[ { "id": 204288, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n52\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nLibrary, sanctioned by the Trustees, shall be published, with a Catalogue of the Books, and a copy of the same be placed in the hands of all those who are admitted to the privileges of the Society and the Library.'\n\n\"The Regulations of the Library\" were published in the Anglo-Chinese Kalendar for ... 1839 and include a provision that \"Any person, who is not a member of the Society, may be admitted to the privileges of the Library, by the payment of $10 per annum, or of $5 for six months or any shorter period, (* A single contribution of not less than $25, or an annual contribution of $10 constitutes membership.)\"\n\nThe \"Second Annual Report of the Morrison Education Society\" of 3rd October, 1838, says: --\n\nThe Library, as was contemplated, has been opened in a convenient apartment in Canton, and is now of easy access to all those who desire to enjoy its benefits. The trustees recommend the early adoption of measures for its enlargement. As a public library, it ought, in the course of a few years, to rise from its present limited number of two thousand volumes to a hundred times that number, and thence to increase until it shall equal some of the best collections of books in the world.\n\nThe Society moved to Macao in 1841 and the Library containing between two and three thousand volumes was again open to those who desired to borrow books from it at the Society's house, near St. Paul's, under the care of Mr. Brown. \"The Third Annual Report\" of the Society was not published until this year, the gap since 1838 being caused by the disturbed conditions prevailing in the intervening years. By 1842 the Society had already established itself in the newly ceded island of Hong Kong.\n\nAt the fourth annual General Meeting of the Society on 28 September, 1842, it was reported that, as the result of correspondence with Sir Henry Pottinger, (the Superintendent of Trade and Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary in China) a site had been granted to them for a permanent headquarters on Morrison Hill, a hill which at the time of writing is quickly nearing complete demolition just over one hundred years later. One of the larger rooms of the building to be put up was designed for the Library which now contained nearly 3500 volumes. The usual vicissitudes occurred which seem to beset so many libraries run on a voluntary or partly voluntary basis. An 1843 report says:\n\nThe Society's Library requires some attention in order to preserve it, and render it of greater public utility. I believe there are not far from 3500 volumes in it; but of these, a large number, perhaps one third are so injured as to make them unfit for circulation. Some sets have been broken by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204594, "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": 75, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "64 \n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG \n\nuninhabitable according to our notions, and we therefore tell the Chinese that the Minister is obliged to postpone taking up his residence until the residence is fit to receive him. Mr. Adkins is therefore charged with the task of repairs, and in March of next year or possibly earlier Mr. Bruce expects to take up his quarters there. His arrival at Peking before we quitted it was a happy hit. Formal interviews took place between Lord Elgin and Prince Kung at which the former introduced his brother and abdicated in his favour; so that before we quitted Peking Mr. Bruce had commenced his business with the Chinese authorities, while that of the Special Embassy terminated.7 \n\nSo interpreter Adkins remained alone in the Palace of Duke I-liang throughout the winter of 1860-61, until in March 1861 Bruce set out from Tientsin, accompanied by Thomas Wade, his interpreter, and Dr. Rennie, physician to the new Legation. Colonel Neale, the Secretary of the Legation, with two attachés, St. Clair and Wyndham, had gone ahead with the baggage. We are fortunate to have a detailed account of the first year at the British Legation kept by Dr. Rennie. In the Preface to his book Peking and the Pekingese he explained that \"a few months after Her Majesty's Legation had been established in Peking, a feeling began to be entertained by its members, that, with a view to future publication, some record should be kept of the various incidents which were from day to day occurring, during what may be termed the inaugural period of foreign diplomatic residence at the capital—the most important event in the modern history of Anglo-Chinese intercourse.\" Since Rennie had been keeping \n\n7 Quoted in The Life of Sir Harry Parkes by Stanley Lane-Poole, 2 vols., (London, 1894), I, 404-5. \n\nParkes was born in 1828, and came out to China in 1841 to join his two sisters who were living with their cousin, the wife of the Protestant missionary, the Rev. Charles Gutzlaff. Parkes was attached to Sir Henry Pottinger's suite in the expedition up the Yangtze in 1842 and witnessed the signing of the Treaty of Nanking. He started to learn Chinese and at the age of fifteen was attached to the British Consulate at Canton. Many appointments as interpreter and consul followed until 1865 when he was appointed Minister to Japan. In 1883 he became British Minister at Peking. He died in 1885. \n\n* D. F. Rennie, Peking and the Pekingese during the First Year of the British Embassy at Peking, 2 vols. (London, 1865) vii. \n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204746, "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-1964", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "38\n\n10 Linguist purser.\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nSee note 39, (J.L.C-B)\n\n11 Elliot's last day. On 25 March Elliot formally requested the Viceroy that passports should be issued within three days for all the English ships and people at Canton and that if passports were not issued he would consider the men and ships of his country as forcibly detained and act accordingly. Blue Book, Correspondence relating to China, 1840, p. 367. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n12 Edward Elmslie. Secretary and Treasurer to the British Superintendents of Trade, Captain Charles Elliot and the Deputy Superintendent, A. R. Johnston, (J.L.C-B.)\n\n13 Houqua. Known to Westerners at Canton as Howqua 7. His family name was Wu Ch'ung-yüeh (1810-1863). He was the fifth son of the famous Hong merchant Wu Ping-chien whom he succeeded as head of the firm in 1843. For his biography see Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, II, 867-8. (F.L.C-B.)