[ { "id": 205994, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "CHINATOWN IN HONG KONG:\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS OF TAIPINGSHAN\n\nDAFYDD Emrys Evans\n\nIt seems unrealistic to talk of a 'Chinatown' in a place as obviously Chinese as Hong Kong. But for a very long time, there was indeed an area thought of by the Europeans as a part of the city into which they would not normally go. This area has, right from its inception, been known as \"Tai Ping Shan' or Mountain of Peace, after the Chinese name for the mountain the Europeans called Victoria Peak. When the British arrived in Hong Kong at the beginning of 1841, the north shore of the island was substantially unoccupied, there being nothing more than scattered huts between the village of Sai Ying Pun in the west and Wong Nei Chung in the east. The principal site for the new city lay in the present Central District of Hong Kong, and the first areas built up by the Europeans (apart from the waterside godowns and houses which extended from the Central Market to Causeway Bay) lay around the present Central Magistracy but rapidly extended within the first three years of the Colony's existence east and west of that spot. Although a small number of Chinese obtained grants of land in this area it is true to say that the town was exclusively European (with, of course, a number of Parsee merchants from British India) from the line of the present Garden road as far as the present Aberdeen Street and up the hill to Hollywood Road. At the time of the Colony's inception there were never more than a few hundred Europeans contrasted with several thousand Chinese who came as tradesmen and artisans. Where, then, did the Chinese live?\n\nApart from the small town that Jardine, Matheson & Co. built out at East Point, there were three principal areas where the incoming Chinese settled at first. It is known that in the early days after June, 1841 a good many matshed huts sprang up on the hillside to the west of the area later to be the site of the main part of the town (and these were destroyed by the great typhoon in August, 1841) and one stretch of the waterfront was 'taken over'. As early as August 1841 the 'Lower Bazaar' was forming in the area of what later became Jervois Street and Bonham", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205995, "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": 75, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "70\n\nDAFYDD EMRYS EVANS\n\nStrand. It seems that the Chinese were encouraged to do so by the Government of the day as a matter of simple expediency, for they were required to provide food and the other necessities of life in which Hong Kong was totally deficient (many of them were said to be merchants from Macao). A. R. Johnston, who administered the island during Sir Henry Pottinger's absence in 1841 and 1842, went as far as to make grants in September 1841 to those persons who, against every obstacle (by which was meant the intimidation of the mandarins on the mainland) supplied the fleet when it could not otherwise obtain provision. It seems that Johnston 'granted' 150 lots of a size 40 feet by 20 feet at a rent of $5 per annum,2 and these 'grants' survived attempts to shift the Chinese away on the grounds that the waterfront was far too valuable to allow it to remain outstanding in Chinese hands.3 Leases were executed for most of the original lots during 1845 and after a redistribution to facilitate reconstruction consequent upon the devastating fire of December 1851 (which substantially destroyed the whole of the Lower Bazaar), the area remained much as it was, with new buildings of far greater value replacing the old structures. Whilst a good deal of the waterfront in the Central District remained through the nineteenth century in European or Parsee hands, the Lower Bazaar remained largely in Chinese hands.\n\nThe second area in which Chinese were not only encouraged but allowed to settle lay on the other side of the Queen's Road, almost opposite to the Central Market. This was the Upper Bazaar (sometimes referred to as the 'Middle Bazaar') which was built at the beginning of 1842. Its origins were similar to those of the Lower Bazaar and it consisted of two rows or streets of shops on lots about 36 feet by 14 feet. These were granted to newcomers at a time when applications from Chinese were becoming 'very numerous' and they were charged a rent of $4 per annum.4 The Bazaar was probably finished by March, 1842 and was therefore well-placed both in point of time and geographically to meet the needs of the Europeans and Chinese populations in Hong Kong's first boom period after the signing of the Treaty of Nanking which appeared to remove doubts over the future of the colony and which brought in many