\n8 HKRS#144-1093 Chan Kin Tong (April 1896)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212501, "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": 55, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "35\n\nFaure, David W. 1990. The Rice Trade in Hong Kong Before the Second World War. In Between East and West Aspects of Social and Political Development 216-25. Edited by Elizabeth Sinn. Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.\n\nFok, Kai-cheong. 1988. Wanqing qijian Xianggang dui neidi jingji fazhan zhi yingxiang (The influences of Hong Kong on the economic development of mainland during the late Qing period). In Xueshu Yanjiu 1988/2 70-4.\n\n1989. Xianggang huaren zai jindaishi shang dui Zhongguo de gongxian shixi (A preliminary study on the contributions of Hong Kong Chinese to China in modern history). In Huaren Yanjiu | 81-8.\n\n1990a. Lectures on Hong Kong History Hong Kong's Role in Modern Chinese History. Hong Kong: Commercial Press.\n\n1990b. Private Chinese Business Letters and the Study of Hong Kong Industry: A Preliminary Report. In Collected Essays on Various Historical Materials for Hong Kong Studies. Edited by Hong Kong Museum of History. Hong Kong: Urban Council.\n\n1992. Xianggang yu Jindai Zhongguo (Hong Kong and modern China). Hong Kong: Commercial Press.\n\n1993. Nineteenth Century Hong Kong: China's Gateway to the Western World of Business - themes and sources. Unpublished paper presented at the 34th International Congress on Asian and North African Studies. Hong Kong.\n\nGaw, Kenneth. 1988. Superior Servants: the Legendary Cantonese Amahs of the Far East. Singapore and New York: Oxford University Press.\n\nGodley, Michael R. 1981. The Treaty Port Connection: An Essay. In Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 12/1 248-59.\n\nHamashita, Takeshi. 1991. Higashi Ajiashi ni okeru Honkon no ichi (The role of Hong Kong in East Asian history). In Sōbun 320 1-8.\n\nHamilton, Gary Glen. 1991. Edited Business Networks and Economic Development in East and Southeast Asia. Hong Kong: University Press.\n\nHao, Yen-p'ing. 1969. Cheng Kuan-ying: The Comprador as Reformer. In Journal of Asian Studies 29/1 15-22.\n\n1970a. The Comprador in Nineteenth-Century China: Bridge Between East and West. Cambridge and Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.\n\n1970b. A New Class in China's Treaty Ports: The Rise of the Comprador-Merchants. In Business History Review 44/4 446-59.\n\n1970c. Maiban shangren wanqing tongshang kouan yi xinxing jieceng (Comprador-merchants: \"new class\" in late Qing treaty ports). In Gugong Wenxian 2/1 35-44.\n\n1977. Zhongguo jindai yanhai shangye de buwenling-sheng (Commercial uncertainties along modern China's Coast). In Shihuo Yuekan 7/8-9 1-11.\n\n1979. Commercial Capitalism along the China Coast during the Late Qing Period. In Proceedings of the Conference on Modern Chinese Economic History 303-27. Edited by Chi-ming Hou and Trong-shian Yu. Taiber: Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica.\n\n1982a. Entrepreneurship and the West in East Asian Economic and Business History. In Business History Review 56/2 149-67.\n\n1982b. The Compradors. In Maggie Keswick (edited) 85-102.\n\n1986. The Commercial Revolution in Nineteenth-Century China: The Rise of Sino-Western Mercantile Capitalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.\n\nHayes, James. 1979. The Nam Pak Hong Commercial Association of Hong Kong. In Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 19/2 16-26.\n\n1984. Collecting Business Papers of Chinese Enterprises in Hong Kong. In Research Materials for Hong Kong Studies 47-55. Edited by Alan Birch. Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.\n\nHe, Wenxiang. 1989. Xianggang Jiezushi (History of Hong Kong's big families). Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212713, "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-1992", "page_number": 22, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "Until the middle of the 19th century China assumed and acted on the principle that the world owed allegiance to the supreme ruler, the Emperor of China, a view considered by the British in particular as ludicrous, and despite costly emissaries to try to persuade them otherwise, the Chinese were only forced to accept change by military force—leading to what it was hoped by foreigners would be an era of equality such as existed between other nations. Mesny experienced but probably failed to appreciate the depth of change within China in which he was involved; Chinese military commanders in the field without the presence of their foreign overlords, the Manchus, being one. But much more important were the changes in style of xenophobia, a newly acquired awareness of the power of western nations by the Chinese and most of all the deep resentment of the imposition of foreign equality. It is this more than anything else which makes Mesny's story so fascinating and refreshing.