\n\n14 Nam Hoe. Also written Nam Hoi. This means Nan Hai Hsien #i.e. the Magistrate having jurisdiction over the western part of Canton city and the District lying to the westward of the walls which included the area in which the foreign Factories lay. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n15 Kwang Hup. The author may be referring to the Kwangchou hsieh \"the Canton brigade\", and so to its commander. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n16 The Governor. The Governor of Kwangtung province at this time was I-liang (1791-1867). For his biography see Hummel, op. cit., I, 389. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n17 K'an-ch'o (J.L.C-B.)\n\n18 An-tsou (J.L.C-B)\n\n19 Columbia & John Adams. According to the Chinese Repository Vol. 8, p. 56 the Columbia was a U.S. frigate and the John Adams was classed as a sloop-of-war. The Columbia was commanded by Commodore George C. Read. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n20 Johnston, Alexander Robert Johnston, H.M. Deputy Superintendent of Trade. When the Government of Hong Kong was set up he was deputy first to Elliot and later to Sir Henry Pottinger and in this capacity he administered the Government of the Colony on various occasions from 1841 until 1843. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n21 Pwan Kei Kua. Probably the merchant whose name was also spelt by Westerners at Canton at that time Ponkhequa and Puan Khequa. This was P'an Chengwei (1791-1850). See Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, II, 605, (J.L.C-B.)\n\n22 Saoqua. His family name was Ma Tso-liang and the name of his Hong was Shun Tai Hong A. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n23 Sturgis. Russell Sturgis (1805-1887) of Boston was first named Nathaniel Russell Sturgis, Jr., but he was always known as Russell Sturgis after his name was changed by decree of the Middlesex County Court. He graduated from Harvard in 1823, married in 1828 but was widowed four months later. After an extended tour of Europe he returned to Boston and for a while practised law. He remarried and in 1833 took his family to the orient where he became a partner of Russell & Sturgis of Manila and Russell, Sturgis & Co. of Canton. Later in 1842 when the latter firm became incorporated with Russell & Co., China, he became a partner in 1842. In May 1844 he retired to Boston, his second wife having died in Manila in 1837. Being far too young to give up work altogether he decided to return to China in 1849 but while passing through London he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205612, "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-1968", "page_number": 154, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nJARDINE, MATHESON & CO.'S FIRST SITE IN\n\nHONG KONG\n\n149\n\nAlexander Matheson told the House of Commons Select Committee on Commercial Relations with China in 1847 that his firm had, without authorisation, commenced building \"to a certain extent\" before the first Land Sale held by Captain Elliott* on 14 June 1841 in Hong Kong. It is commonly assumed that the site of this building was at what later became known as East Point, in the present Causeway Bay area of Hong Kong, where the firm was to build extensive godowns and residences. One writer, for example, speculates that by the time of those first land sales, Jardine, Matheson & Co. had already selected for themselves a \"spacious area at East Point\" and intimates that it was there that they were building in June, 1841.2 However, even on the rather scanty evidence available, it seems clear that the site of this unauthorised building was not East Point but an area on the present Queen's Way, in the old Admiralty Dockyard.\n\nContemporary evidence, in any event, makes it unlikely that East Point was the site. Pottinger, the first Governor of Hong Kong,† gives us a graphic description of East Point as he saw it, possibly in August 1841 but more likely in mid-1842, when he returned from the military expedition against China. He describes its \"wild and uncouth state being one chaos of immense masses of granite and other rocks, that it was hardly accessible by person or on foot, either on the side of the water or the land, that the firm in question, by the application of science and extraordinary labour and by an expenditure of about £100,000 (sic), have not only made it available for their vast mercantile concerns, but have rendered it a credit and an ornament to the colony.\" The site sounds at that time, to put it mildly, somewhat unattractive though it did stand at the head of the Wongneichung Valley and would be well-placed to dominate any settlement there; there is evidence that the firm conceived a plan in 1842 for building a seawall and\n\n* Administrator of Hong Kong January-August 1841 as well as plenipotentiary for the current negotiations with the Chinese authorities. See p. 16 and Appendix I of G. B. Endacott's A History of Hong Kong (London, Oxford University Press, 1958).\n\n† Sir Henry Pottinger, Administrator and subsequently first Governor of Hong Kong August 1841-May 1844. Endacott op. cit. Appx, I.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205620, "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-1968", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n157 \n\nThe only study of the question which has any pretence to authority is that by Sayer in his work on the first 20 years of Hong Kong under British rule. In that study he makes use of various contemporary descriptions and accounts to fix the site of the first building to which the name 'Government House' has been given on the location of the Victoria District Court at the top of the present Battery Path. Though I do not contest that the site was so used for a period, it would appear that Sayer's conclusion is at variance with other contemporary material which should have been available to him. The problem stems partly from a failure to distinguish between the offices where the Governor performed his official functions and the residences where he lived. When Sir Henry Pottinger, the first Governor, arrived in 1841, he spent one night in a tent. When he returned to Hong Kong after the successful conclusion of the war against China, he lived in a number of houses, though there is positive evidence only about one of them. Though visual evidence from drawings of Hong Kong suggest that he may have resided in a house in the possession of Major Caine, the Chief Magistrate, there is no documentary evidence of the fact and I am not concerned with it; if he did so reside, he must have done so gratuitously, for the Government Accounts of the period do not record any rent payments which might be attributed to this.