[ { "id": 204238, "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-1961", "page_number": 6, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n3\n\nTHE NORTH CHINA BRANCH started in Shanghai in 1857 under the name of the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society. Its first President was the Rev. E. C. Bridgman, D.D., the first American missionary in China and the founder and manager of the Chinese Repository. Its first Journal appeared in 1858 in the name of the Literary and Scientific Society, but in that year the Society became affiliated to the Royal Asiatic Society as its North China Branch. Except for a brief period between 1861, when Dr. Bridgman died, and 1864 when the Society was reanimated through the unremitting efforts of Sir Harry Parkes as President, the Society maintained for nearly 85 years—until the outbreak of the second world war in December 1941—almost an unbroken vigour and a high reputation as the principal centre of Oriental culture among the foreign and Chinese communities in Central China. It also kept up a high standard of scholarship and of cultural appeal in its Journal, which appeared unfailingly every year. After the war it continued its work until, after 1948, it was forced through political troubles to cease its activities. The last issues of the Journal had been published with the co-operation of the International Institute of China.\n\nThe Society in Shanghai was from its early days fortunate in the support of a generous public and of the British Government, which in 1868 provided it with a site at a nominal rent for its own building, completed in 1871. Later the property was conveyed to the Society in perpetuity or for so long as it was used for the Society's purpose. Thus, in 1931 the Society was able, with the aid of public subscriptions and generous municipal grants, to build in Museum Road close to the British Consulate a commodious building of its own; it contained a lecture hall named after the late Dr. Wu Lien-teh, a floor to accommodate its Oriental Library of 12,000 volumes and adjacent reading rooms, as well as space for an excellent natural history museum and for the exhibition of Chinese paintings and other works of art.\n\nIn 1941 the Society had nearly 800 members, including most of the leading Oriental scholars, explorers and travellers. Amongst the outstanding personalities who had been associated with the North China Branch a few may be mentioned—Dr. Joseph Edkins, Thomas W. Kingsmill, Dr. Emil Breitschneider, Henri Cordier (at one time the Society's Librarian), P. G. van Mollendorf, Sir Robert Hart, Sir Harry Parkes, Sir Byron Brennan, W. H. Medhurst, Sir Edmund Hornby (the first British Judge in China), Sir Rutherford Alcock, H. A. Giles, G. H. Parker, H. B. Morse, A. P. Parker, Alexander Hosie, Samuel Couling, Sir Sidney Barton and Dr. J. C. Ferguson, an American, former President of Nanking University and a man of profound learning and wisdom who, in the course of half a century, served the Society as President, Secretary and Editor of the Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204286, "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-1961", "page_number": 54, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n50\n\nTHE MORRISON LIBRARY AN EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY COLLECTION IN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG\n\nDOROTHEA SCOTT. A.L.A.\n\nTHE HISTORY\n\nThe history of the Morrison Library goes back to 1806 when the members of the English Factory in Canton unanimously decided to establish a Library by subscription \"comprising a moderate collection of works of acknowledged value and respectability; together with an annual contribution of all the most desirable new publications, which are at present, generally either not imported at all, or multiplied by unnecessary repetitions. . . It would be a library. . . far surpassing in extent, variety, and adaptation to general use, any collection that has hitherto been in possession of, or attempted to be formed by, any European in this country\". The president of the select committee of members of the Factory granted a \"very commodious\" room for a library and by 1832 it contained 1600 different works in about 4000 volumes and a catalogue was published.\n\nThe Library flourished until the withdrawal of the charter of the East India Company in 1834 and the break-up of the English factory.\n\nJust about this time, on the 1 August, 1834, occurred the death of the Rev. Robert Morrison, D.D., the first protestant missionary to China and well-known scholar. A circular dated 26 January, 1835 was distributed among the foreign residents in Canton and Macao suggesting the formation of the Morrison Education Society to carry on the work he had started and to be a \"testimonial more enduring than marble or brass\". The idea received considerable support, twenty-two signatures to the circular were obtained, the sum of $4,860 was subscribed and a provisional committee consisting of Sir George R. Robinson, bart., Messrs. William Jardine, David W. C. Olyphant, Lancelot Dent, John Robert Morrison (Robert Morrison's son who had succeeded his father as Chinese Secretary and Interpreter to His Majesty's Commission in China) and the Rev. E. C. Bridgman was formed to act until a general meeting of the subscribers in China could be convened to form a board of trustees.