[ { "id": 204236, "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": 4, "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\n1\n\nTHE HONG KONG BRANCH OF THE\n\nROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY\n\nThe Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was originally founded in 1847, but it ceased to exist at the end of 1859. Exactly a century later, on December 28, 1959, it was resuscitated with the approval of the parent society in London - The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society was founded in March 1823 \"for the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts, in relation to Asia\". It received its Charter of Incorporation as a royal society from George IV on August 11, 1824. The Royal Asiatic Society is the oldest and most important Society of its kind in Europe, and its standing as the doyen of Societies promoting the study of Asia has been maintained by the devotion of generations of eminent scholars, explorers and others who have contributed through its Journal, in public addresses and in many other ways, a rich harvest of knowledge, both academic and practical, in the service of Western understanding of the East.\n\nA large part of the Society's work has always been done through its branches and affiliated Societies in the East. Branches were formed at Bombay and at Madras about 1838, and in Ceylon in 1845. The Hong Kong Branch followed in 1847, the North China Branch at Shanghai in 1857, the Japanese in 1875, the Malayan in 1878, and the Korean in 1900, etc. etc.\n\nTHE HONG KONG BRANCH grew out of a Medico-Chirurgical Society founded in 1845. This Society, however, in accord with the contemporary spirit of inquiry and the enthusiasm for better knowledge of Asia in general and China in particular, had contemplated setting up a Philosophical Society; but the movement ended in the establishment of the Asiatic Society with laws drafted by Andrew Shortrede, Editor of the China Mail, framed on the model of those of the Royal Asiatic Society. Sir John F. Davis, the Governor, by reason of his known literary and scientific acquirements rather than his official rank, was asked to be President. He suggested that the Society should seek to be admitted as a Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society with which, as a founder member, he was in close touch and with whose active President, the Earl of Auckland, he had discussions on these lines before he left England.\n\nSo in January 1847 the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was founded, and all the members of the Medico-Chirurgical Society who wished to join were admitted without ballot or entrance fee on condition of their Society's apparatus and books being handed over to the new body.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204237, "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": 5, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nBesides the Governor and Shortrede, the first office-bearers included Major-General D'Aguilar, Peter Young the Colonial Surgeon, Mercer the Colonial Treasurer, John Bowring the Younger (of Jardines); and also Thomas Wade, the celebrated interpreter and Envoy to China, who later became famous as inventor of the Wade System of romanization of Chinese still in general use today, and, as Sir Thomas, was to become President of the Society in London in 1887.\n\nIn his Inaugural Address as President, Sir John Davis stressed the importance of directing the Society's attention to practical projects and to natural history, geology and botany, as well as to literary pursuits, and suggested that he could get the sanction of the Colonial Office to the grant of a moderate piece of ground for a Botanical Garden. Sir John left the Colony in 1848; but, as the result of a stirring appeal by Mr. G. Gutzlaff, the missionary, at a meeting of the Society in August 1848, the project was approved, although it was not carried into effect until the governorship of Sir John Bowring (the younger John Bowring's father), and then the Garden was placed under Government control and not under that of the Society.\n\nDuring the twelve years of its life, the Society was dogged to some extent by the personal animosities prevalent in Hong Kong in the early days; but it flourished under the inspiration of Sir John Davis, and also for a time under Sir John Bowring, who enjoyed a European reputation as a scholar—as President he preferred to be called Dr. Bowring—and who animated the Society with his personal influence and by his contributions to its discussions. The Society had no permanent home of its own, but in 1849 it was granted by Sir S. G. Bonham a room in the Supreme Court building. It published six volumes of Transactions, the first in 1847 and the last in 1859.\n\nWith the departure of Sir John Bowring in May 1859 and the death in the September following of the Branch's devoted Secretary—Dr. W. A. Harland, M.D.—the Society collapsed. The efforts of Dr. James Legge, as well as those of Sir Hercules Robinson, the new Governor, as President, of the Bishop of Victoria and of the Acting Chief Justice as Vice-Presidents and of Harry (later Sir Harry) S. Parkes were of no avail.