[ { "id": 204651, "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": 132, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "118\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nthe Yangtse was now open to foreign trade and navigation for almost 1,400 miles from the sea, and access had been gained to the rich and populous province of Szechuen, of which Chungking was the chief port.\n\nThe section of the river between Ichang and Chungking was known as the Upper River, and the first steamer to navigate this section belonged to Archibald Little, whose Y-Ling had been the first steamer to navigate the Middle River. Little was a member of a well-known Shanghai family, and he was the real pioneer of steam navigation on the Upper Yangtse. He had commenced his career as a tea taster for a German firm in Kiukiang in 1859, but soon went into business on his own and was one of the first to appreciate the possibility of trade in Szechuen Province and beyond in Tibet. He settled in Chungking soon after it became a treaty port, and started up several industries connected with wool, bristles, and coal—to mention some of the more prominent, and also engaged in marine insurance, specialising in covering cargoes on the Upper Yangtse.1 The Shanghai Chamber of Commerce had sent two prominent British merchants—Alexander Michie and Robert Francis—up the Yangtse to Chungking as early as 1869, to investigate trade prospects there, but no important developments followed. In 1887 Little made a much more intensive trip from Ichang to Chungking by junk, and formed the opinion that there were great possibilities for trade in Szechuen Province and beyond. The following year he attempted to run a steamer service between Ichang and Chungking with a stern wheeler specially built on the Clyde called the Kuling. Because of a clause in the Chefoo Convention stipulating that foreign steamers could only go to Chungking after Chinese steamers had gone there, the Kuling was not allowed to go beyond Ichang. Little then sold her to the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, who employed her on the Hankow-Ichang service.\n\nOne of his brothers was a famous editor of the North China Daily News, and another a well-known doctor in Shanghai.\n\n[Robert Swinhoe, British Consul at Amoy was sent up the Yangtse by Sir Rutherford Alcock, British Minister at Peking, in March 1869 to enquire into the trade of the Upper River. He reached Chungking in May of the same year. His account of this journey was published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society Vol. XL (1870), pp. 268-85. It is accompanied by a folding map of the Upper River from the Tungting Lake to Chungking compiled from the charts made by two survey officers specially sent up the Yangtse for this purpose. Ed.]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205964, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941\n\n39\n\nwhere the need was pressing; for often the courts could not sit at all for want of interpreters and as frequently had to adjourn owing to incorrect interpretation. Sir Hercules' plan was that 'the cadets should be under 20 years of age; that they should be chosen from any of the Colleges, and not from King's College alone, as at present in the consular service.........on arriving in China, they would have teachers provided for them; when competent, as they might be in three years.........they should be considered preferable (after a further two years of experience in administration) to any office in the Civil Service that did not involve a professional training.\" The Council liked the scheme and the Secretary of State gave his approval. Regulations governing the cadetships were then published in the Government Gazette on 12 October 1861. The Regulations stipulated that 'at the end of two years' study or as soon afterwards as they shall be declared qualified by a Board of Competent Examiners, the first three Cadets shall be appointed Government Interpreters, and be employed in such of the departments as may require their services (and that) after three years' service they will be considered eligible by the Secretary of State for promotion to the higher offices in the Civil Service of Hong Kong. As it turned out, the first three cadets never held the position of interpreter. They were in such demand and were promoted so swiftly to substantive posts that their promotion was a de facto violation of the published regulations.\n\nThe first three cadets were appointed in 1862 and arrived in Hong Kong late that year. They were M. S. Tonnochy,12 W. M. Deane13 and Cecil Clementi Smith.14 There were further appointments in 1865 — Alfred Lister,15 James Russell,16 and R. G. Starkey, but the last resigned within a year and joined the North China Insurance Company. H. E. Wodehouse17 was appointed in 1867 and J. H. Stewart Lockhart18 in 1879, after an interregnum of 12 years during which the scheme was in abeyance. Only 14 cadets were appointed during the rest of the century, among them Francis Henry May19 (1881), Reginald Fleming Johnston20 (1898), and Cecil Clementi (1899), all of whom were to distinguish themselves at a later date.\n\nThe early cadets had meteoric careers. They all received acting posts before their period of study was up. Smith became", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210874, "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": 225, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "208 \n\nCARL SMITH \n\nlency Chen Lan-pin, I had the honour through Dr. Eitel to receive your kind remembrance of me and my family. Your ever affectionate pupil and friend, Ho A-lloy.\" Time and fortune had not loosened the ties between pupil and master. \n\nWhen a new Chinese Ambassador was appointed to the United States, Ho Shun-chee returned to China. He served for a period as Secretary of the China Merchants Insurance Company at Shanghai. Tong King-sing, a former schoolmate, was the chairman of the company. \n\nIt was proposed that Ho Shun-chee be put in charge of a newly organised telegraph company, the Wa Hop, formed to build a line between Hongkong and Canton. The company was principally financed by Chinese capitalists in Hongkong. Later the company was taken over by the Chinese Government. \n\nThe careers of his brothers are not as well documented as that of Ho Shun-chee. The third brother, Chung Sang, was a worry to his elder brother. When A-lloy was teaching in the Government school he wrote to Dr. Legge about Chung Sang, who was then a student in the mission school. A-lloy thought it would be much better if his brother were more directly under his supervision. He requested Dr. Legge to release him that he might transfer to the school where A-lloy was teaching. He expressed a low estimate of his brother to Dr. Legge, describing him as \"by nature a very stupid, lazy and disobedient boy..., all play, flying his kite.” \n\nFurthermore he had been accused of stealing some money. The boy could not have been as stupid and lazy as his brother alleged for he was later manager of the Wah Tze Yat Po, a Chinese newspaper published in Hongkong. When his lease for the paper expired in 1889, it was taken over by Ho Wyson and Dr. Ho Kai, two of the sons of the Rev. Ho Fuk-tong. \n\nA-lloy's second brother was A-fuk. Prospects for his career were bright. He too began by teaching English in a Chinese school supported by the Hongkong Government. From there he went into the Hongkong office of the North China Insurance Office as interpreter and Chinese manager. He died in 1873. \n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215678, "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": 455, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "407\n\nTHE LIFE AND TIMES OF\n\nCAPTAIN SAMUEL CORNEL PLANT, MASTER MARINER AND SENIOR INSPECTOR, UPPER YANGTZE RIVER,\n\nCHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS\n\nA.C. BROMFIELD WITH ROSEMARY LEE\n\nHow it started!\n\nGrave Number 8496 28479\n\nSection 12\n\nHong Kong Cemetery\n\nIn memory of Captain Samuel Cornell Plant Upper Yangtze River Inspector of the Chinese Maritime Customs\n\nThe first to command a merchant steamer plying the river (1900). Born Framlingham Suffolk 8th August 1866 Died at sea 26th February 1921\n\nAlso in memory of Alice Sophia Plant, Captain Plant's wife and devoted companion throughout his 20 years of toil on the dangerous section\n\nof the Yangtze River between Ichang and Chunking. Born 29th November 1870. Died at Hong Kong 28th February 1921.\n\n(Restored by members of the Merchant Navy Guild, Hong Kong 1957. Researched by\n\nRosemary J. Pyatt, 23rd December 1997)\n\nArchibald Little and the Three Gorges\n\nIn 1859, a young Scot named Archibald Little, (he was a very large man), started working as a tea-taster for a German company in Kiukiang. He came of a prominent, expatriate, Shanghai family, one of his brothers being a doctor in Shanghai and another the editor of the North China Daily News. He soon became bored with tea-tasting and set up in business for himself, becoming interested in many aspects of trade, brokering and insurance. He was one of the first expatriates to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]