[
    {
        "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": 204290,
        "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": 58,
        "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\n54 \n\nas a free gift to form a reference library. The books had suffered a good deal in being constantly moved about, the number was now 3800, all of them dilapidated and 3000 were considered worth rebinding. This would cost about $3,000 but the Society had no money for this work. A despatch dated 29 December, 1863 from the acting Governor, W. T. Mercer to the Colonial Secretary quoted the Morrison Education Society's circular and asked for action.1 \n\nA City Hall containing a Library and a Museum was eventually built on the site now occupied by the Bank of China and the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation in Queen's Road Central and adjoining Statue Square. It was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh on the 2 November, 1869 and during his tour of the building His Grace visited both the Library and the Museum. \n\nA printed catalogue of the Morrison Library was issued in 1873 by the City Hall Committee. It contains 1666 entries arranged in alphabetical order of authors or titles, editor, translator, etc., where the author is not known, only eight of which I have been able to identify as belonging formerly to the Royal Asiatic Society. The books are classified, single letters indicating the following groups :- \n\nA History. Peerages, &c. B Biographies and memoirs. C Geography including works on various countries. Travels, Voyages and Adventures, \n\nD Natural History: Ornithology. E Botany. \n\nF Atlas Gazetteers, Meteorology, Guidebooks, Geology, Metallurgy and Mineralogy. Topography. \n\nG Mechanics. \n\nH Encyclopaedias, \n\nI Commercial Statistics. International Law, Jurisprudence, \n\nJ Complete Works. K Astronomy. \n\nL Chemistry. Optics. \n\nM Mathematics. \n\nN Painting, Music. Science and Art, \n\nO Medicine and Surgery. \n\nP Biblical works. \n\nQ Oriental Societies. Journals. R Classics. Dictionaries. \n\nS Novels. \n\nT Drama and poetry. \n\nU Periodical works. Directories. V Divinity. Law, Treaties and Conventions. W Miscellaneous works. \n\nA stocktaking was made in 1956 and of the 1666 titles there are now 1233 remaining (2748 volumes out of 3583). Some volumes were removed during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and were not subsequently recovered. The condition of the books is poor. Nearly all are worm-eaten to a greater or \n\n1 C.O.129/94, Public Records Office, London. (I am indebted to Mr. G. B. Endacott of the University of Hong Kong for supplying this reference).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704",
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    },
    {
        "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": 206880,
        "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": 157,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nWILLIAM THOMAS MERCER (1822-1879):\n\nHONG KONG'S POET LAUREATE?\n\n151\n\nHong Kong, a city dedicated principally to the acquisition of wealth, has produced few, if any, English writers of quality. But it did provide a home for over twenty years for a poetaster deserving of a niche in D.B. Wyndham Lewis's anthology of bad verse, The Stuffed Owl? This colonial versifier was William Thomas Mercer, who arrived in Hong Kong in 1844 as Private Secretary to his uncle, Sir John Davis, Governor of Hong Kong, became Colonial Secretary in 1854 and remained thereafter the chief executive officer of the Colony until retirement on pension in 1867, being then only forty-five years of age.3\n\n4\n\nIn 1869 Mercer appeared on the London literary scene as the author of Under the Peak; or, Jottings in Verse, written during a lengthened residence in the Colony of Hong Kong. This book, an octavo volume of 305 pages, was published in London by John Camden Hotten of 15lb Piccadilly. That Hotten published Mercer's innocuous poems is surprising. That Mercer should have entrusted his precious verses to such a man is even more startling. Hotten, a speculative and disreputable publisher, in 1866 took over the publication of Swinburne's Poems and Ballads after the original publisher, Moxon, had withdrawn, frightened by the clamour that arose over Swinburne's 'fleshly' poems. Hotten, who died in 1873 of 'a surfeit of pork chops', was in his day a notorious publisher of erotica and facetiae. His list included not only Swinburne and, in 1869, the 'unfleshly' Mercer, but such works as Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs and A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus. Mercer, who was described by Sir Richard Macdonnell as 'a gentlemanly, scholarly person', was in Hotten's list keeping decidedly curious company.\n\n5\n\nIt seems likely, however, that Mercer paid for the cost of publication of Under the Peak, for Hotten was a shrewd businessman and not likely to invest his own money in such a humdrum and tame book. Mercer had, in fact, done this before. In 1867, soon after his return from Hong Kong, he had put out at his own expense Addresses presented to W.T.M., recently Acting Governor of Hong Kong; with services, testimonials, etc., a eulogistic volume prompted by pique at failure to obtain a colonial governorship.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r",
        "rank": 0
    }
]