adventurers. This Upper Bazaar was, therefore, together with the Lower Bazaar, the first 'Chinatown' in Hong Kong in the sense that it was an area of the town in\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206285, "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": 102, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "96\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nWong Shing, newspaper editor and manager of the London Mission press; and Cheung Achew, a wealthy carpenter.29 The Rev. Ho Fuk Tong and his family lived at the nearby compound of the London Mission Society. In time this area around Peel, Graham, Gage Streets and Hollywood Road became a centre for Parsee and Indian merchants, as well as European brothels. Some of the old families stayed on, but the opening up of the area bounded by Wyndham, Wellington and Pottinger Streets by the Dents provided a needed location for the houses of the better Chinese. After the Peak was developed in the 1870s and 1880s, the wealthy Chinese moved up to Mid-levels occupying the mansions of the Europeans who moved to the Peak.\n\nOf the individuals who had their family residence in the former Middle Bazaar area were two who were on the organizing committee of Tung Wah Hospital, Wong Shing and Ho Asek alias Ho Fai Yin #alias Ho In Kee. Ho Asek first appears in Hong Kong records in 1849 when he purchased a lot in Tai Ping Shan. At the time he was compradore of the opium firm of Lyall, Still and Company. It failed in 1867 and Ho Asek embarked upon his own business ventures under the firm name of Kin Nam. According to a newspaper account, he was subject to a $2,000 “squeeze” from the mandarins during the second Sino-British War.30 He traded extensively in opium as well as rice, and in 1871 held the gambling monopoly from which within a year he realized a $28,000 profit. In an action brought against him in 1871, he testified that he operated with a capital of $200,000.31 In 1868 two of his employees were brought before the court on a charge of extortion. In the evidence presented it was stated that about September 1866, some influential Chinese started a system of subscription or unofficial taxation to support district watchmen. The city had been divided into two sections, East and West. The West District was superintended by Tam Achoy and Ho Asek, \"a most respectable and honest trader”. A shopkeeper resisted the pressure put upon him to contribute and brought the charge of extortion against two of Asek's employees who had been collecting for the scheme. The court gave judgment in favour of the defendants.32 Ho Asek was still a member of the Kai Fong Committee in 1872. He died in Pang Po (likely Ping Po+), Shun Tak District in 1877. His wife was granted letters of administration on his estate, but she being blind, gave her power", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207122, "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-1974", "page_number": 193, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n187 \n\nas the property of three Parsee merchants. Later, it appears, two of the owners sold out and she became the sole property of one Cursetzee Cawasjee. The closing entry says that the “Castle Huntly” was lost on Lincoln's Shoal some four hundred miles south of Hong Kong on 23rd October 1845, while on a voyage from China to Bombay. \n\nLloyd's List confirms that the Master of the ship at the time of her loss was a Captain McIntyre and adds that the Master, Officers, Passengers and part of the crew were saved and landed at Hong Kong. \n\nSome further details obtained from another source indicate that before 1829 the \"Castle Huntly\" sailed with the East India Company, and log books up to that time are still extant. These reveal that in 1829 the Governor of Mauritius was a passenger, and that later in the same year there was a mutiny by the crew. \n\nThe ship is mentioned in a book by Basil Lubbock entitled Opium Clippers, as having sailed regularly in this trade between Calcutta and the Canton River in 1835. It seems probable that when she met her end she was still engaged in carrying opium to China. \n\nThis is the story as well as we have been able to discover it, but it leaves some very interesting questions unanswered. The ship was lost on 23rd October, but the date of Elizabeth Ann's death is given as 21st October. Did she die in Hong Kong waters, and was her body put ashore on Shek Kwu Chau at the start of what was to prove the ship's last voyage? And why choose Shek Kwu Chau, which at that time was Chinese territory? It may have been that the master was anxious to make full use of the northeast monsoon which could well have been blowing at that time of the year. \n\nAgain, whence came the tombstone? It is of granite, but a University geologist has given his