[ { "id": 207142, "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": 213, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n207 \n\nAnother temple, that of Yuk Hui Kung, is on Lung On Street. It was probably built in the early 1860s. It is not listed in the 1860 Rates, but is on the next extant list, that of 1865. The 1882 Rates mention that the temple was managed by the Wanchai Kaifong.* The surrounding lots from Stone Nullah Lane to Kennedy Street were bought at government land sale in 1862 by the Pang and Chan families, who developed them for Chinese family houses. Lung On Street was originally called Fourth Street, being that number south of Queen's Road East. On First Street, now King Sing Street, a hospital was opened. It was built on a lot purchased by Leung King Ham, a government school teacher, under the name Tong Tuck Tong, in 1867. With the organisation of Tung Wah Hospital, Leung King Him (sic) and Leung Shun Ng petitioned in 1872 that the hospital be merged with the new Tung Wah.* A controversy arose, and the Leungs published a pamphlet charging Wong Fung Wan and Wong Yow Ho, members of the managing committee, with embezzling funds granted by Government to the Wanchai Hospital. This resulted in a libel case. The 1872 Rate names it as the Wah Tong Hospital with Leung Shan Ng and Leung Yung Choi as the resident doctors.\n\nTo the south of Queen's Road East between Monmouth Path and Wing Fung Street, the land was used as timber yards. To the east, on land now covered by Sun, Moon and Star Streets, was the first Protestant Cemetery in Hong Kong. As there was increasingly more building along Queen's Road, the situation was considered unsatisfactory and after 1845 burials were made in the newly opened Colonial Cemetery in Happy Valley.\n\nJust a bit to the east, near St. Francis Street was the Roman Catholic Cemetery. Here the Catholic Church built a hospital, a chapel, a Mission House, and day schools. Later the Canossian Sisters built a convent where they ministered to the sick, the poor, and the aged. These institutions attracted a number of poor Portuguese families and created a Chinese Roman Catholic population surrounding it. A piece of vacant land between the two cemeteries\n\nAn association of local residents, usually shopkeepers, commonly found in the commercial centres and market towns of the Hong Kong area.\n\n* The Tung Wah Hospital, established in 1870, for over 100 years the leading Chinese charitable institution in Hong Kong and now more flourishing than ever. See H. J. Lethbridge ‘A Chinese Association in Hong Kong: the Tung Wah' in Contributions to Asian Studies (Leiden) Vol. I (1971): 144-158.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209967, "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-1983", "page_number": 226, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "204\n\nA RELIC OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER\n\nP. BRUCE\n\nIn a small cool church in Macau, separated by a few hundred yards of muddy water from China, rests a unique relic of St Francis Xavier.*\n\nAlmost 20 years ago 100,000 people in 15 days filed past the small piece of bone housed in an ornate silver monstrance when it was taken to America from its usual resting place in Macau. Now the relic is back in a tiny church on Coloane Island. Ten years ago the building was in a run-down condition, having been used as a chapel for soldiers from Mozambique serving in the Portuguese Army. Then Father Mario C. Acquistapace arrived on the scene. A sprightly figure now probably in his seventies, he had the church restored. Today its exterior is washed in pale yellow with windows and woodwork picked out in light blue. He has an outgoing personality that runs to a hug when he finds a visitor is a Christian.\n\nMacau, the first permanent Western settlement on the coast of China, across the silt-laden waters of the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong, despite wars, upheavals and revolutions, remains curiously Mediterranean. The Portuguese built their first houses there in 1557, having camped briefly at Liampo and Sanchuang (St John's) Islands.\n\nFrancisco de Xavier, called by Pope Urban VIII the \"apostle of the Indies\", was born into a noble and wealthy family and in 1529 he made the acquaintance of St Ignatius Loyola who was then studying at Paris. Impressed by his teachings, Xavier became one of the original seven men to take the first vows of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, in 1534.\n\nWhen John III, King of Portugal, asked the Pope to send a mission to his Indian possessions, two Jesuits were selected, one of whom was Xavier. He set sail in 1541 and after a voyage of more than a year arrived in Goa, India, where he carried out missionary work. From there he journeyed to Ceylon, or Sri Lanka...\n\n* See plates 12-14.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209969, "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-1983", "page_number": 228, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "206\n\nthe Dutch had arrived as a power in Asian waters. In their attacks on Cochin and Malacca the two relics there of the saint were lost.\n\nBut the missionary effort in Japan continued and the Macau fragment was taken there in 1619. However, persecution worsened and it was brought back to the territory shortly afterwards; it was popularly believed that its presence lessened the frequency of the terrible typhoons to which the coast of China was, and is, subject.\n\nThe relic was housed in Macau's famous St Paul's church, destroyed in a fire in the early 19th century and of which now only an impressive facade remains. Then it passed to the church of St. Joseph's seminary.\n\nIn 1952, on the 400th anniversary of Xavier's death it was taken to Malacca and there were celebrations there and throughout Malaysia. The last time the piece of bone left Macau was in 1965, when, at the request of Cardinal Francis Spellman, it was taken to Newark, New Jersey, where it was seen and venerated by more than 100,000 people.\n\nThe relic thereafter went back to its normal resting place in the seminary in Macau. However, soon afterwards Father Acquistapace was given charge of the dilapidated little chapel on Coloane, one of two small islands which with a peninsula form Macau. The relic is now kept at that church.\n\nDuring his decades of service in Asia as a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco, Father Acquistapace served in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Manila, Formosa and Macau. He spent much of his life teaching in technical schools. A man of immense good humour, he is delighted to find visitors interested in his relics.\n\nAlong with the fragment of bone of Xavier there are relics of 58 Japanese martyrs and 14 Vietnamese martyrs.\n\nThe Japanese perished in the brutal suppression of Christianity which took place in the first half of the 17th century. According to one historian: \"The descriptions of the ways in which the Christians of Japan were forced to meet their deaths rank among the most horrifying and degraded reading matter to be found anywhere.