[
    {
        "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
    }
]