\n\nSayer is able to state confidently that \"the first Government House has disappeared without trace” as a preamble to his attempt to re-trace it. The Canton Press of January 1842 reported that “a public office to serve as a temporary residence for the head of the Government\" had just been finished. The same newspaper shortly after this referred to this building as \"Government House,\" but added that it had changed its name to the \"Record Office\" since \"the late Acting Governor has been metamorphosed into a Lieut.-Governor.\" The reference is to A. R. Johnston, who administered Hong Kong during Pottinger's absences from the Colony. Sayer concludes from this that the building referred to by the newspaper must have been the house undeniably built by Johnston at the top of Battery Path. He further supports this by pointing out that, on Collinson's Map of 1844, Johnston's House is marked 'Government House.' Lest, however, this should seem to answer the question beyond further argument, I have a few observations to offer.\n\nAs early as the end of 1841, Johnston was writing letters dated 'Government Hill' and there is no doubt that this was the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205707, "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-1969", "page_number": 13, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "CHINESE UNOFFICIAL MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE COUNCILS IN HONG KONG UP TO 1941\n\nT. C. CHENG, O.B.E., M.A.(LOND.)*\n\n(A lecture delivered to the Branch on 29 April 1968)\n\nOn 5th April, 1843, Her Majesty Queen Victoria granted to Hong Kong a Royal Charter which declared Hong Kong a separate Colony. The main provisions of this Charter, published in Hong Kong in June 1843, included, among other things, the following:\n\n(i) There should be a Legislative Council to be composed of the Governor and of such Public Officers within the said Colony, or of such other persons as shall from time to time be named or designated by Her Majesty for the purpose;\n\n(ii) An Executive Council should be established to advise and assist the Governor, who was authorized to summon as an Executive Council such persons as may from time to time be named or designated by Her Majesty.\n\nIt was, however, not until January 1844 that the Legislative Council first met, being composed of all officials, viz., the Governor (Sir Henry Pottinger), the Lt.-Governor (Major-General D'Aguilar) and the Chief Magistrate (Major Caine). The Clerk of Councils was the Legal Adviser to the Governor (R. Burgass).\n\nMajor-General D'Aguilar and Major Caine were also appointed members of the Executive Council.\n\nIn June 1850 the first British unofficial members were nominated to the Legislative Council. They were Messrs. David Jardine and J. F. Adger, both elected by the unofficial Justices of the Peace. Even at this early period of the history of Hong Kong, dissatisfaction was already expressed, mainly among the British community, with the small number of unofficials serving on the Council. In the case of the Chinese, they were, however, inarticulate because there were then very few Chinese who were educated through the medium of English and who could communicate adequately in that language.\n\n\"Mr. Cheng has been President of United College in The Chinese University of Hong Kong since 1963. Prior to that he was in Hong Kong Government service since 1939, his last post being Chief Assistant Secretary for Chinese Affairs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "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": 206382, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE COLONY OF HONG KONG\n\n173\n\na Convention between Captain Elliott, who was then our plenipotentiary, and the Chinese commissioner Ke-shen; and some adventurous spirits had soon after located themselves on it. Ke-shen got into disgrace with his government for the cession; but it was fully confirmed by the subsequent treaty, and the island received the status of a Colony from an order in Council dated the 5th April, 1843, its principal town to be dignified with the name of our Queen. When I arrived, it was under the government of Sir Henry Pottinger, who had brought the war to a successful close.\n\nTo give you an idea of the place as I first saw it, I had proposed to take a walk with you along the Queen's Road from the west to the east, but I found that that would take too much time. That road was marked out, in many places imperfectly, from Sae-wan on towards Aberdeen, the waters of the bay, from which so much land has since been taken, coming, in the greater part of its course between East and West points, up to it on the north, Hollywood Road, and the streets running down from it to the Queen's Road, were also indicated in a rudimentary fashion. A little beyond the present Sailors' Home, were the Naval Stores, and, south of them, all the indentation of the hill where the Reformatory now stands was occupied with tents and huts peopled by the 55th Regiment. From that eastwards all was blank to the bluff where the Civil Hospital rises, and on which was a bungalow built by Jamieson, How & Co., and occupied by Mr. Edger, belonging to that firm, and in later years a member of the Legislative Council. On the other side of the road were some godowns of the same firm, washed by the sea. The next European buildings were Gibb, Livingston & Co.'s premises, enclosed within a ring fence, and where partners and employés all managed to reside, with none of the massive godowns which now seem to serve as buttresses to the offices. Up and down, and athwart, T'ae-p'ing-shan, were thread-like paths, with a Chinese house here and there, but the ground was mainly boulder and sandy gravel. Turning to the west, where Wellington Street runs into Queen's Road, you could see a few Chinese houses on either side of the latter, and Jervois Street was in course of formation, the houses on the north side of it having the waters of the bay washing about among them. Eastwards from the same point on to Pottinger Street, Queen's Road was pretty well lined with Chinese houses;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206383, "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "174\n\nREV. JAMES LEGGE\n\nthe Central Market was formed; and on the other side were some foreign Stores, and a tavern or two. Looking up Aberdeen Street, you saw a few indications of building, and a house on the south of Gage Street, forming the headquarters of a Madras Regiment; and looking up Pottinger Street, you could see the Magistracy and Gaol of the day, where the dreaded Major Caine presided, and below them were two or three other buildings. On from Pottinger Street, a few English merchants had