\n\nThe Chinese Repository, a monthly magazine in English, had been founded in 1832 by Morrison and Bridgman. It gave its support to the foundation of the Society and in the number for June 1835, it published the details given above, saying, \"We have been led to make these remarks by a desire to suggest to the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204287, "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-1961", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n51\n\nfriends of Education the expediency of establishing a public library in China. This plan was brought to our notice by the following letter, (which we publish with Mr. Colledge's permission) addressed:\n\nTo the Rev. E. C. Bridgman, corresponding secretary to the provisional committee of the Morrison Education Society.\n\nMy dear sir, On the dissolution of the British factory, it became necessary to make some disposition of the library belonging to the members of that establishment; and it was proposed to give the whole collection to the Morrison Education Society. The arrangement, however, not meeting with the concurrence of all the proprietors, a division of the books was determined on; and while I regret that so excellent a suggestion should not have been adopted, I am still happy in performing with my share, what it was my anxious wish should have been done with the whole, by presenting it to that admirable institution.\n\nThe very injudicious method pursued in the division of the works, has allotted to me volumes of comparatively little value. Such as they are, I present them to the Morrison Education Society; with an ardent hope that I may live to see an institution, which so distinctly marks this enlightened age, attain, under your fostering care, the full realization of its philanthropic intentions, by promoting virtue and happiness through the blessings of education.\n\nI am, My dear sir,\n\nRespectfully and faithfully yours,\n\nT. R. Colledge.\n\nMacao, May 21st, 1835.\n\nFurther early history of the Society can be traced through reports in the above-mentioned journal.\n\nOne book still in the Library, A Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts Collected with A View To The General Comparison of Languages, And To The Study of Oriental Literature, by William Marsden, London, 1827, is inscribed by the author, \"For the Library at Canton from the Author\" and reminds the reader of the origin of some of the books.\n\n\"Proceedings relative to the formation of the Morrison Education Society including the Constitution\" were published in December, 1836. By this time there was a collection of some 1500 books on scientific, literary, and other subjects which had been presented to the Society, 700 from Mr. T. R. Colledge, 600 from Mr. J. R. Reeves, and others from Messrs. Dent, Fox, A. S. Keating, and J. R. Morrison, who gave a number of his father's books, some of which still bear his signature.\n\nA constitution was drawn up for the Library which stated that \"The books belonging to the Society shall form a public library and be styled the 'Library of the Morrison Education Society',\" and also provided that “rules for the regulation of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206298, "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": 115, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG\n\n109\n\nWhile abroad he had been baptized and on his return he became a member of the Chinese congregation of the London Missionary Society. One of his benefactors had been Andrew Shortrede, owner and publisher of the China Mail, and for about two years after his return from America he worked for the China Mail. In 1864 mention is made of a Chinese publication known as Assing's Daily General Price Current. This was probably a journalistic venture of Wong Shing. He also served as an interpreter for the Government. In 1853 he was placed in charge of the printing establishment of the Anglo-Chinese College operated by the London Mission. He continued as manager for some ten years, when he left to join the staff of the Chinese Government School being established at Shanghai to teach foreign languages to Chinese students. However, he did not find the work there satisfactory, and after a short time returned to Hong Kong and resumed management of the Mission press. In 1872 he went to Peking to set up a printing office with moveable type for the Tsung Li Yamen. From there he went to the United States with the second group of students in Yung Wing's Educational Mission scheme. In 1858 his was the first Chinese name to appear on the roll of Jurors in Hong Kong. He was a member of the organizing Committee for Tung Wah Hospital. In 1884 he was the second Chinese to be appointed to the Legislative Council, serving until 1890. He died in 1902. His obituary mentioned his frugality and his lack of parsimony: \"His family was poor and he was taught to be frugal. He could save about $1,000 and bought land in Hong Kong... before Hong Kong business flourished....It increased ten times in value. He had the opportunity to raise rent, but he did not do so. Those who had property and could earn more ridiculed him. He had a family of children, and his expenditures increased, so that his income did not take care of his expenditures, but he still held to his idea.