\n\nThe collapse of the Society came at an unfortunate time and deprived it of the prestige and momentum which it would have gained from the work of some of its famous members. Legge was on the eve of publishing his famous translation of the Chinese Classics, which could be printed and distributed only through the generosity of Joseph Jardine, and his successor Sir Robert Jardine, and of John Dent, the heads of the two largest merchant houses in the Colony. A little later, in 1865, T. W. Kingsmill had to resort to the aid of the Shanghai Branch for the publication of his studies on the geology of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204531, "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": 12, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "The keen and active interest in the Society shown by our patron, Sir Robert Black, and members of his family is very gratifying and is warmly appreciated. Despite the exacting calls on their time they have been attending our meetings, and this is a noble example to other busy people in the Colony. We appreciate also the zeal of many other prominent personages including the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Hogan, and the Hon. W. C. Knowles who is a member of the Council and whose business house has provided us with both an Honorary Treasurer, Mr. T. J. Lindsay, and an Honorary Librarian, Mr. John Le Mare. I should like also to refer to the interest in the Society taken by members of H.M. Forces and particularly to the interest taken by Col. Halliday and Col. Mackenzie, both of whom have now left the Colony, but it is greatly hoped that this interest will be sustained by their successors. In this connection it may be interesting to mention the first office-bearers of the Society in 1847:\n\nPresident: Sir John Francis Davis (Governor); Vice-Presidents: Major-General D'Aguilar, Major H. P. Burn, John Stewart, Dr. Kinnis; Council: Lt.-Col. Brereton, Peter Young (Colonial Surgeon), W. T. Mercer (Colonial Treasurer), J. C. Bowring (Son of Sir John Bowring); Secretary: A. Shortrede; Corresponding Secretary: Capt. Clark Kennedy; Chinese and Foreign Secretary: Thomas Wade;* Treasurer: F. Bevan; Curator: C. T. Watkins.\n\nIn conclusion I wish to thank all the officers and members of the Society for their loyal and wholehearted support. I am probably in a better position than anyone to appreciate and also to pay tribute to my colleagues on the present Council, in whom you have a hard working and active body, and each of whom pulls his or her full weight in the furtherance of the objects of the Society.\n\n* Afterwards Sir Thomas Wade, K.C.B., G.C.M.G., British Minister at Peking from 1871 until 1883, and later first Professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205930, "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": 10, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "4\n\ntrade and penetration to China and the Far East, and the Society was in part designed to bring together in London members of these societies who had returned to England and allow them to meet and continue publication of their work. It was founded in March 1823 and received its Royal Charter of Incorporation from George IV on 11th August, 1824. It is the oldest and most important Society of its kind in Europe, and its standing as the doyen of Societies promoting the study of Asia has been maintained by the devotion of generations of eminent scholars, explorers, and others who have contributed through its Journal, in public addresses and in many other ways, a rich harvest of knowledge, the practical uses of which serve to promote and aid our understanding of, and our relation with, the East.\n\nBefore the acquisition of Hong Kong the movement had extended to the mercantile community in Canton, under the influence of Sir John Davis who had become a founder member of the Royal Asiatic Society in London, and of correspondents of the Society who included James Matheson.\n\nThe Hong Kong Branch grew out of a Medico-Chirurgical Society founded in 1845. This Society, however, in accord with the contemporary spirit of inquiry, and the enthusiasm for better knowledge of Asia in general and of China in particular, had contemplated setting up a Philosophical Society under the leadership of Andrew Shortrede, Editor of the China Mail who drafted the Society's laws based on those of the Royal Asiatic Society. Sir John F. Davis, then Governor of the Colony, by reason of his known literary and scientific acquirements rather than his official rank, was asked to be President. He suggested that the Society should seek to be admitted as a Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society with which, as a founder member, he was in close touch and with whose active President, the Earl of Auckland, he had had discussions on these lines before he left England.\n\nSo in January 1847 the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was founded and all the members of the Medico-Chirurgical Society who wished to join were admitted on condition of their Society's library being handed over to the new body.