[ { "id": 205711, "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": 17, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "CHINESE UNOFFICIAL MEMBERS OF COUNCILS\n\n11\n\nfor nomination by the Governor. The new Council met on 28th February, 1884, and consisted of 6 officials excluding the Governor: the Chief Justice, the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney General, the Surveyor General, the Colonial Treasurer, and the Registrar General. There were also 5 unofficials: Mr. T. Jackson (elected by the Chamber of Commerce), Mr. F. D. Sassoon (elected by the Justices of the Peace), Messrs. P. Ryrie, F. B. Johnson and Wong Shing, appointed by the Governor.\n\nThus in 1884 Wong Shing became the second Chinese to serve on the Legislative Council as an unofficial member. He too was a Cantonese from Chung Shan District. In 1841 he entered, with two other Chinese boys, Yung Wing and Wong Foon, the Morrison School in Macao which was later transferred to Hong Kong. In January 1847, Dr. Robbins Brown, an American teacher in the Morrison School, had to leave China on account of ill health. He offered to take a few of his old pupils back to America for further education. Yung Wing, Wong Foon and Wong Shing signified their desire to go and, through Dr. Brown and the Morrison Education Society, expenses for two years for the three boys were arranged. They embarked at Whampoa on the ship \"Huntress\" and proceeded via the Cape of Good Hope, the journey taking more than three months. Upon arrival in the U.S.A. the three boys were admitted to the Monson Academy at Monson, Massachusetts.\n\nAs a result of ill health, Wong Shing did not manage to acquire any academic honours during his sojourn in the United States. On his return to China he was offered an appointment in the Foreign Ministry. He served with Viceroy Li Hung-chang and Marquis Tseng Chi-tze and was a member of the Chinese legation staff in Washington. He resigned later from the Chinese diplomatic service and came to Hong Kong as a merchant. He was also associated with the Anglo-Chinese College and with the London Missionary Society for which he directed its printing establishment under Dr. James Legge. When the Tung Wah Hospital was founded in 1870, he was a founder director. He was naturalized in December 1883 and was appointed to the Legislative Council in February 1884. He was described as a man of property, much-travelled, speaking good English and fully qualified to “look at Chinese affairs with English eyes and at English affairs with Chinese eyes\". His career as a Legislative Councillor was an", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210700, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "34 \n\nWALTER GREENWOOD \n\nForeign Community. Self interest as well as sympathy attached him to Hennessy\" (reference was then made to his acting judicial appointments and that of A.D.C.). \"Mr. Francis is a clever reasoner and skilful logician but he cannot persuade the community that their memories play them false. Either he endorsed the policy of Hennessy or he did not act with independence of mind and judgment. Whichever impeachment he chooses to admit the Justices will reject him\". \n\nFrancis wrote in answer to this that he was not in collusion with Hennessy and did not support him on the issue of corporal punishment. “I stood up for fair play for him in the face of a very hostile meeting of my fellow citizens on whose goodwill I was mainly depending for my bread\". He said he was at odds with Hennessy over corporal punishment when he sat as a magistrate and was very nearly removed for that. His appointment as Puisne Judge was on the recommendation of the Chief Justice. His acceptance of the appointment of A.D.C. was purely personal, Hennessy being in difficulties with the military authorities, and it was the temporary filling of a gap. “Although Hennessy honoured me with some degree of his friendship and patronage and I sympathised and fought for him in some things I never hesitated publicly to dissent from his policy when I was not in accord with it\". \n\nWhen the Justices met Francis was proposed by P. Ryrie who said \"the meetings of the Council will be made very much more interesting by his presence\". In the event Chater was elected by 35 votes to 15 and afterwards said of Francis \"I admire his abilities. His fluency in addressing meetings is undoubted”. The Daily Press had the last word saying that the majority in favour of Chater was even larger than expected. In 1887 Francis seconded A.P. MacEwan as the member for the Chamber of Commerce. In January 1888 Chater was again elected as the Justices member, Francis being out of Hong Kong at the time. In May 1888 Ryrie proposed Francis as the Chamber of Commerce member saying that the unofficial members felt the need for someone who could advise them on legal points of order. However B. Layton, a merchant, won the contest by 20 votes to 16. The Daily Press in an editorial said that Francis was a man of wide experience outside", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211127, "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": 188, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "163\n\nhe himself had opposed the appointment, but perhaps the matter should be reconsidered.