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210022, "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-1983", "page_number": 280, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "Plate 12: The Chapel of St. Francis Xavier, Coloane Island, Macau.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210024, "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-1983", "page_number": 282, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "Plate 14: The relic of St. Francis Xavier preserved in the Chapel of St. Francis Xavier, Coloane Island, Macau.\n\n(The relic is a fragment of bone from the saint's right arm).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210430, "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-1985", "page_number": 37, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "18\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nCemetery in 1889 is June 1841 and the latest date is January 1845.\n\nAfter the new cemetery was opened, the old was allowed to fall into neglect. An article in the China Mail of 23 November 1865 calls public attention to the desecration of the abandoned cemetery. \"Part of it”, the writer says, “has been cut away for building lots, where now stand some tenantless houses, and day after day headstones are stolen by the Chinese to be refaced and sold to some newly-made mourners”.\n\nThe remaining stones were removed in 1889 and the ground was sold for development. Upon a part of it Hong Kong's first electric power plant was built.\n\nThe new cemetery at Happy Valley\n\nA large tract of land on the hill on the west side of Happy Valley was designated in 1845 as cemeteries for Protestants and Roman Catholics. St. Michael Cemetery, administered by the Roman Catholic Church, lies to the north of the Colonial Cemetery.\n\nIn the same year that the cemetery was opened a mortuary chapel was built. The cemetery was placed under the charge of the Colonial Chaplain, who kept a register of burials. Maintenance costs were borne by the Government as a part of the Ecclesiastical Establishment. The first burial record book begins in 1853 with grave number 807. By the end of the century the cemetery was placed under the jurisdiction of the newly created Sanitary Board.\n\nThere were complaints about the state of the cemetery in 1865. An article in the China Mail (23 November 1865) stated that it was nearly full. At the time there had been some 3,100 burials. The writer expressed the hope that \"Happy Valley will ever be sacred to the dead, and that we never again behold in Hong Kong a graveyard desecrated and as filled as was that to the south of Queen's Road East by St. Francis Hospital\". He made some suggestions \"so that the Happy Valley Cemetery be", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215514, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 291, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "241\n\nA REVIEW OF DEVELOPMENT OF CEMETERIES IN HONG KONG: 1841-1950\n\nKO TIM-KEUNG\n\nHong Kong had been claimed for the British Crown even before the First Opium War (1839-42) was formally brought to an end. A naval party under Sir Gordon Bremer landed on the island on 26th January 1841. A form of government was organized and a chief magistrate and a harbour-master appointed, and in June the first land sale took place to create the impression of permanency. The port was declared a free port, and merchants, both foreign and Chinese, were encouraged to settle and trade there. However, little significant building followed, the main deterrent being the island's insalubrity and a high death rate from 'Hong Kong Fever.' Hong Kong, quite unexpectedly, became the last resting place of many of these early settlers and troops.\n\nThe Burial Ground in Wan Chai\n\nThe first years in Hong Kong had a distressing aspect for the British, particularly its army, because of disease. The setting up of the first barrack areas along the north coast of the island led to severe epidemics of fever among the troops. 183 of them had died in 1841. Consequently, a burial ground for the dead was urgently needed. A notice was proclaimed in August 1841:\n\nA piece of land to the eastward of Cantonment Hill having been allocated by Government as the ground for the burial of the dead of Europeans and others, Notice is hereby given that persons burying their dead in any other unauthorised place will be treated as trespassers.\n\nJno. F. Mylius, Land Officer, Hong Kong 30th August 1841.\n\nA 19th-century publication also records: \"Deaths now [1841] became frequent occurrences also among the European community; hospitals had to be hastily constructed, and the first cemetery (near the present St. Francis' Chapel, above Queen's Road East) began to fill...\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215516, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 293, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "243\n\nUpon a part of it Hong Kong's first electric power plant was built. In fact, what had happened to this burial ground was the cause of some anger long before it was finally cleared:\n\nBut we sincerely hope that the Happy Valley may ever be sacred to the dead, and that we may never again behold in Hongkong a grave-yard desecrated and defiled as was that to the South of the Queen's Road East, by St Francis Hospital. Part of it has been cut away to form the building lots, where now stand some tenantless houses; and day after day the head stones are stolen by the Chinese, to be re-faced and sold to some newly-made mourner.\n\nThe Colonial Cemetery20\n\n19\n\nAlthough Wan Chai had been described in various accounts and records as the site of the first burial ground in Hong Kong, a British naval surgeon who arrived in Hong Kong in April 1841 had recorded two burials in Happy Valley in his personal journal two months after his initial arrival:\n\n[18th June 1841] Poor old Brodie was buried in the afternoon in the new cemetery in 'Happy Valley,' Hong Kong. He was much respected by both Navy and Army and large numbers followed him to his grave.\n\n[19th June 1841] Another friend of mine, Wilson, Adjutant of 18th Regiment, has just died of remittent fever soon arriving from Canton, on board Futty Salaam transport. Many men of the 18th Regiment have also died; many of the wounded from tetanus. Many a gallant fellow who escaped in the field has succumbed to disease.\n\n[20th June 1841] Poor Wilson was buried in 'Happy Valley' near Commander Brodie.21\n\nHowever, as the tombstone of Brodie was among those removed from the 'old Colonial Cemetery' to the new Colonial Cemetery in 1889,22 Brodie's initial burial site is not entirely clear as yet.\n\n?\n\nEitel also mentioned the 'new' cemetery in Happy Valley. He wrote: 'A mortuary chapel was erected, in 1845, in the new cemetery", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]