established themselves, and the house which long continued to be known as the Commercial Inn was a place of great resort. On the west of D'Aguilar Street, not then so named, building was going on, and just opposite to it, was a small house called the Bird Cage, out of which was hatched the Hongkong Dispensary. All the space between Wyndham Street and Wellington Street was garden ground, with an imposing flat-roofed house in it, built by Mr. Brain, of the firm of Dent & Co. That great firm had its quarters where the Hongkong Hotel is now, and further on was Lindsay & Co.'s house. All else on the north side of the street was blank, on to the Artillery Barracks, which were building. On the south of the street was the Harbour Master's establishment on Pedder's Hill; and as conspicuous as are now Messrs. Heard & Co.'s Offices, which have been manufactured from it, rose the house of Mr. Johnstone, who had been administrator of the island on its first occupancy. On the Parade Ground was a small mat building, which was the Colonial Church, and above it, about where the Cathedral and Government Offices now stand, were the unpretending Government Offices of that early time and the Post-Office. Far up, if I recollect aright, might be seen a range of barracks, out of which have been fashioned the present Albany residences, and beyond the site of the present Government House was a small bungalow where Sir Henry Pottinger and Sir John Davis after him held their court. Crossing the bridge from the Artillery Barracks, there were some poor buildings for military purposes where the Naval Yard now is, and the houses of Gemmell & Co. and Fletcher & Co., the former of which has since been metamorphosed into the Commissariat Offices. On the right was the General's House, looking much as it does now, and below it was the Canton Bazaar, mainly occupied by troops.\n\nFollowing the bend of the road, one met with a few Chinese houses on the bluff opposite the present Military Hospital, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206391, "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": 208, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "182\n\nREV. JAMES LEGGE\n\nI have drawn, you probably think, sufficiently long on your attention and patience already, and yet, that we may get a sufficient view of the growth of the Colony, I must ask you to go back with me to the time at which I had arrived when the unhealthiness of 1843 led me away into all these digressions. I will try, however, to be brief in what I have further to say.\n\nSir Henry Pottinger, I observed, was governor of the Colony when I came to it, and I was surprised to find that he was not by any means popular. He was a good man, people said, to conquer China, and a bad man to rule Hong Kong. The impression which I received from my intercourse with him was of a man condensed, reticent, powerful, who would have his own way, and was able to force it. Mr. Davis, afterwards Sir John Davis, arrived and relieved him in May, 1844; and his coming was hailed with eager expectation. He had been in China before in the East India Company's time, was a Chinese scholar, and had written a book on China, which is still the most readable and entertaining work on the country up to the time to which he was able to bring it down. He, it was thought, was just the man for the place. How it came about, I hardly know; but of all our governors he left his office under the greatest cloud of popular dissatisfaction. In his time, however, the Colony made very considerable advances. The arrival of Judge Hulme was almost contemporaneous with that of Sir John Davis, and a Court of Supreme judicature was constituted. Mr. May, whom we all know, arrived in March, 1843, and the police force began to take shape. Not long after, the tax on house property was proposed, and never was there a greater clamour in the place. It was argued that it was unconstitutional, an imperilling of that palladium of English liberty that taxation must go hand in hand with representation; and the revolt of the American Colonies in the last century was alluded to. It was not my lot, however, to be in Hong Kong during the greater part of Sir John Davis's administration. I was laid down with Hong Kong fever in the autumn of 1844, which returned with other complications in the following year, till I was carried on board ship on the 18th November, to make the passage round the Cape, my friends all supposing that Hong Kong had seen the last of me.\n\nTwo days after I had left, Ke-ying, the Chinese statesman, paid a visit to the Colony, and gave a grand entertainment to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206548, "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-1972", "page_number": 96, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "90\n\nE. G. PRYOR\n\nBesides their wider trading interests, the British in Canton had established a thriving trade in opium brought from India. The Chinese government regarded this trade with considerable concern, on the grounds that it was harmful to human welfare and also a serious drain on the country's finances. Early attempts by the Chinese government to stop the opium trade failed but in 1839 a Special Imperial Commissioner was appointed who forced the British traders in Canton to relinquish their supplies of the narcotic. The British Superintendent of Trade, Captain Elliot, consequently withdrew the English merchants to Macau and later transferred them onto ships anchored in Hong Kong harbour; subsequent events led to open hostilities between Chinese and British forces.\n\nIt was decided by Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, that a satisfactory settlement of the dispute would require either a commercial treaty with adequate guarantees to protect the interests of British merchants or the cession of one or more off-shore islands from which the traders could operate without restriction. A British expedition was despatched to China in 1840 to back up these demands and in January 1841 negotiations were held in Canton between Captain Elliot and Keshen, a Manchu Commissioner, whereby it was agreed by the Convention of Chuenpi that Hong Kong Island was to be ceded to the British (Figure 1).* A British naval force took possession of the island on 26th January 1841,\n\nThe Chuenpi terms were accepted by neither side. Elliot was replaced by Sir Henry Pottinger and hostilities were renewed. The war was concluded by the Treaty of Nanking on 29th August 1842 by which the island of Hong Kong was ceded in perpetuity to the Crown and four additional ports besides Canton were opened to British traders. The island was formally declared a British Colony on 26th June 1843 and Sir Henry Pottinger was appointed the first Governor. Hong Kong was declared a free port and by the Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue the Chinese were given free access to the island for trading purposes.