\n\nHe made the positive suggestion that the Hongkong Government and the Chinese authorities discuss together the problem of smuggling and the methods China employed to collect its duties. He stated, however, that he was still opposed to having a Chinese in Hongkong with the position of a consul.\n\nAs far as the \"blockade\" was concerned, Mr. Whittall remarked that \"many of the Chinese merchants had said to him that they were perfectly satisfied with the present arrangements. It was a protection to the honest merchants and only a disadvantage to the dishonest man.\"\n\nNo view was presented by a Chinese. The foreign and Chinese communities were still too separate to discuss public issues together.\n\nIn the published newspaper account of the meeting, it is stated that there were about two hundred present from every sector of the community. A list of some seventy-five names is given.\n\nAmong them, there is only one Chinese, Ng Moon-koon. He was, I believe, the same as Ng Man-kwan, one of the leading Chinese opium dealers.\n\nMr. Whittall's statement about Chinese opinion on the matter did not go unchallenged. The senior unofficial member of the Legislative Council, Mr. Phineas Ryrie, had apparently been gathering Chinese views. He reported that \"some dozen\" had told him it was hurting the trade. He did not specify whether the dozen were from the honest or the dishonest class of traders referred to by Mr. Whittall.\n\nThe remarks of the Jardine taipan may have influenced others at the meeting, for when the vote on the resolution was taken, there were seven against it.\n\nHis views having received such a cold reception, Mr. Whittall,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211180, "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": 241, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "216\n\nThe Honourable Phineas Ryrie, a long-time resident and senior member of the Legislative Council, spoke against the amendment of Mr. Francis. He opposed sending to England any funds raised in Hongkong.\n\nHe admitted that a few years before he had not opposed sending a substantial contribution to help Irish famine sufferers, but the present object was of a different nature.\n\nThroughout his many years in Hongkong he had contributed liberally to many subscriptions. He had great faith in Hongkong's ability to raise funds for causes that had a popular appeal.\n\nHe was sure that: \"We are good enough in this Colony to subscribe for a memorial to Her Majesty the Queen, and we should do so.\n\nAt this point the chairman interrupted. He informed Mr. Ryrie that his remarks were out of order. He had been speaking to a specific proposal, while Mr. Francis' amendment, after he had rephrased it, was general.\n\nThe amendment proposed by Mr. Francis was then put before the meeting. It was rejected. Mr. Francis did not raise the question again.\n\nThe fourth resolution was that of Mr. Chater proposing that the permanent memorial of the jubilee year be a park in the Wongneichong Valley to be called Victoria Park. After some other suggestions were discussed, the park scheme was approved by a small majority. Many at the meeting, however, abstained from voting.\n\nThis did not settle the matter however. After the public meeting there was continued opposition to the decision. Demands were made that it be rescinded.\n\nThe Chinese went off and held their own meeting and adopted a plan more to their desires. Amid all the confusion new proposals were advanced and old ones revived.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211204, "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": 265, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "240\n\nQueen had to be abandoned.\n\nInability to proceed with the agreed plan resulted in the two subsequent meetings. These were chaired by the Honourable Phineas Ryrie. Many of the difficulties which resulted can be attributed to the manner in which he conducted the meetings.\n\nIt is not a simple matter to keep a meeting in order and progress towards its goals when the atmosphere is charged with tension created by strongly held opinions and personal ambitions. The meetings chaired by Mr. Ryrie were like this.\n\nA good chairman is not only fair and impartial but also firm and decisive. He gives room for free expression of opinion but does not permit the meeting to digress into irrelevant matters or get muddled in improper procedure. To do this he must adhere to accepted parliamentary rules.