opinion that it is not of Hong Kong origin. Was it brought to the island at a later date and placed over the lonely grave? These questions may never receive an answer, but to us of a later generation the odd fact is that Elizabeth Ann's remains are to be found on an island now given over to repairing the damage caused by the trade in which her husband was engaged. \n\nJEAN MOORE", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207141, "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-1974", "page_number": 212, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "206\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nlarge dwellings and godowns. It was a pleasant area. Two of the properties were especially noted for their gardens. A Parsee merchant, Framjee Jamsetjee, in advertising his property for sale in 1845, stated that it was \"beautifully situated by the water side with a fine view of the Bay, surrounded by a garden, stocked with the choicest plants which have been imported at great expense, and now is in a flourishing condition.\" The other gardened property was called Spring Gardens, and for a number of the years the name was applied to the area. The name is preserved today by Spring Gardens Lane which marks the eastern boundary of the original property. The dwelling was also known as \"Old Government House\" for at one time it had been the residence of Governor Bonham [1848-1854]. Advertisements mention its \"ornamental grounds\" and \"fine well of spring water with powerful iron pump\".\n\nWhen the military gradually bought up and occupied the area between Central District and Wanchai in the 1840s and 1850s, the two sections were separated and Spring Gardens area lost most of its commercial activity. Decline set in, reinforced by a business depression, and a number of godowns and dwellings stood empty. Several of the properties reverted to Government through non-payment of Crown rents. Others were foreclosed by mortgagees. The military took advantage of the empty premises to use them as barracks and officers' quarters.\n\nPoor Chinese settled as squatters both on the west and east fringes of Victoria. To accommodate these on the east the Government put up for sale in 1847 a range of lots at the foot of Hospital Hill along the present Wanchai Road. These were used for small shops, trades, and family residences. The population, however, tended to remain poor and unruly. With the influx of displaced people during the Tai Ping Rebellion in the 1850s several of the European properties were redeveloped with Chinese housing.\n\nThe area near Queen's Road East and Ship Street was probably the site of a small settlement before the British occupation of the Island. Eitel in his history of Hong Kong states that the Hung Shing Temple on Queen's Road East existed before the cession. The pattern of the lots also suggests that there may have been previous occupants. When the military rented some vacant properties nearby for barracks, several brothels were established on Ship Street north of Queen's Road East. To the south, up the hill on Ship Street, there were several small dairies operated by Chinese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209258, "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": 161, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "JUAN YUAN'S MANAGEMENT OF SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS IN CANTON, 1817-1826 147\n\nWu, chief of the hong merchants at that time, was blamed for the increase in opium traffic. In 1821, at the suggestion of Juan Yüan, Wu's button was removed by imperial decree in the wake of strengthened anti-opium campaign.\n\nWu Tun-Yuan, as chief of the hong merchants, appears to be leading the others in conniving with foreigners to smuggle opium into China. After all, no hong merchant has yet reported the presence of this contraband item on any of the ships he was securing. Meanwhile, opium import continues to be on the increase. Wu's third rank button should be removed herewith.13\n\nThe hong merchants were constantly in debt to foreign merchants because the latter provided the former with advances to pay duties and taxes as well as ordinary business credit. The Consoo fund, established by a special levy on foreign trade, was supposed to provide credit to the hong merchants, but it had to be supplemented by further advances from the foreign traders at Canton. Moreover, hong merchants were often called upon to make contributions to various government programmes. Juan Yuan as Governor-General, for instance, decided on the amount the merchants were to give to the Chia-ch'ing Emperor on the occasion of the imperial sixtieth birthday.