\n\nHe also lived in China during the era when the attitudes of Christian missionaries were changing, from those who felt such a strong cultural superiority and behaved arrogantly, with an attitude of self-righteousness and a complete lack of sensitivity towards Chinese feelings, which caused the vast majority of Chinese to become even more xenophobic than they had been before westerners forced through 'unequal' treaties; to those with more sympathetic views. By the end of the century many missionaries were comparatively understanding and tolerant of Chinese customs and culture, and though their mercantile compatriots were still of the old views, a number of missionaries were working with Chinese and helping to bring about the modern transformation of China. Although Mesny was one of the few foreigners whose sympathies lay with the Chinese, with his feet in both camps he found good and bad on both sides. One of Mesny's more revealing snippets is the irritated and grieving rather than angry digression; an item in the Miscellany on an uncommon Chinese saying \"Tsai ssu szu wei\" meaning \"Try, try and try again\". He wrote 'It (the phrase) is probably worth using by foreigners as a very expressive and convenient tenor when trying to persuade natives [Chinese] that it is impossible to comply with the requests and importunities to \"do something for them\". I have reflected on the matter,' he continued, 'and though I have repeatedly tried still I have not succeeded.' Many foreigners, even to this day, will sigh in agreement.\n\nMesny would, in later life, doubtless have seen himself as a ‘China Expert' and would also have wished others to regard him so. He cultivated this impression in print from the first issue of his Miscellany with his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212857, "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-1992", "page_number": 166, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "151\n\na handful, because efforts had to be made in order to make sure that there would be enough male Jews to constitute a daily Minyan.\n\nThis community was by far the most prominent of the three groups of Jewish residents in Shanghai. They were among the first foreign traders in the metropolis, bearing names that included Sassoon, Kadoorie, Ezra, Abraham, Solomon, Rahmin, Moses, and Gubby, families still active in Hong Kong today, and were a part of the international mercantile community in the Far East at that time, enjoying business and personal links with the close-knit Jewish communities in Hong Kong and Bombay. At first they traded in raw cotton and general goods, then took over the opium trade. In time, in Shanghai as well as in Hong Kong and Bombay, they branched out into real estate, banking, shipping, warehousing, insurance, hotels, utilities, and other industries, gaining power and influence locally as well as in international commerce. The names of 38 prominent Sephardic Jews were found among the 1932 list of 99 members of the Shanghai Stock Exchange.\n\nAshkenazi Jews\n\n6\n\nImmediately following the completion of the trans-Siberian Railroad and the pogrom in Russia in 1905, a number of Russian Jews moved to Manchuria through Siberia, with about 300 filtering down to Shanghai. After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, more than 10,000 Jews emigrated to Harbin. Apparently at that time the Chinese government had been contemplating expelling the Jews from Manchuria. In the mid 1920s when White Russians and Japanese interests began to spread in Manchuria, many of the earlier immigrants moved southward to Tianjin and Shanghai, swelling the total Jewish population in Shanghai to just under 2,000.\n\nThe Ashkenazi community of Jews in Shanghai, mostly Russian but by then joined by stragglers from Lithuania as well, increased to more than 1,000 after 1924. They were not exactly embraced by the Sephardic community of Shanghai. The Ashkenazi were not princes of commerce, but small businessmen who engaged in the import and export of such items as wool, bristles, and fur. The Chinese in Shanghai remembered Jewish salesmen going from house to house, carrying rugs for sale. The Ashkenazi Jews were also professionals; physicians and lawyers, for instance; and, above all, musicians.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214387, "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-1998", "page_number": 245, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "211\n\nfuture years was missing in 1881, a point made by Elizabeth Sinn in her study of the Tung Wah Hospital15\n\nNew Legislation - 1888\n\nIn March 1888 \"The Regulation of Chinese Ordinance' (No. 13 of 1888) was introduced under the governorship of Sir William Des Voeux. Chapter IV of this Bill related to the District Watchmen and was entitled appropriately 'District Watchmen.' Despite the passage of more than two decades, the wording of the new ordinance was almost the same as the 1866 version referred to earlier. A few years later James H. Stewart Lockhart, who occupied the combined posts of Registrar General and Colonial Secretary, recommended the establishment of a board of prominent Chinese men to oversee the running of the District Watch Force. He appears to have been encouraged greatly in this endeavour by Wei Yuk, the rich comprador of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China. Thus at the end of 1890, General Barker, the acting Governor, appointed a group of twelve Chinese gentlemen as a committee to co-operate with the Registrar General's Department in the administration of the District Watch fund. In his annual report of 1892 Lockhart, in his capacity of Registrar General, stated that the introduction of this Committee had been a resounding success. He also maintained that, not only had the Committee proved to be of great assistance in increasing the efficiency of the District Watchmen's Fund because of being able to exercise closer supervision, 'it has also by its advice on several important questions connected with the affairs of the Chinese community been a great help to this Department.' However, despite the creation of the twelve-man Committee, the Government's control over the District Watch Force did not diminish. On the contrary, Lockhart noted that 'New Rules were drawn up under Ordinance 13 of 1888, Chapter IV, Section 19, with the advice of the Committee, for the regulation and guidance of the District Watchmen, and approved by the Governor on Council. Copies of these rules have been distributed among the contributors of the District Watchmen's Fund, by whom more interest seems to be evinced in and more assistance asked from the Force than formerly.'17 The newly formed Committee was concerned about the state of the Force and during 1892 new pay scales were considered. As a result of these increases it was hoped that a 'better class of recruits' could be enticed to join the Force.