\n\nThe Housing Problem Takes Root: 1841-1881\n\nAlmost from the day Captain Elliot raised the British flag on the northern shores of Hong Kong Island, a steady stream of artisans and labourers made their way to the Colony from the southern provinces.\n\n*Figures 1-8 will be found at the rear of the text.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206608, "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-1972", "page_number": 156, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "The Origins of Hong Kong's Central Market and the Tarrant Affair\n\nDafydd Emrys Evans*\n\nThe public market which at present stands in Queen's Road Central in Hong Kong occupies the site of a succession of older buildings of which the earliest was built as a market in 1842. The early history of this market amply demonstrates the too-seldom revealed complexity of Chinese merchants' commercial transactions at the time of the founding of the Colony of Hong Kong.\n\nHong Kong's first public market opened on the site in May, 1842.1 At the first sale of crown land in the new Colony in June, 1841, the westernmost lots were put up to auction first and the first four, designated at the sale numbers 19 to 16, were not sold but reserved for Government purposes. It was on the lot numbered 16 that the market opened, lying as it did conveniently near to the Upper and Lower Bazaars.2 The Market was, apparently, the brain-child of the Colonial Secretary of the time, Colonel George Malcolm who secured the erection of buildings at a cost of some $3,500.3 He appointed a Chinese named Hwei Aqui as Superintendent and established a fixed list of prices to be charged by the individuals to whom the stalls were let by Government.4\n\nWhen Sir John Davis succeeded Sir Henry Pottinger as Governor of the Colony in 1844, he decided that the Market could operate as a useful source of revenue for the Government and sold the market franchise to the highest bidder who was then free to charge what he could to the stallholders. The successful bidder was, in fact, Hwei Aqui and, though he had apparently given satisfaction formerly when simply in the employ of Government, caused grave dissatisfaction once he was operating the market on his own account, with prices rising far faster than they had previously and without the benefit of Government control over the state of the market.\n\nIt is the few years after the market passed into private hands that it makes its contribution to Hong Kong's history, not only on\n\n* Mr. Evans is Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong. See Journal vol. 10, 1970, for his earlier article \"Chinatown in Hong Kong: The Beginnings of Taipingshan\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206616, "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-1972", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "158\n\nDAFYDD EMRYS EVANS\n\nCaine, allegations were repeatedly made of his complicity with persons of ill-repute, in particular with Daniel Caldwell, for many years a Government servant and consort of the 'Jonathan Wild' of Hong Kong, a Chinese called Wong Akee (or Machow Wong).\n\nAfter this incident of the Market extortions, which most wanted to believe anyway, Tarrant turned his attentions towards the Press, becoming—how is unexplained—the owner of the Friend of China on the departure from the Colony of the editor who had taken his side in market dispute, John Carr. Tarrant was able to use the editorial columns to pursue Caine and his subordinates on every possible occasion but in the end it was Caine who won. In 1859 he was forced out into the open and instituted a Crown prosecution for criminal libel against Tarrant. This ended with Tarrant being jailed for one year. When he was released before the end of his sentence Tarrant was a broken man and left the colony for Canton, where he continued to publish the Friend. He paid a visit to Hankow in 1861 and settled later in Shanghai but his journal never flourished thereafter.\n\nIt is, perhaps, a pity that the issue of corruption in government in Hong Kong, some of which was so devastatingly exposed by Sir Hercules Robinson, a later Governor, in 1861 in his Report to the Home Government on Civil Service Abuses in Hong Kong, was so clouded by the personalities of those who concerned themselves with the issue. The undoubted corruption which government servants like Caine permitted, even if they did not actively participate in it themselves, could have at least received a check if the then Governor, Sir John Davis, had had the courage of his own convictions and the confidence of the public and ordered a proper investigation into the Market scandal. Instead, the rumours which had started in 1841 when Caine was alleged to have allowed piratical activities for a price, rumours fed by the Lock Hospital scandal and the Tarrant affair, continued unabated until 1861, by which time most of the objectionable public servants had left the service.\n\nNOTES\n\nA Friend of China, 19 June 1842.\n\n2 The Lower Bazaar, located in the present Bonham Strand area, came into existence when A. R. Johnston, who had control of the administration of the island when Sir Henry Pottinger was absent from the colony prosecuting the war against China, allowed Chinese who had helped the British", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206743, "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": 20, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "14\n\nH. A. RYDINGS\n\nbut moved with it to Morrison Hill where it reopened on 1st June, 1843. As already mentioned, he went home in June, 1845. This was because of the illness of his wife, who died on the journey (5). More details of Dr. Hobson's career may be found in a biographical sketch by Dr. K. C. Wong (6). It is interesting to note that prior to his return to China in 1847, Hobson married Mary, daughter of Dr. Robert Morrison, at Bath. Hobson's successor as Secretary, George K. Barton, was a partner with Thomas Hunter in the Victoria Dispensary. This also had premises in Macao, where Hunter was located. James H. Young was the junior partner in the Hongkong Dispensary in Queen's Road, the others being Peter Young (afterwards Colonial Surgeon in succession to Francis Dill on the latter's death in 1846), Samuel Marjoribanks (who was at Canton) and K. M. Kennedy. Dr. Young resigned as Treasurer and from membership in November 1845. Lastly Henry Holgate, according to Eitel, was appointed Colonial Surgeon in August 1841 by Sir Henry Pottinger, but his appointment was subsequently disallowed by the home Government, and his name does not appear in the official list of holders of that office. He presumably remained in Hong Kong in private practice (8).