\n\n[Juan Yüan] fixed upon the Sum of 300,000 Taels as an Offering on the part of the Hong merchants to the Emperor upon the attainment of his sixtieth year, which will take place this year, and which Sum is to be levied in cash in two installments in proportion to the respective amount of duties paid to Government by each Hong.14\n\nFollowing Juan Yüan's proposal, the hong merchants duly offered to the Emperor the gift of 300,000 taels, two-thirds of which were accepted.\n\n16\n\nDuring the following year, the hong and salt merchants contributed 300,000 taels and again 500,000 taels more to “military and engineering expenses\". In 1826, to help suppress the Kashgar Rebellion they contributed 600,000 taels. When the hong merchants were unable to meet their obligations to the foreign merchants, they were imprisoned like ordinary debtors. In 1825, Puiqua was jailed when the Parsee merchants made charges against him for non-payment of 300,000 taels.15 Even after death, hong merchants had to honour their debts to the foreign merchants. The Chinese government aided in enforcing such payments,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209259, "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": 162, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "148\n\nWEI PEH T'I\n\nholding the Co-hong responsible in cases of inability to pay on the part of the individual merchants. When Conseequa died bankrupt in 1822 owing 22,528 taels in unpaid duties to the Canton Customs, and 172,207 dollars to foreign merchants, Juan Yüan took action. Conseequa's property in Canton was confiscated and sold for 22,354 taels. Another 174 taels were underwritten by other hong merchants. This amount totalling 22,528 taels, was paid to the Canton customs. Although Conseequa's son was not held responsible for his father's business failures, he was nevertheless blamed for \"letting things deteriorate further after his father's death\". He should have made arrangements to settle his father's debts to the foreign merchants, thus avoiding the ensuing problems. He was, therefore, to forfeit all his property in his native province, Fukien, as well as the title and privileges his father had purchased for him in 1820 through the chian-na system. His debts to the foreign merchants were to be assumed by the other hong merchants who, in turn, were to take over the business of his hong. In making decisions to discipline the hong merchants, Juan Yüan sought to control the foreign traders at Canton.\n\n18\n\nThe working relationship between the hong merchants and the foreign traders at Canton was in general a cordial one. The language used in foreign trade was English. There were interpreters on both sides known as \"linguists\" to the foreigners. The best known foreign linguist was Dr. Robert Morrison. The hong merchants themselves tended to use \"pidgin\", a mixture of Chinese, English, Parsee and Portuguese. The foreigners thought that the hong merchants as a whole were “honorable and reliable in all their dealings, faithful to their contracts, and large [as opposed to narrow] minded\". As exemplified by the existence of the Consoo fund and advances in both directions, foreigners and the hong merchants worked well together under ordinary circumstances. Puiqua was especially known for his generosity. Despite being caught himself in cash shortage situations from time to time, at least once he tore up a 72,000 dollar promissory note signed by an American merchant who, because of the note, had been stranded in Canton. In cases of dispute between the foreign and hong merchants, settlements were usually made by arbitration.\n\nIt was in criminal cases that the hong merchants' position as intermediary between the foreigners and the Chinese government took on special significance. If the issue at hand involved jurisdiction over a foreigner who had caused the death of a Chinese, a crisis situation invari-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210908, "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": 259, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "242\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nAmong the Europeans there was a token opposition group composed of a handful of Government officials. John Francis, an acting police magistrate, was its spokesman. At the opening of the meeting he raised the question of whether a small clique had pre-arranged to control the meeting. Naturally, no direct answer was forthcoming.\n\nThe first resolution was proposed by William Keswick, senior partner of Jardines and an Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council. The resolution stated: The past 18 months have produced feelings of insecurity which in the opinion of the meeting are mainly caused by a policy of undue leniency towards the criminal class.