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215559, "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-2001", "page_number": 336, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "286\n\nof gravity of the tower low and to afford the minimum resistance to wind and wave. This lighthouse became superfluous and stopped operating in 1896 after Waglan lighthouse came into operation in 1893.\n\nSeveral considerations\n\nIn building Hong Kong's first lighthouse many factors were considered, such as need, finance, location, the apparatus to be installed and the staff.\n\nIn the beginning of the 1870s the need to erect lighthouses was envisaged by the Western mercantile community. In fact, in 1872, the combined tonnage, outwards and inwards, amounted to about six million. The need to provide navigational aids for the heavy sea traffic was thus obvious. The revenue raised by levying vessels entering Victoria Harbour would be able to support the running costs of lighthouses.12\n\nSurveys were conducted to look for suitable sites on which to erect lighthouses to light the approaches to Hong Kong harbour. The three best sites were considered to be,\n\n• Waglan, an island off the south-eastern extremity of Hong Kong,\n\n• The North East head of Lema Island, and\n\n• Gap Rock, 26 miles southward of Hong Kong.\n\nHowever, all these three were then under Chinese jurisdiction. Negotiations with the Chinese Government did not reach satisfactory conclusions for both parties. This was because the Chinese Government would not cede or lease any island for such purposes and the British Government did not wish to spend money on projects not under its direct control.\n\nThe second-best sites, all within the jurisdiction of Hong Kong, were considered to be Cape D'Aguilar, Green Island and Cape Collinson, as reported by the Harbour Master, H.G. Thomsett in March 1873. Lighthouses in these places would cover the eastern entrance and the western entrance to Hong Kong harbour. Eventually, this is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215773, "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-2002", "page_number": 72, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "5\n\nalso study how the English system of law was introduced into a largely Far Eastern society and the extent of its impact.\n\nThe nature of the Calcutta administration\n\nLackadaisical attitude\n\nOne of the most glaring problems in the Straits Settlements was the failure of the Indian authorities to establish an effective form of government. This was due to its distance and lack of accessibility which cultivated an indifferent or disinterested attitude on the part of the Indian officials.21 The Indian government was far more interested in its Indian territories than in its possessions in the Malay Peninsular.22 This led to the administrative problems in the Straits Settlements. Owing to this indifference, the men sent from India were young and inexperienced who knew nothing of the problems in the settlements but were only too eager to return to India to reap bigger rewards and promotion.23\n\nLack of representation in Legislative Council\n\nAs the administration of the Straits Settlements was highly centralised in India, the governor of the Straits Settlements had very little authority and merely supervised administration.24 All important matters had to be referred to India for a decision and the governor had no executive or legislative power.25 All the legislation for the Straits Settlements was planned by the Indian government. As the Straits Settlements had no official representation in India, it could not block any legislation that could prove detrimental to the Straits Settlements.26\n\nThus it can be established that the 'roots of the transfer movement lay in the constitutional rearrangement in the Straits Settlements of 1830 and the [Indian] Charter Act of 1833. The system of government was unsatisfactory both for the governor and the mercantile community.'27\n\nThe petition of 1857: A critical evaluation of the complaints raised\n\nThe Currency Act 185528\n\nThe Currency Act is an example cited by the Straits merchants in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215797, "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-2002", "page_number": 96, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "29\n\nSeton, Sir Malcolm, 1926, The India Office, G P Putnam's Sons, London and New York\n\nStrang, Lord, 1961, Britain In World Affairs, Faber and Deutsch, London\n\nSwettenham, F, 1948, British Malaya - An Account of the Origins and Progress of British Influence in Malaya, Allen and Unwin\n\nTan, Ding Eng, 1986, A Portrait of Malaysia and Singapore, Oxford University Press\n\nTarling, N, 1962, Anglo-Dutch Rivalry in the Malay World, 