\n\nMr. Ryrie was a public spirited man who had long — perhaps too long — been prominent in public affairs. He was the senior unofficial member of the Legislative Council and therefore a natural choice for chairman. His handling of the meetings, however, suggests he may have been tottering into old age. He was a man of decided opinion and also irascible, a dangerous combination.\n\nAs senior partner of the firm of Turner and Company, he belonged to the small interlocking circle who sat on the boards of the leading companies and institutions in Hongkong. As such, he had presided over many meetings. These, however, were usually quite routine and required a minimum of parliamentary skill.\n\nIt was a different matter to chair a meeting in which there were strong differences of opinion accompanied by a feeling of frustration over the mess in which the community was increasingly getting itself involved.\n\nThe main business of the meeting was to decide on another memorial now that the idea of a park in the Wongneichong Valley was no longer feasible. Before the meeting people who wished to have a scheme considered were asked to submit them in writing.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211207, "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": 268, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "243\n\nMr. Macgregor then suggested that if Mr. Francis's interpretation was correct the original proposer should insert into his resolution the words, “in the Colony.\" This was done.\n\nIn what seemed a turnabout, Mr. Macgregor then moved an amendment that the words \"in the Colony\" be left out so that if \"this or any other meeting wished to vote funds for the Colonial Institute it could do so.” As the institute was Mr. Francis's scheme, he eagerly seconded the amendment. However when it was put to the meeting the amendment was defeated but the resolution was passed.\n\nThe chairman's irresolution seemed to be reflected in his remarks concerning the next proposition regarding the date of the observance of the Jubilee. He stated that though he had presented the resolution at the first meeting which set the date for November 9, he was not in favour of it.\n\nAs explanation he said: “It was given to me, and I proposed it as it was given to me.” Again his remarks were greeted with laughter. He even admitted that though he had made the resolution, he did not vote for it.\n\nAfter some haggling, the date was changed to June 21. The point had now arrived where at the previous meeting the park scheme had been adopted. The chairman asked for anyone who had a suggestion to bring it before the meeting.\n\nAs Dr. Manson's proposal had not been seconded, he would entertain Mr. Crow's suggestion. However, either out of politeness, obstinacy, or belief that he was adhering to proper procedure, Mr. Crow contradicted the chairman and said that Dr. Manson's proposal should have priority.\n\nThe chairman gave in and, since Dr. Manson was not present, asked someone to make the resolution. Again Mr. Crow stepped in and suggested it would be in order for the chairman himself to make the proposal. To this Mr. Ryrie gave the hedged answer that he had advanced such an idea some years ago in reference to the “Austin Arms” but nothing came of it.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211211, "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": 272, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "247\n\nAt this point the Anglican Bishop, the Right Reverend J. S. Burdon, calmly addressed the meeting with the voice of reason. He remarked: \"I have very grave doubts whether any public meeting gathered here is ever likely to come to any definite resolution.” This would seem to have been a fair estimate of the mood of the assembly.\n\nHe proposed that a representative committee be appointed to collect all the probable schemes with all facts necessary for their implementation. The schemes with detailed plans could then be presented to the public in written form and considered at a later meeting. He thought there probably would be only three institutions submitted for consideration, Dr. Manson's sanitarium, Mr. Crow's library, and his own pet scheme, an institution for female education. There was as well, he added, the suggestion of a statue of the Queen. His effort to steer the meeting into less troubled water was greeted with applause.\n\nMr. Stewart-Lockhart endorsed the bishop's suggestion. The meeting should be adjourned at this point as it seemed to be at a deadlock, for, as he summed it up: \"There was a question as to whether a resolution had been carried or not. Some were under the impression someone had counted wrong and others that he had counted right.\" An adjournment would allow feelings to cool, proceeding with the meeting would only further inflame them.