\n\nThese, then, were the men who guided the China Medico-Chirurgical Society during its brief existence. Of the six, Drs. Tucker and Dill died before the end of 1846, and Dr. Hobson had gone back to England, whilst Dr. J. H. Young had resigned.\n\nThe China Medico-Chirurgical Society came into existence at a meeting held at the residence of Dr. Dill on 13th May 1845, attended by eleven \"Medical Gentlemen of Hongkong.\" The objects of the Society were set out as\n\n\"1st—The bringing into more intimate intercourse [of the] Medical brethren in China, for the sake of giving and receiving information on Medical and Surgical subjects;\n\n\"2nd—The formation of a Library, where all the best periodicals and the most valuable standard medical works of the day can be had;\n\n“3rd—The discussion of topics relating more particularly to the diseases prevalent in China, and to the Native Materia Medica.\"\n\nThe annual subscription was $12. The Committee consisting of the three officers and three other members was to be elected half", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206747, "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": 24, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "18\n\nH. A. RYDINGS\n\narrangements can be made for the Society's house) one, and the same building.” Amongst the reasons which he adduced for this was that the former Governor, Sir Henry Pottinger, had reserved a plot of land \"between the Chinese Hospital [where Hobson worked] and the Gap\" for an object of this kind. A special meeting was called on 8th July (14) to consider Dr. Hobson's proposal; two supporting resolutions were unanimously adopted, and the Society expressed its gratitude to Dr. Hobson for the zeal and ability with which he had performed his duties as Secretary, and its regret on his forthcoming departure.\n\nAs befits a medical missionary, Dr. Hobson believed in actions as well as words. The Chinese Hospital where Hobson worked, as already mentioned, was moved in 1843 from Macao to the vicinity of Morrison Hill in Hong Kong, and was thus close to the Morrison Education Society's school, from which Hobson attracted pupils to further studies in scientific and medical fields (15). In this he was following a practice established by Dr. Peter Parker, the first American medical missionary who started an ophthalmic hospital in Canton in 1835. Of Hobson it is said that the attention which he gave \"to the education of young men as his assistants was amply repaid in the benefit derived from their intelligence. Some of those under his care were able to perform various operations, and one, more especially, had acquired so great an amount of professional skill that some of the European surgeons of the Colony of Hong Kong, by whom he was examined, expressed their admiration of his training\" (16). These efforts may be considered the beginnings of medical education in China and Hong Kong, though it was not until 1887 that Hobson's vision of a College of Medicine for Chinese in Hong Kong was fulfilled, long after his death, and many years later than the establishment of other medical schools in China.\n\nThe idea of a medical school was linked quite sensibly in the minds of the members of the Medico-Chirurgical Society with that of their own premises, in which could be kept a museum for specimens of natural history and morbid anatomy, and their library of medical textbooks and journals. The problem of obtaining suitable premises seems to have dogged both the immediate and the latter-day successors of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (for which however it was solved by provision of a room in the Court House, presumably through the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210823, "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": 174, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "157\n\nHongkong.\n\nIn November 1842, the Morrison Education Society School had moved over from Macau. After some months it occupied its newly built quarters on what became known as Morrison Hill.\n\nThe society had been organised after Dr. Robert Morrison's death by the merchants of Canton to honour his memory. Recognising his intense interest in education for the Chinese, the society was devoted to this purpose.\n\nDr. Legge welcomed the idea of a merger with the Morrison Education Society School. He realised that he would not be able to bring many students to Hongkong from Malacca, that it would be costly to build a school building and that its administration would make a heavy demand on his time.\n\nThe London Missionary Society held a conference in Hongkong in August 1843, to discuss strategy now that Hongkong and six ports in China were open to foreign residence. Among the topics discussed was the future of the Anglo Chinese College.\n\nThere were a variety of opinions expressed. Some wished to turn it into a theological school to train church workers, thus abandoning the liberal and open policy laid down by Dr. Morrison.\n\nAn article in the Colonial Gazette advocated the reorganisation of the school on broad principles, suggesting it should provide instruction “in the useful and ornamental arts, the sciences, and above all medicine.”\n\nSome of the missionaries thought the best location for the school would be on Chinese soil. If the school was at a Treaty Port, there would be a better class from which to draw students. There would also be a more abundant supply of qualified scholars to teach Chinese language and literature. Hongkong at this time had no settled respectable Chinese, let alone literati.\n\nThe idea was soon abandoned when Sir Henry Pottinger, the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210826, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "160 \n\nCARL SMITH\n\navail themselves of the intended boon, will be totally superfluous.\"\n\nAnother blow to those planning for the school was the transfer to the Morrison School of the annual grant it had been receiving from the British Government. The unfavourable action and views of Sir Henry Pottinger, the Governor, provoked considerable ill-will among the missionaries. The cutting off of the annual grant without prior notice put them in a difficult position.\n\nDr. Legge had already drawn upon the fund in anticipation of the grant. The matter became entangled in red tape upon the death of John Morrison in August 1843. He had been the transmitting agent. Now the executors of Morrison's estate were calling for repayment of the advance drawn by Dr. Legge, as it had not been officially authorised by the Government.