[ { "id": 209965, "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": 224, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "202\n\nAN IMPERIAL CHINESE BANNER PRESERVED IN KENDAL, ENGLAND\n\nP. BRUCE\n\nA unique memento of the First China War is slowly disintegrating in an English parish church due to lack of money to restore it.*\n\nThe war led to the establishment of Hong Kong and one of the British regiments which took part was the 55th (Westmoreland). At the second taking of Chusan, on October 1, 1841, the regiment seized an Imperial Chinese banner. Today it hangs, alongside the disbanded regiment's colours, in a glass case to the left side of the altar of Kendal Parish Church. This banner was the only Imperial Chinese banner seized by British troops during the First China War.\n\nThe vicar of Kendal, and the Border Regiment, which includes the old 55th in its genealogy, are well aware of the urgent need for the banner to receive conservation treatment. The problem is, as ever, money. Estimates of the cost of restoring the banner range somewhere around £2,000 and neither the church nor the regiment can offer any immediate hope of it being raised.\n\nThe episode in which the flag was taken is described in a verse history of the campaign prepared some years afterwards for the 55th. After 20 years service a soldier named Duell had gained a commission. He was given the honour of bearing the regimental colours that autumn day:\n\n\"Ensign Duell holds up our Colour, then falls, shot through the breast.\n\nThat morn had seen the ambition of a life fulfilled.\n\nAn honour borne but for a day, the day that he was killed. For twenty years or more he had well and faithful served, Winning his way, step by step, to a Commission well deserved. And when his name appeared in the previous night's Gazette, All wished him, health, long life, success, to wear his epaulette;\n\n* See plate 11.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213319, "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-1994", "page_number": 141, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "122\n\nthe 49th Regiment (Hertfordshire Regiment consisting of 25 officers and 426 men) and a Sapper unit. The Force commander, Sir Hugh Gough accompanied the Left Column.\n\nThe Centre Column under Lieutenant Colonel Montgomerie consisted of detachments of Royal Artillery and Madras Artillery, a Sapper unit and a rifle company of the 35th Madras Native Infantry.\n\nThe Right Column, under Colonel Schoedde, consisted of the 26th Regiment (The Cameronians) under Lieutenant Colonel Pratt, the 55th Regiment (Westmorland Regiment) and a unit of Sappers.\n\n6\n\nThe British plan required the 2,200 troops to be landed on the right flank, on the west face of the line of low-lying hills some two miles to the east of Chapu Bay. From there the three battalions would separate, one, the Centre Column, to hold the base, one, the Right Column, to pass round the base of Huang-p'an Shan to cut off the Chinese retreat and the third, the Point or Left Column, to storm the heights of Kuan Yin Shan. On 16 May the Nemesis and the Phlegethon reconnoitred the northern coast of the Bay of Hangchou and on the 18th they landed in a bay some two miles east of the city without opposition, with the Left Column advancing along the heights parallel to the coast, whilst the rest moved inland to the rear of the heights on which the enemy was posted. Elements of the British Naval Brigade, consisting of some 700 men, landed within a quarter of a mile of the harbour and advanced straight for the harbour battery and then on to the town itself. Only about one in ten of the Chinese force had firearms, the rest being armed with bows and spears. The British plan so took the Chinese by surprise that they fell back in disorder, throwing away their arms and fleeing in every direction. The Chinese having made their nominal stand in the hills had left their rear wide open allowing Chapu to be taken without any major problems. After a battle lasting more than four hours, Chapu was taken by the Right Column and the Naval Brigade with the British casualties of nine killed and fifty-five wounded. Of these, in addition to Colonel Tomlinson, the loss to the Royal Irish were one serjeant and three other ranks killed, and Lieutenants E. Jodrell and A. Murray, one serjeant, one drummer and twenty-seven other ranks wounded. Major Jeremiah Cowper was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel on the day following the battle, in succession to Colonel Tomlinson. The Chinese defenders fled to the west, towards Hangchou leaving the British with the town which was promptly looted by the native Chinese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213324, "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-1994", "page_number": 146, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "127\n\n1\n\n# NOTES\n\nThe Manchus established the Ch'ing dynasty in AD 1644, having overthrown the native Chinese Ming rulers. The Manchus were related to the central Asian group speaking a language akin to Mongol who settled in Manchuria many centuries earlier. They were usually referred to by Europeans as Tatars.