1760-1824, Cambridge\n\nThio, Eunice, 1969, British Policy In the Malay Peninsula 1880-1910, Vol 1, University of Malaya Press\n\nThio, Eunice, 1960, 'The Singapore Chinese Protectorate: Events and Conditions Leading to its Establishment, 1823-77', Journal of the South Seas Society, xvi, 40-80\n\nTregonning, K G, (1964) 1972, A History of Modern Malaysia and Singapore, Eastern Universities Press Sdn Bhd, Singapore\n\nTripathi, Amales, 1956, Trade and Finance in the Bengal Presidency 1793-1833, Calcutta\n\nTurnbull, C M, 1960, 'Bibliography of Writings in English on British Malaya, 1786-1867', JMBRAS, xxxiii, no 3 327-424\n\nTurnbull, C M, 1958, 'Communal Disturbances in the Straits Settlements in 1857', JMBRAS, xxxi, no 1, 96-146\n\nTurnbull, C M, 1970, 'Convicts in the Straits Settlements, 1826-67', JMBRAS, xliii, no 1\n\nTurnbull, C M, 1969, 'The European Mercantile Community in Singapore, 1819-67', Journal of Southeast Asian History, x, no 1, 12-35\n\nTurnbull, C M, 1957, 'Governor Blundell and Sir Benson Maxwell; a Conflict of...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216340, "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": 99, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "48\n\nsubordinate status in all things, including the favour of tribute missions and foreign trade.76\n\nRev. W. Ellis, in Gutlaff's Three Voyages (1834) wrote, ‘A grave Chinese author, profoundly skilled in the literature of his own nation, congratulating himself that he was not born in our barbarous countries of the West observes, \"for then I must have lived in a cave under-ground, - eaten the bark and roots of trees, worn leaves and long grass for my covering, - and been really a beast though in the shape of a man.\"77\n\nWestern sojourners in China could not fail to observe the fact that, as the great missionary translator-scholar W. H. Medhurst wrote in 1838, 'The Chinese assume to be...the only civilised and powerful nation in the world ...,'78 an attitude that appears to have characterised official and peasant, merchant and coolie alike. As Parkinson commented in 1937, 'With such invincible ignorance it is difficult to cope.'+79\n\nAt the same time, trying to be objective about Chinese disdain, Lord Macartney, England's first ambassador to China, wrote in 1794 of his own countrymen: 'Is there any country on the globe that Englishmen visit where they do not display that pride of themselves and that contempt of others which conscious superiority is apt to inspire?'80\n\nThe Impending war\n\nBy 1839, the situation had not changed a whit. Each party to the impending hostilities was boxed in by its own ideas and limitations, in the case of the Westerners fanned by the many irritations accompanying their lives and mercantile dealings at Canton under the restrictions imposed by Chinese officials.\n\nThese prompted one of the historians of the military side of the War to opine that 'The opium question was to be regarded merely as a spark blown into a mine, and no more to be considered the primary cause of the war than the match which ignites the train...'81 But at least one of his brother officers had deplored going into a war in which the opium question was an unworthy element.82\n\nAnd at this point, on the verge of War, we must regretfully take leave of the China of the old China Trade,83", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216476, "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": 235, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "185\n\nTHE MAKING OF CORNELL PLANT THE PILOT\n\nAuthor's note\n\nMICHAEL GILLAM\n\nAlthough Cornell Plant died some ten years before I was born, he had an important place in my early memories of family visits to his younger brother, Uncle Charles Plant, There I heard the story of this grand old man of the river and his untimely death and that of his wife on their way home from China. In later years, when his papers were passed down to my parents I became more interested, particularly in the account of his adventures in Iran, where I had spent a year working with the Iranian Navy.\n\nWhen the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich expressed an interest in his papers and undertook to take some of them into safe keeping, the valuable contribution he made towards the opening up of the Yangtse Gorges to steam navigation became all too evident. Eventually, his remaining books, papers, photographs and other memorabilia came into my possession and, once I had retired, gave me the opportunity to study them in depth.\n\nBut it was not until I read the article on Cornell Plant by AC Bromfield and Rosemary Lee in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society [Hon.Ed.-Vol.41] that I became aware of the world wide interest in his life and achievements. This article dealt mainly with his time in China, with only a brief mention of his early life. It also posed a number of questions about him and his wife Alice. The papers that he left behind him and the information that has come to light through the research of Plant enthusiasts over the years enables some of the gaps in his life to be filled and shines some light on the making of Captain Samuel Cornell Plant - 'Plant the Pilot.'\n\nThe early days\n\nCornell Plant was the third of four children born to Samuel Plant, a Suffolk farmer's son and his wife, Harriet, neé Bennett, daughter of a Suffolk village baker. Perhaps it was the proximity of the North Sea that caused Samuel Plant to make his career in the Mercantile Marine", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]