\n\nFunds for the repayment were not immediately available to Dr. Legge,\n\nIn a letter he explained the matter to the Governor, but he did not receive a reply. After half a year passed, he again wrote. This time there was a reply stating the matter had been referred to London and patience must be exercised while awaiting a reply. Dr. Legge waited.\n\nIn the meantime Sir Henry Pottinger had been replaced as governor by Sir John Francis Davis. After another half year, Dr. Legge presented the matter to the new Governor. His Excellency replied he had no power to make a payment for a period before his incumbency unless it had been actually sanctioned by his predecessor or the Home Government. Neither had been done. Dr. Legge despaired of getting the affair unravelled from the red tape and dropped the matter.\n\nHe did not, however, drop his plans for finding a site and opening a school. In January 1844, the first land sale was held following the suspension of land grants. Dr. Legge bought two lots obligating himself to pay the annual Crown rent of £50 per year. The Governor, on learning that the lots were to be used for educational and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214833, "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-1999", "page_number": 248, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "215\n\n \nquarrel with China was always stated to be with the Chinese Government, and not with the Chinese people. The British plenipotentiaries and commanders on land and sea always made this distinction, and tried to make it clear in proclamations and public notices addressed to the people of the various parts of China in which they were conducting their operations. The most striking example was probably at the Bogue, where the war steamer Nemesis had flown a banner with large Chinese characters, declaring that Britain was making war only on the Imperial government. Such attempts were repeated throughout the War. Before the army left Shanghai in 1842, Sir Henry Pottinger had issued a proclamation of this kind, once more reminding the inhabitants that the British were in fact fighting not the Chinese people but the Imperial government.\n\n \n13\n\n \nBesides taking this general approach to their operations, the naval and military officers of the Expedition were motivated by the traditions of their branch of the armed services, and by the laws, customs and usages of war as recognized in Western Europe of the day. They expected to apply these in China, embracing such considerations as recognition of flags of truce, humanity towards a defeated enemy, the fair treatment of prisoners, and the protection of the civilian population.\n\n \nBritish officers were quick to note acts of courage by Chinese or Tartar soldiers during engagements, and they accorded posthumous honours to brave commanders. They tried to curb looting and rapine by their soldiers and camp followers, and were particularly anxious to spare women and children. They regretted the suicide of Chinese and Manchu commanders in defeat and were dismayed by the self-destruction of many families who took their own lives at Chapu and Chinkiang, rather than fall into their hands. Many examples of their chivalrous outlook can be cited from their accounts of the War, and some will be noted below.\n\n \nProblems of Control\n\n \nBut war is war. Despite the best efforts of their commanders and their officers, British troops behaved badly at times. Drink was responsible for some of the excesses. Wyndham Baker is very implicit on this point. After the capture of Amoy, he wrote:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214835, "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-1999", "page_number": 250, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "217\n\n \nwar, did his best to maintain control of his forces and to restrain the troops. Indeed, the more I read about Gough and his conduct, the more I admire the way in which he sought to conduct his operations. A few indications of his undoubted humanity may be given here:\n\n \nAt Amoy, Sir Hugh had published an Order of the Day, that \"private property was to be held inviolable, and that which in England obtains the name of robbery deserves no better name in China.” Camp followers who did try their hand at looting in Amoy were condemned to death on the spot.\" Such condign punishment is confirmed by an account from the Chinese side. The poet Chu Shih-yun of Chinkiang area mentions that the British executed two sepoys and put up a placard warning against rape and looting.22 Sir Hugh was equally solicitous in smaller matters. After the capture of Chenhai, he had stopped sailors who were hacking off Chinese prisoners' pigtails with their jack knives.23 In a more serious intervention, and with the Admiral in full support, he sharply opposed Sir Henry Pottinger's wish to plunder Ningpo “as a reprisal for the maltreatment there of British prisoners.”24\n\n \nSir Hugh's behaviour at Ningpo must indeed be regarded as exemplary. Anxious to save the place from the looting from which Amoy had suffered (from the Chinese rabble as much if not more than from his own force) as soon as the city was occupied he had called together some of the principal inhabitants and enlisted their cooperation in organizing a corps of Chinese police to protect private property. He was especially insistent that the troops should take good care of the buildings in which they were given sleeping quarters. \"When the Royal Irish and a company of the Westmorelands were stationed in a temple, he gave orders that they must not use the painted and gilded central hall, where examinations were held, for fear it might be spoilt.\"\n\n \n925\n\n \nUnfortunately, Gough's hopes for the city were dashed. Following the unsuccessful Chinese counter-attack on Ningpo, Chinese looters had taken advantage of the confused situation to loot the city with disastrous results. Sir Hugh wrote home, \"When I look at this place, I am sick of war.”26\n\n \nBrigadier Colin Campbell\n\n \nOther senior British officers also had scruples and set high standards", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214842, "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-1999", "page_number": 257, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "224\n\nseemingly well prepared for paying imperial honours. Surgeon Cree relates in his diary that upon the signature of the Treaty of 1842 on board the British flagship on 29 August, a plain yellow flag was hoisted at the main and saluted with twenty-one guns. On September 14 following he noted that \"all ships of the Expedition hoisted the yellow flag at the main - the royal standard of China - and at noon fired a royal salute of twenty-one guns.