\n\n2. Lach garrison town, including Chapu, contained a Tatar walled city separate from the Chinese city.\n\nIn 1840 HMS bug Algerine paid a flying visit to Chapu and was fired upon from some batteries near the town. During the attack on Chapu in 1842, these batteries were quickly put out of action by the Royal Navy.\n\n4. Under command of Vice-Admiral Sir William Parker.\n\n*The Westmorland Regiment was granted the China Dragon superscribed “China” for service during the China War of 1840-42.\n\n*The Nemesis was the first iron steamer to round the Cape of Good Hope. She was never commissioned as one of HM's vessels of war, yet was generally commanded by Royal Navy officers. She was of the greatest use throughout the First China War and after the Treaty of Nanking returned to Bombay.\n\nA joss-house is the Victorian name for a Chinese temple or shrine, the house where the joss (god, from the Portuguese \"Deos\") was situated. From contemporary sketches and descriptions, the joss house in question would appear to have been a medium-sized Buddhist establishment, and although there were no references to priests, monks, or nuns, it had residential accommodation in addition to the usual altar halls.\n\nLung Fu was a company commander, Iso-ling (grade 4a), of one of the Eight Manchu Banners.\n\n*Parker, L. II. Chinese Account of the Opium War.\n\nA Tao-tai was an imperial Circuit Intendant, a member of the hierarchy controlling several prefectures.\n\nI-li-pu (1770-1847) was a member of the Manchu Bordered Yellow Banner and an Imperial Clansman. He was banished for disobedience in 1841 but recalled and appointed acting assistant military lieutenant-governor at Chapu in early 1842, his predecessor having died of wounds during the British attack. Chapu was still occupied by the British, and I-li-pu had to remain in Hangchou, where he received orders to move to Soochou as it was understood that he was respected by the British, and the Court wished him to be on hand to carry out negotiations.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214152, "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-1998", "page_number": 10, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "Keith Stevens - Another Dilemma for Today's Youth in China ... \n\n369\n\nKeith Stevens - An Irish Fantasy.. \n\n372\n\nPenny Robbins, Meredith Tong-Draper and Geoffrey Roper - Backstreets of Beijing: Notes on the RAS HK Easter, 1998 Visit to Beijing \n\n375\n\nKeith Stevens and Jennifer Welch - Monument to the Westmoreland Regiment The 55th Regiment of Foot in Dinghai City on Zhoushan Island...................... \n\n383\n\nDan Waters - Tracing Graves in Hong Kong: Research Methodology \n\n395\n\nKeith Stevens - An Unusual and Extraordinary Ancestral Image \n\n399\n\nPhotographs of the Function to Mark the Award of the Bronze Bauhinia Star to Dan Waters contributed by Phillip Bruce............. \n\n403\n\nPaul Bolding - Visit to the Aurel Stein Collection of the British Museum by the Friends of the RAS \n\nBOOK REVIEWS \n\n404\n\nGerald Choa - The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai, a Prominent Figure in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong....... \n\n407\n\nGillian Bickley - The Golden Needle: The Biography of Frederick Stewart \n\n411\n\nix", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214556, "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-1998", "page_number": 414, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "383\n\nMONUMENT\n\nTO THE WESTMORELAND REGIMENT THE 55TH REGIMENT OF FOOT\n\nIN\n\nDINGHAI CITY ON ZHOUSHAN ISLAND\n\nKEITH STEVENS AND JENNIFER WELCH\n\nIn October 1998 the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society organised a visit for members to Ningbo [Ningpo] and Zhoushan Island [Chusan Island] off the East coast of China in the archipelago of the same name. The object of the visit to Dinghai, the county capital of the archipelago, was to try and follow the course of the British military campaign there during the First and Second China Wars, the First being the so-called Opium War of 1840-1842 and the Second, the Arrow War of 1856-1860, and see if any monuments to the British victory and subsequent occupation remained. In particular we were looking for the military cemetery and tombstones.