\n\nThe chairman's wisest act during the course of the meeting was to see the sense in the proposal for an adjournment. Accordingly, he seconded the motion. It was unfortunate, however, that before doing so, he did not take up the Bishop's suggestion and have a committee appointed to receive and consider plans.\n\nThe next meeting was set for four days ahead. With fortune smiling, tempers would have cooled, proposals would have taken on solid form, and community feeling would have become more harmonious. The interval between the meetings was, however, perhaps too brief for this to happen.\n\nThe chairman, Mr. Ryrie, was criticised in the press for his inept handling of the meeting. It was reported that an attendant", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211212, "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": 273, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "248\n\nhad been heard saying as he left: “Anything more idiotic than a public meeting in Hongkong I never saw.\" The editor felt the whole affair had been a ridiculous farce reflecting little credit on the common sense of the community.\n\nIt was also reported that the published account of the meeting upon which I have based my account gave but \"a faint idea of the vast amount of meaningless talk and the playing at cross purposes which took place.\"\n\nThe paper was particularly critical of Mr. Ryrie's refusal to have a recount on a disputed vote. It pointed out that he himself had spoken in support of the motion, then when the vote on the motion he had supported was challenged, he paid no heed to a request for a recount or a statement regarding the number of votes cast.\n\nThe editor graciously excused Mr. Ryrie from \"a desire to catch a vote by a trick, rather than to hold the scales fairly and impartially.\" He believed that “in the case of Mr. Ryrie, whose love of fair play is proverbial, it is impossible to draw such an inference, and we are driven back on the supposition that the extraordinary course he adopted was due simply to testiness of temper.\"\n\nThe news writer regretted that Bishop Burdon's suggestion of a committee to consider plans was not adopted. He viewed as remote the possibility that the next meeting would arrive at a definite opinion regarding a memorial. A committee would have been able to give considered deliberation to each scheme, as it was, he said that \"a scheme would likely be adopted by a 'flukey' vote.\"\n\nNot only Mr. Ryrie but also Mr. Crow came in for criticism. In the 1880s there were strict social divisions in Hongkong. Stepping out of one's place upset the social order. One newspaper correspondent intimated that Mr. Crow had been presumptuous in speaking out at the meeting to propose his suggestion for a memorial.\n\nAt public meetings it was customary that resolutions and remarks were made only by well-established community leaders.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211214, "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": 275, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "250\n\nmunicipal council to manage Hongkong's internal affairs.\n\nThe newspaper comments on the meeting were as critical of Mr. Ryrie's management of the meeting as they had been on the first occasion. If the first meeting was a disaster, the follow-up was a fiasco.\n\nAn editor remarked: \"It would be amusing were it not so painful and in fact discreditable.” Wonder was expressed as to how a group of successful businessmen could bungle an affair so completely.\n\nThe meeting followed the same course as the previous one, with disputes and wrangling over correct procedure and sides drawn for the several schemes under consideration.\n\nEven if the meeting had been able to arrive at a decision, the composition of it would have mitigated against a general acceptance of the scheme voted for, because, according to an editor, the meeting was not representative.\n\nThere were some forty present but they were divided into two parties. The situation, as he explained it, was that “knowing two schemes would be submitted, friends of both schemes came to support, but the great bulk of the community stayed away. After what happened at the previous meeting it was not surprising that they did so.\"\n\nAs soon as the meeting opened, Mr. Francis began where he had left off at the former meeting. He proposed a committee be appointed to consider plans and report to yet another meeting. There was immediate resistance from a group who wanted no more delays. They pushed for a final decision to be made at the meeting. But a journalist felt the group was not being realistic: “That it is desirable a decision should be come to at once, no one will deny, but if what is desirable proves to be impossible it is no use butting one's head against a stone wall.”\n\nOne speaker proposed an immediate solution to the problem - drop all ambitious schemes. They would take much too long to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "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 } ]