\n\nBesides the Governor as President, and Andrew Shortrede as General Secretary and Major General D'Aguilar as Vice President,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "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": 206751, "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-1973", "page_number": 28, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "22 \n\nH. A. RYDINGS \n\nWe began this review of the China Medico-Chirurgical Society with some account of those who were officers during the first year of its existence. It is therefore appropriate to finish with a look at the office-bearers of the 'Philosophical Society of China”, and to note how many of them had been associated with the former society. The original office-bearers (22) were:\n\nPresident \n\nMajor H. P. Burn \n\nVice-Presidents Dr. Kennedy \n\nCouncil \n\nDr. Balfour \n\nA. Shortrede \n\nJ. C. Bowring \n\nGeneral Secretary W. F. Bryan \n\nTreasurer \n\nCurator \n\nDr. Young \n\nC. T. Watkins \n\nDr. Harland \n\nDr. Barton \n\nThere are five doctors on this list, of whom three are known to have been members of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, namely Drs. Kennedy, Balfour and Barton. The Dr. Young was probably Peter Young, the Colonial Surgeon, and not J. H. Young, who had been Secretary of the Medico-Chirurgical Society but had resigned. Dr. W. A. Harland, who read a paper on \"The Chinese system of human anatomy and physiology\" (23) at the meetings in September and October 1847, was later to become the Society's \"devoted Secretary\" (24), but is not included in the membership list of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, though he may have joined it after the list was compiled. A new set of office-bearers was appointed with the first change of name of the Society (21) and adoption of a constitution on 19th January 1847, with His Excellency Sir John F. Davis, Bart., F.R.S. as President: but that is another story.\n\nNOTES \n\n1 [J. R. Jones] in JHKBRAS, v. 1, 1961, p. 1.\n\n2 There are three copies recorded in libraries in the U.S.A., i.e. the National Library of Medicine at Washington; the Boston Medical Library; and the Library of the New York Academy of Medicine.\n\n3 Trans. China Med. Chir. Soc., v. 1, 1845-46, p. 28.\n\n4 Memoirs of the life and labours of Robert Morrison, comp. by his widow, London, 1839, v. 2, p. 148.\n\n5 Chinese repository, v. 16, 1847, p. 187-9.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207068, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "THE HONG KONG REGION\n\n133\n\nHayes, J. W., 'Old Ways of Life in Kowloon: the Cheung Sha Wan Villages\" in Journal of Oriental Studies, Vol. VIII, No. 1, January 1970: 154-188.\n\nHo, Ping-ti, Studies on the Population of China, 1368-1953, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1959.\n\nHsieh, Kuo Ching, 'Removal of Coastal Population in Early Tsing Period', The Chinese Social and Political Science Review, XIII, 1929: 559-596.\n\nHummel, Arthur W. (Editor), Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (1644-1912), Taipei, Ch'eng Wen Publishing Company, 1967. Reprint of the first edition, Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 2 vols., 1943.\n\nKrone, Rev. Mr., A Notice of the Sanon District. C.B.R.A.S. Transactions VI, 1859: 71-105. Reprinted in JHKBRAS 7, 1967: 104-137.\n\nLo, Hsiang-lin, 'The Sung Wang T'ai and the Location of the Travelling Courts by the Sea-shore in the Last Days of the Sung' in Journal of Oriental Studies, Vol. III, No. 2, July 1956.\n\n-, (and others), Hong Kong and Its External Communications before 1842. Hong Kong, Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963. An English version, abbreviated, of the Chinese edition of 1959.\n\nMayers, W. F., Dennys, N. B. and King, C., The Treaty Ports of China and Japan. A Complete Guide to the Open Ports of these countries, together with Peking, Yedo, Hong Kong and Macao. London, Trübner & Co., Hong Kong, A. Shortrede & Co., 1867.\n\nMurphey, Rhoads, The Treaty Ports and China's Modernization: what went wrong? Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies, No. 7, Ann Arbor, 1970.\n\nMontalto de Jesus, C. A., Historic Macao, International Traits in China Old and New. Macao, 2nd edition, revised and enlarged, 1926.\n\nNeumann, C. F., Translations from the Chinese and Armenian with Notes: 1 History of the Pirates who infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810, London, John Murray, 1831.\n\nNg, Peter Y. L., The 1819 Edition of the Hsin-an Hsien-chih, A Critical Examination with Translation and Notes. Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (1644-1842). Unpublished M. A. thesis, University of Hong Kong, 1961.\n\nNg, Ronald C. Y., 'The San On Map of Mgr. Volontieri. On the Centenary of the Copy in the R.G.S. Collection', London, Geographical Journal, Vol. 135, Part 2, June, 1969: 231-235. Reprinted in JHKBRAS 9, 1969: 141-148.\n\nOrme, G. N., Report on the New Territories for the Years 1899 to 1912. in Sessional Papers 1912.\n\nPerkins, Dwight H., Agricultural Development in China 1368-1968. Chicago, Aldine Publishing Company, 1969.\n\nPotter, Jack M., Capitalism and the Chinese Peasant, Social and Economic Change in a Hong Kong Village. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1968.\n\nSchofield, Walter, Personal Communications, 1958-1968.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 } ]