\n\nThe Chinese guide who met us in Ningbo and who was to accompany us to Dinghai was most doubtful about our mission. We did not think she was even aware that the British Army had been on Zhoushan 150 years ago. However by the time our ferry docked at Dinghai, maps relating to the campaign, which had been brought along with us, had been studied in detail, together with an account by the Reverend Wright.\n\nIn Dinghai our first call was at the local museum where we collected the Curator. We were most fortunate in that he was interested in the China Wars, and not only knew the accounts - albeit from the Chinese point of view - but was able to lead us to the sites of action, and to the one remaining monument to the British.\n\nDuring the two China Wars Zhoushan had its moments of glory in history after which both conflicts gradually faded from both British national and Chinese local memories. Between the 5th of July 1840 when the city of Dinghai fell before a British attack for the first time, and the 5th of June 1846 when the British restored Zhoushan to the Chinese, the island was ruled twice by the British with its claim to fame as the first Chinese territory ever to be occupied and controlled", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214558, "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-1998", "page_number": 416, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "385\n\nRev. Wright provided the text for Allom's China and wrote a short piece entitled The Fortress of Terror, Dinghai. He claimed that 'during the British descent upon the coast of China, nowhere was the destruction of life and property greater than at Dinghai. Every hill on the coast in the vicinity of Dinghai was crowned with a battery of apparent strength; some of them too elevated to be effective. At the entrance of a defile, watered by a rivulet flowing from the valley of Chae-hu [sic], and on an eminence about two hundred feet above the level of the bay, stood one of those deceptive structures, misnamed \"The Fortress of Terror,\" in which the Chinese so lucklessly reposed entire confidence, when the British fleet cast anchor in the roads beneath. No troops, however armed or disciplined, could have acted with more eminent personal gallantry, than the Tatar garrison of the fort of Terror, yet none ever encountered a more signal overthrow.\n\nWright described Zhoushan as an agreeable scene, with every hill cultivated to its summit, every valley, from the mountain's foot to the river's margin with industry and fertility, producing a large surplus for the enrichment of the labourers. These productions, including rice, cotton, seed potatoes, coarse tea and candles made from the seeds of the tallow tree, were conveyed along canals in barges. The roads of Zhoushan were not constructed for the convenience of visitors, the gratification of travellers, or the mere objects of pleasure.\n\nIn describing the city of Dinghai, Wright noted that it did not stand upon the marshy ground but on the sloping side of the Yongdong Valley. It was surrounded by a brick wall twenty-six feet in height, sixteen in thickness, and six miles in circuit, with four entrance gates corresponding exactly with the four cardinal points. The city was intersected by open sewer canals, the streets were narrow and paved, and intersected by canals along the middle.\n\nBetween 1841 and 1844 the Westmoreland Regiment served with the British force during the campaign to capture and hold the Island of Zhoushan. The assault on and occupation of Zhoushan during the First China War was one of many along the coast of Southern and Eastern China. It culminated in the Treaty of Nanjing [Nanking] in August 1842 under terms by which occupation forces held on to several places until the treaty was fully implemented, Zhoushan being one. There was a school of British opinion at the time which strongly believed that we", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214559, "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-1998", "page_number": 417, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "386\n\nshould have taken Zhoushan Island rather than, to quote Palmerston's scathing words, 'the barren rock' of Hong Kong which would have undoubtedly altered the course of history and British relations with China in the 20th century.