\n\nWhen the chairman, H. G. Gibb, called for remarks or amendments, Francis proposed that the last part of the resolution be struck out, his intention being that the fact of insecurity was one matter, the cause of it another, and the two should be discussed and voted on separately. All could agree about the present state of affairs. But there was difference of opinion regarding its cause and cure.\n\nThe motion was seconded by a Mr. Hallyar, an Official Member of the Legislative Council, Queen's Counsel and a friend of Governor Hennessy at least at that time. Later he was to be charged by Governor Hennessy with betraying their friendship by alleged indiscretions towards his wife.\n\nDuring the course of Mr. Francis' remarks, the chairman several times called them out of order. The exchange between the two became so heated that at one point Gibb told Francis: “I think a more gross insult to me could hardly be made.\" This was followed by cries from some: “Turn him out, turn him out,\" and by others, \"No, let him remain.\" He remained.\n\nA Parsee gentleman, Mehta, further confused the meeting by proposing another resolution before that of Francis had been put to a vote. Mehta proposed that \"the amendment from the Government officials (he meant Francis and Hallyar) be not accepted.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211183, "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": 244, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "219\n\nand not the mists rising from the swampy areas.\n\nThough the cause of the fever had not been identified properly, the drainage of the valley was a way to remove it. If the valley was to be drained it meant that the rice growing must stop.\n\nFor generations the valley had been cultivated by the Ng and Yip families. They lived in the village at the head of the valley. Their village and that of the Chau family at Little Hongkong near Aberdeen were the oldest agricultural settlements on the Island.\n\nOver the years the villagers had built up some resistance to malaria, but the newly-arrived Europeans were easy victims. To safeguard the health of the foreigner the villagers were told they must give up their ancestral fields. The Government notified them of this in March 1844.\n\nTo justify this expenditure when the British Government was begrudging every penny spent on Hongkong unless it was for military purposes, the Governor informed the Secretary of State for the Colonies that it was expedient to drain the valley, \"as its vicinity to the town, and the natural advantage of this spot make it not only desirable as a residence, but likewise as a place of recreation for the inhabitants.\"\n\nIts use for recreation is still of great importance. The air of death still lingers, however. The hillsides to the west of the valley were laid out as cemeteries for the Moslem, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Parsee communities.\n\nBehind the village of Wongneichong, near the present stables of the Jockey Club, was the Jewish Cemetery, and on Caroline Hill to the east was a very large Chinese cemetery.\n\nIn 1844, the major improvements proposed were the raising of the level of the lower portions of the valley which were covered with water at high tide, enlarging the course of the stream which flowed through the valley and digging suitable ditches to facilitate drainage.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212068, "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": 10, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "Hase, Chek Lap Kok organized by Philip and Sharon Bruce, Fung Ping Shan Museum (x2) organized by Michael Lau, Parsee Building and Parsee Temple organized by Geoff Roper, Lam Tsuen Ta-Chiu festival organized by Dr. Patrick Hase. Shataukok visit (x2) organized by Dr. Patrick Hase, and a visit to the Chinese University of Hong Kong with its Arts Gallery organized by myself.\n\nWithout detracting from the other lectures I would like to mention that we were very privileged to have Dr. Wang Gangwu, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, to speak on the occasion of our 30th Anniversary, followed by a Chinese dinner at the City Hall restaurant.* I must confess it came as a surprise to find that it was 30 years since our rebirth. I think that all those who heard Dr. Wang's lecture on this occasion would agree that his lecture was as stimulating and thought provoking as you would ever wish to hear. It will, incidentally, we hope, be published in a future edition of our Journal.