\"\n\n50\n\nThere was a distinct awareness of the fineness of the country itself. Of Central China, Sir John Davis declared that “it yields to none in the whole world, and is equalled by very few.\"5 Lieutenant Wyndham Baker of the Madras Artillery also waxed lyrical on the subject.52 Even Sir Henry Pottinger, the Plenipotentiary responsible for forcing the Treaty of Nanking upon the Chinese, had called China \"this superb country,” in his despatch to the British Foreign Secretary announcing the event. Several decades earlier, Sir Henry Ellis, member of the Amherst Embassy in 1816, had written that \"it was impossible to travel through the Emperor of China's dominions without feeling that he has the finest country within an imperial ring-fence in the world.\"54\n\n53\n\nNone of the books and letters consulted contains the derogatory or offensive terms for Chinese in use later in the century. British sailors jocularly used the term “Fokies\" for their opponents,55 and referred to the mandarins as “mad-marines,\"56 but the Chinese themselves are not here dismissed as “Chinks,” “Chows,\" \"Heathen Chinee” or “Mongolians\" (as they so often were at a later time, in those English-speaking countries to which they had gone in search of gold or employment) but invariably as \"the Chinese\" or \"Chinamen.\" Indeed, many of the authors pay tribute to the honesty and good manners of the ordinary people.\n\nIn short, our naval, military and civilian writers of the period were still generally respectful of China, its Court and its inhabitants.57\n\nThese facts are worth keeping in mind when considering the Opium War. We should be careful to view the conflict in the context of its own time, and not of that later period when Western attitudes towards China had changed for the worse.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214845, "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-1999", "page_number": 260, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "227\n\nChinese, except as regards the use of Opium, are exceedingly temperate in their habits and we cannot account for the immense distilleries which have been discovered here.\"\n\n19 Captain Sir Edward Belcher, Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, performed in Her Majesty's Ship Sulphur, During the Years 1836-1842. Including details of the Naval Operations in China, From Dec. 1840, to Nov. 1841 (London 1843, Dawsons of Pall Mall reprint, 1970, Vol.II, p.152.\n\nWyndham Baker, p.156. Commenting, he had added, \"The British common soldier in fact is a strange compound, for they are very kind to their prisoners when once the excitement ceases.\"\n\n21 Beeching, p.136.\n\n22\n\n24 Beeching, p.152. Another British placard recorded by Chu warned that there was to be no more commandeering of goods without payment: ibid. However, despite good intentions, according to another Chinese diary, this time from Shanghai in 1842, rape and looting did occur there, and impressment of civilians for forced labour for such heavy work as shifting gun emplacements and gunpowder [ibid., p.149]. Wyndham Baker, when landing his guns before Chin Kiang Foo, refers to \"about 100 helpless natives to assist in carrying the shot boxes.\" Baker, in Blackwood's 1964, pp.161-2.\n\nBeeching, p.139.\n\nThe British Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen, had agreed, minuting: “The worst proposal I have seen from Mr. Pottinger....It ought not to pass unnoticed\": Beeching, pp.139-140. But Pottinger deserves credit for preserving the famed Porcelain Pagoda at Nanking from British soldiers and sailors who, armed with chisels and hatchets, were intent on obtaining souvenirs by stripping tiles from the tower. \"Sir Henry Pottinger was very indignant at this gratuitous vandalism; a guard was stationed to keep off intruders, and no one was thenceforth allowed to visit the tower without a permit from the Admiral or Commander-in-Chief.\" Parkes wrote, \"Such an act as this is shameful and a disgrace to the British name.\" From Stanley Lane-Poole, Sir Harry Parkes in China (London, Methuen & Co., 1901), p.32. Alas, the Porcelain Pagoda was destroyed by the Taipings not long after, in 1856.\n\n25 Edgar Holt, The Opium Wars in China (London, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1964), p.139.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215899, "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-2002", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "Pottinger Battery: 1 officer + 26 soldiers\n\n3 February 1920 The Chief of Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, considered that Hong Kong could resist Japanese attack for 3 months before relief from Singapore arrived.\n\nWashington Treaty\n\n1920/1921\n\n1922\n\nThe Admiralty informed the Committee of Imperial Defence that it was the authority to advise the scale of attack on ports and that for Hong Kong, the \"status quo applies.\"\n\nRollo, 1992, p.98\n\nRollo, 1992, p.101\n\nRollo, 1992, p.102\n\n1924\n\n\"Devil's Peak Sheet No.3,\" Ordnance Survey 1904, corrected and printed at the War Office 1924, shows road access, including \"roads suitable for man-handled guns\" and detailed land uses in the Devil's Peak area, with boundaries of War Department lands delineated. However, the locations of batteries and the Redoubt are not shown.\n\nPRO100(2)\n\n1927\n\nAerial Photograph No. H19 15 taken by HMS Pegasus.\n\nThe Joint Overseas and Home Defence Committee review.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.104\n\n1928\n\nSteel choke caused problems to the 9.2-inch guns at Devil's Peak.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.105\n\n1929\n\nAugust 1930\n\nFebruary 1931\n\nChinese writer/composer, Tien Han, visited Hong Kong and was impressed by the scenic views of Lei Yue Mun, as stated in his poem \"Good Bye Hong Kong.\"\n\nThe 12th Heavy Battery replaced the 9-inch guns with anti-choke pattern.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.105\n\nThe 12 Heavy Battery fired new guns at Gough Battery. \"Gough Battery fired over Hong Kong Island and Repulse Bay.\"\n\nRollo, 1992, p.105\n\n1933\n\nAnnual Review of the Defence of Ports.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.105\n\n22 October 1934 The 12 Heavy Battery practised indirect shots at Pottinger Battery.\n\n1934\n\nA letter from the Military Operation Branch of the War Office indicated plans to modernise two 9.2-inch guns at Devil's Peak in 1936/37 with 35-degree mountings.\n\n1936\n\nThe Hong Kong Defence Scheme\n\nRollo, 1992, p.107\n\nRollo, 1992, p.108, 109\n\nRollo, 1992, p.110, 112\n\n131", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]