\n\nThe Westmoreland Regiment,\" part of a larger British expeditionary force, therefore returned to Zhoushan Island after the Treaty had been signed and remained on until 1844. A monument was raised in Dinghai dedicated to the few from the ranks who had been killed in action and the many who during the occupation had died of diseases so prevalent there. An annex to a report written probably in the 1880s provides us with the wording on the monument as well as a second annex describes the wording on a separate monument dedicated to Captain Colin Campbell of the Westmoreland Regiment who died at Zhoushan on the 29th May 1842 of a wound received in action at Zhapu [Chapu].vii\n\nThe wording on the main monument read:\n\nSacred\n\nto The Memory of\n\n11 Sergeants, 13 Corporals, 4 Drummers,\n\nand 403 Privates\n\nof H.M. 55th Regt\n\nwho were killed in action\n\nor died from disease\n\nwhile serving in China\n\nfrom the 14th July 1841\n\nto the 22nd February 1844", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214564, "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-1998", "page_number": 422, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "30. Private Wombles D°. D°, \n\n391\n\nWhilst we have no idea what has happened to the Monument dedicated to the Westmoreland Regiment in Zhoushan we were taken by the curator to the site of a Chinese horseshoe-shaped grave bearing the inscription in Chinese carved into a lengthy granite slab in pre-simplified characters [that is pre-1950s], stating that it to be \n\nThe Tomb of Officers and Men of the Army and Navy of Great Britain\n\n大英水陸將士墓\n\nIt had been refurbished as recently as 1993 by the Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army, [PLA Navy], apparently unsolicited and without any ceremony.xi\n\nThe monument was situated on the north facing slope of a low hill overlooking the town of Dinghai. There was little to see. A modern concrete edifice some three feet high holds an original granite block. Above it on the slope, some ten feet away, is another monument which bears neither inscription nor clues to its original purpose. It is rectangular standing some six feet high, two foot six inches wide and about ten inches deep. It has three indented faces, central, left and right on which, presumably, the erstwhile inscribed tablets had been inserted. These two monuments are situated overlooking Dinghai Town but facing away from the sea and at the rear of a radio station with one tall mast and several radio dishes, possibly a PLA [Navy] unit on the Island.\n\n...\n\nIt would be interesting to obtain the current Chinese official version of the provenance of the two monuments.\n\nAs an interesting side note - at the foot of the hill on which the two monuments stand, a Chinese lady, a member of our party from Hong Kong, recognised her family ‘ancestral' home from the descriptions she had heard of its European design with Chinese touches. It is now the residence of the Admiral of the Chinese PLA [Navy] responsible", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214566, "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-1998", "page_number": 424, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "393\n\nvi We are indebted to the Museum of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment in the Castle at Carlisle for permission to quote from the regimental diaries of the Westmoreland Regiment in Chusan.\n\nvii See the article \"The Taking of Chapu\" by Keith Stevens in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the RAS: Vol.34 : 1994 : pp 119+.\n\nviii The report would appear to have been written in the 1880s during the incumbency as the Colonel of the Regiment of Lieutenant General Daubeny. This was about the same time as an amalgamation of regiments when the Westmoreland Regiment became the 2nd Battalion of the Border Regiment.\n\nix Regimental number omitted\n\n* Ensign Richard James Duell fell dead, shot in the chest at close quarters during the assault on the heights held by the Chinese. He had only heard that morning, October 1, 1841, of his promotion from the rank of Sergeant-Major and at once requested the honour to carry the regimental colour in the impending attack. During the advance Lieutenant and Acting-Adjutant Butler, after a sharp struggle with a Chinese soldier, captured the only imperial standard taken during the war. It was deposited in Kendal Church where it can still be seen beside the regimental memorial. [see also Bruce, P: An Imperial Chinese Banner Preserved in Kendal, England: Journal HK Br RAS: vol. 23: 1983 pp 202-203]\n\nxi Beside the Chinese characters, extreme left of the inscription, is a small cartouche containing smaller illegible characters which was almost certainly a date in old style.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "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 } ]