\n\nOverseas Tours\n\nFrom time to time members have asked us to organise tours overseas, and in response to this we have recently circulated a proposal for a visit to South Korea, where we would hope to meet up with the Royal Asiatic Society there. Unfortunately although many members have expressed interest, the final numbers who have definitely said they will go are below what we think is financially viable, and unless there is a strong interest in this trip within the next day we will be cancelling it. I am grateful to Dan Waters for all the hard work he has put into this, and I think we have learnt by this experience. We will continue to consider overseas tours but I think it will be a question of something closer and for shorter periods. Members' advice on this would be very much appreciated.\n\nMembership\n\nAt the end of last year my predecessor reported to you that there were 638 local members and 80 overseas members, making a total of 718 Members. Mrs. Bruce reports that at the last count there were 596 local members (492 living on Hong Kong Island, 65 in Kowloon, and 39 in the New Territories) and again around 80 overseas members, making a total of 676 members. This decline in the total membership\n\n* See Plate 16\n\nix", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212301, "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": 243, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "220\n\nand business in Hong Kong has been neglected. Nonetheless, over the past decade some hongs have commissioned researchers and authors to compile company histories. A number of these are listed in the bibliography.\n\nEarlier Days\n\nHistorically, overseas businessmen have been permitted only limited contact with locals in China. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Westerners were only authorised to reside in Canton during the trading season, from October to May. Emperors confined all foreign trade there, as far from Peking as possible, keeping 'unpleasant things at a distance.' Foreigners were forced to maintain their base in the Portuguese city of Macau (established 1557).\n\nThese restrictions caused great inconvenience to merchants. Captain Charles Elliot wrote, on April 6th 1839:\n\n\"There can be neither safety nor honour for either government until Her Majesty's flag flies on these coasts in a secure position.\"\n\nIt was considered necessary to have a colony with a fine harbour, where Europeans could live, work and trade in peace and security. The Union Jack was raised at Possession Point, on Hong Kong Island, on January 26, 1841.\n\nHong Kong was established specifically to facilitate trade. Not surprisingly, therefore, the authorities depended a great deal upon the support of business houses in the early days of the colony. Some of these early trading houses are still trading here today.\n\nBy the end of 1843 there were 12 large British firms in Hong Kong, ten British merchants trading on a smaller scale, and about six Indian companies. The following year there were said to be about 100 foreign firms doing business, half of which were British and about one-quarter Indian or Parsee. Russells, an American firm, had six partners and eight griffins (assistants). Dent and Company (British) five partners and eight assistants, and D. and M. Rustomjee (Parsee) fifteen partners. Jardine Matheson employed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212333, "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": 275, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "252\n\n'Mountain Lodge', the Governor's summer residence. Smith was convinced the Peak Tram had a future.\n\nThe original promoters included F.B. Johnson of Britain, F.D. Sassoon of Hong Kong, C.V. Smith of Shanghai, and W.K. Hughes of Hong Kong. Capital for the new company amounted to $125,000 in $100 shares. Construction began in September 1885, when 30 to 40 families customarily spent their summers on the Peak. The Peak Hotel was opened in 1873.\n\nThe Peak Tram consulting committee included Phineas Ryrie, Findlay Smith, A. McIver, J.B. Coughtrie, and McEwen and Company. The project was completed and opened on 30th May 1888. The original tram had 30 seats, the front two of which were reserved for the Governor until two minutes before departure. The steepest gradient is one in two, at May Road, and the original steam engines were not replaced by an electrically powered system until 1926. The ten-minute journey on the cable car provided the only mechanical form of transportation to the 1305-foot high Victoria Gap until Stubbs Road was completed in 1924.\n\nIn 1905, the original firm was sold to the newly-incorporated Peak Tramways Company which included entrepreneurs such as Sir Paul Chater, H.N. Mody (Mody Road is named after this Parsee merchant), Abraham Jacob Raymond, Charles Wedderburn Dixon, and Creasy Ewens. The Kadoorie family has been connected with the Tramway since 1905.\n\nTrams and trains\n\nIn spite of the original 1883 Ordinance, mentioned above, the tramway scheme along the North shore of Hong Kong Island was delayed. It finally opened in 1904. In those early years, trams were a prestige form of travel.