\"48 Realizing the advantages he had derived from a foreign education, he was among the first Chinese to privately finance the education of his children abroad.\n\nWhen the Rev. Elijah Bridgman, a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, moved to Hong Kong from Macao in 1842, he had under his patronage two young men who had been his students. They had also been sponsored by the Morrison Education Society as students at the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210814, "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": 165, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "148\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nUpon reading it Hung believed he had found the key to explain the strange things that had happened to him in his dreams and visions.\n\nSoon he was formulating the initial ideology upon which the Taiping movement was based. It was a strange mixture of that which was traditionally Chinese and new elements derived from the Christian teachings of the foreigners.\n\nLiang A-fa lived for a short time in Hongkong, long enough for him to acquire a property in the Lower Bazaar. This and the one next to it, purchased by his son, were used by the Rev Mr Elijah Bridgman for a school and dispensary.\n\nIn 1845 Liang A-fa left Hongkong disillusioned with life in a British colony. Both he and his son had experienced rough treatment on the streets of Hongkong from Europeans.\n\nHe was in the unhappy situation of not being accepted by his countrymen because of his foreign faith and his connections with foreigners. At the same time he was not able to adapt to life in a place governed by foreigners.\n\nA STUDENT AND TEACHER WHO BECAME A TEAM\n\nHo Fuk-tong, or as he was also known, Ho Tsun-shin, met the Rev. Mr. James Legge at the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca.\n\nFuk-tong, 22 at the time, was only two years younger than his future teacher and colleague, when they met. Mr. Legge had recently arrived from England to assist the ailing principal of the college, the Rev. Mr. John Evans.\n\nAfter some months, Mr. Evans died and Mr. Legge took charge. Ho Fuk-tong was his star pupil.\n\nFuk-tong was the son of a woodblock-cutter and printer brought from China to work in the Malacca press of the Ultra-Ganges Mission of the London Missionary Society. After the father had been away from home for some years, his son left China.\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "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": 211494, "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": 210, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "186\n\ncollection of books, and also a repository of natural and scientific productions. In the Library, every valuable book extant in Chinese, and every foreign publication regarding China and its inhabitants, should have its appropriate place...3\n\nMeetings followed at monthly intervals at which addresses were given on various aspects of Chinese history and culture by members of the local foreign community. Membership increased gradually and soon included many individuals whose names are remembered today as important figures in nineteenth century Chinese affairs, including Sir Robert Hart, Dr. S. Wells Williams, W. H. Medhurst, and Alexander Wylie. On July 20, 1858, the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland approved their request for affiliation. That same year the Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society began its ninety-year publication span.4\n\nHowever, Rev. Bridgman's health soon failed and he passed away in Shanghai in 1861. The society lost its momentum and passed through what one writer described later as a \"period of suspended animation\". It regrouped in 1864 under the presidency of Sir Harry Parkes who was followed two years later by George F. Stewart, U. S. Consul General in Shanghai.\n\nFrom the beginning the society accepted donations of books and journals, which were dutifully listed in the annual reports, but the lack of permanent facilities prevented the establishment of a formal library. At first, the society used the meeting rooms of the Shanghai Library which was housed in the Masonic Hall on Ningpo Road. From there it moved to the new Masonic Building (1869) and then the Commercial Bank Building on Nanking Road (1870), before finding a permanent home on Museum Road the next year.5\n\nAlexander Wylie, the noted sinologist and supervisor of the London Missionary Society's printing office in Shanghai, amassed a personal collection of both Chinese language books and books in Western languages concerning China which he urged the Royal Asiatic Society to purchase, as he was returning to England for home leave. After much deliberation, a public appeal, and a generous donation from the Shanghai\n\n17\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 } ]