\n\nSimilarly, although Jardine's and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank formed a company in 1898, which was granted rights to build a railway from Kowloon to Canton, construction did not begin until 1906 and was undertaken, in the event, by Government. The British section was completed in 1910. By October 1911, the railway opened for through traffic to Canton.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215400, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "126\n\n“呈盧督頌詢” \n\n與香港大學的成立 \n\n當時香港的華人相信自己將是大學的主要受益人。這解釋了縱使他們對大英帝國的理想並不熟知，或者毫不關注，卻仍然熱烈支持籌辦大學的計劃。\n\n大學的成立，標誌著一個可以超越所有狹隘限制的意念，也代表一個難以成真的理想終於成為事實。\n\n香港大學能夠成立，盧押與一眾捐贈者功不可沒。盧督堅韌不撓，而各捐贈者即使種族、信仰或所持政見不一樣，卻一律慷慨捐贈，令盧督建校計劃成功。其中佼佼者是拜火教商人麼地(Hormusjee Navrojee Mody)。\n\n他在大學奠基典禮上獲聯督封為爵士。所有支持成立大學的人士，包括盧押、麼地、何啟、吳理卿和其他華人，是一群前所未有的組合。當他們面對一個共同認為值得實現的目標時，便群策群力，結果是夢想成真。從某個角度來看，香港大學的成立，證明了崇高的理想和實事求是的態度必能克服一切困難。\n\n上世紀初是一個風起雲湧的時代。“呈盧督頌詞”是這個時代留下來的一份實質遺產。\n\nThe Tribute and \n\nthe Founding of The University of Hong Kong \n\nThe Chinese believed that they would be the chief beneficiaries of the new University. That explains why they were ardent supporters of the University scheme, despite their lack of familiarity with or want of concern for British Imperial ideals.\n\nThe founding of the University was the expression of an idea that transcended parochial bounds. It also represented the fulfillment of an impossible dream.\n\nThe University owed its existence both to Lugard's tenacity of purpose and importantly to the munificence of those who wished to see his project succeed, irrespective of race, creed, or political belief. The most important of these was the prominent Parsee merchant Hormusjee Navrojee Mody, knighted by Lugard at the foundation stone laying ceremony. Lugard, Mody, Ho Kai, Ng Li-hing and other Chinese supporters of the scheme were strange bedfellows. Yet comradeship was nurtured through their concerted efforts to realize what they deemed to be a worthy cause. In this regard, the founding of the University of Hong Kong demonstrated the triumph of grand ideals and good, practical common sense.\n\nThe Tribute is a tangible legacy of that enterprising and exciting period at the beginning of the last century.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215519, "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": 296, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "246\n\ncould be traced in regard to this burial ground, though the noted Scottish botanist and traveller Robert Fortune, who visited Hong Kong between 1843 and 1846, recorded:\n\nBefore leaving China [1846], I had occasion to visit this spot of ground (the old barrack area in West Point), the grave of many a brave soldier. A fine road31 leading round the island…passed through the place where they had been buried. Many of their coffins were exposed to vulgar gaze, and the bones of the poor fellows lay scattered about on the public highway no one could find fault with the road having been made there, but if it was necessary to uncover the coffins, common decency required that they should be buried again…38\n\nOther Early Cemeteries\n\nHong Kong's initial progress as an entrepôt was slow, nevertheless, by the 1850s, Hong Kong's position as a trading centre had gradually been consolidated. Before the emergence of a recognizable Chinese merchant class in the later half of the 19th century, foreign merchants, the bulk of whom were British, dominated the local political and economic scene. Nevertheless, some of the most prominent and best remembered foreign traders came neither from Europe nor North America, but from the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. These included the Parsees, the Indians and the Jews.\n\n39\n\n40\n\nA Parsee (or Zoroastrian) cemetery in Happy Valley was granted as early as 1852, and the first grave was erected there in 1858. The Jewish Cemetery, located south-east of Wong Nai Chung Village and near some paddy fields, was first laid out in 1855 when the first of the Jewish merchants from Guangzhou settled in Hong Kong. The lease for land for a cemetery was granted in 1857, the year of the first burial.42 As the community was not large, the number of burials was small. By the end of the 19th century, burials were limited to about sixty. The cemetery was described as 'neglected' in an 1890's tourist guide.44\n\nThe Muslim cemetery in Happy Valley had been deeded to the community in 1870, and a mosque with rooms for burial preparations was added. Prior to this, a Mohammedan cemetery, located at roughly the present site of St. Stephen's Girls College along Park Road, can be found in an 1863 map.46\n\nHowever, no further information on this", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215533, "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": 310, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "260\n\nJapanese invasion, steps could not be taken until after the war.\n\n177\n\n178\n\nIn July 1949 the first of such cemeteries, the Sandy Ridge (Urn) Cemetery near Lo Wu was approved, and burials commenced on 9th April 1950. In the financial year of 1950-51, the number of reburials (including temporary storage awaiting cremation) at Sandy Ridge (Urn) Cemetery was as high as 65,558.\n\n180\n\n181\n\nSE\n\nThis was followed by the commissioning of the most important post-war cemetery, the Wo Hop Shek Cemetery, which was authorized on 27th February 1950. Burials in this cemetery commenced on 1 December in the same year. The cemetery was served by a branch of the Kowloon-Canton Railway, and coffins could be transported to the cemetery by railway hearse. In the financial year of 1951-52, 16,054 coffins were transported to the cemetery by the railway hearse.\n\n182\n\nAppendix 1\n\nName of Cemetery\n\n \n Name of Cemetery\n Location\n Year\n Remarks\n \n \n Protestant Burial Ground\n Wan Chai\n 1841\n Closed 1845, last graves removed 1889\n \n \n Catholic Burial Ground\n Wan Chai\n 1842\n \n \n \n *Colonial/Hong Kong Cemetery\n Happy Valley\n 1845\n \n \n \n *Stanley Cemetery\n Stanley\n \n Earliest graves: 1843. Closed c. 1870, re-opened during the war. Renamed Stanley Military Cemetery after WWII.\n \n \n West Point Burial Ground\n \n \n \n \n \n St. Michael Catholic Cemetery\n Happy Valley\n 1848\n \n \n \n *Parsee/Zoroastrian Cemetery\n Happy Valley\n 1852\n \n \n \n *Jewish Cemetery\n Mid-Levels\n 1857\n Appeared in a 1863 map. Details not known.\n \n \n Muslim/Mohammedan Cemetery\n Happy Valley\n \n Appeared by 1850s. Details not known.\n \n \n *Muslim/Mohammedan Cemetery\n Po Yan Street (Cemetery Street)\n 1870\n \n \n \n Chinese Burial Ground\n Yau Ma Tei\n 1871\n \n \n \n Chinese Cemetery\n Mount Davis\n 1882\n \n \n \n Chinese Christian Cemetery\n Chai Wan\n 1882\n \n \n\n183\n\n184", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215693, "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": 470, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "423\n\nValery M. Garrett. Heaven is High, the Emperor Far Away, Merchants and Mandarins in Old Canton, Oxford University Press [Oxford University Press (China) Ltd., 2002] xiv, 210,\n\nMrs. Garrett has put a lot of loving effort into this book, and it shows.\n\nShe made many visits to Canton during its years of gestation, and the contents fully endorse her claim (Introduction, xiii) that \"instead of discovering that all had been swept away, I found that much had survived.' We are also in her debt for another reason. She has provided wealth of description from older works obtained during her searches in the second-hand and rare book market, many of them never reprinted, and hence scarce and expensive to buy, if you can find them! One such book is by the American, Osmond Tiffany Jr. (Boston, 1849), which has supplied the two little gems given on pages 79 (on the Parsee merchants of Canton) and 90 (on Chinese shopmen).\n\nThe result is a lively, informative, and very readable account of a City, once famous across the Four Seas, which has been long neglected and deserves to be again better known. No matter - as the author has felt obliged to add that a visit there is \"like an audience with a grand old lady who has had too many face-lifts\". She is still worth cultivating, for all that!\n\nThe long history of Canton is given in outline, but the focus is on its 18th and 19th centuries \"heyday,\" when the city was the only port on the long Chinese seaboard open to foreign trade: and as promised in the sub-title, here we have 'merchants and mandarins' superabundance, firmly set within the geographical, social, and historical context of their times.\n\nI liked the book's organization. Its three parts, with fourteen chapters and accompanying notes, together with an Introduction, cover the subject very neatly, whilst each chapter is long enough to impart adequate information, but not to the point when it becomes too much to handle.\n\nI also like the illustrations, especially the three sections in colour. All very well reproduced and including some that (I predict) many", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216468, "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": 227, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "14. Intrepid HKBRAS members climbing up to the Parsee Cemetery, Dane's Hill, Canton.\n\n177", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216469, "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": 228, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "178\n\n15. Parsee Picnic House, Dane's Hill, Canton.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]