[
    {
        "id": 205622,
        "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": 164,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n159\n\nNothing is known of the buildings themselves in 1842 but in the following year there was further activity on the site, partly to provide a roof for the Chinese Imperial Commissioner, Keying during his visit in the summer of that year. In April 1843, Woosnam (Pottinger's secretary) requested Gordon to draw up plans for a new Government House which would serve as temporary accommodation until Hong Kong's future was settled (ratifications of the Treaty of Nanking had not at that time been exchanged and it was thought locally that Hong Kong would be given up if they were not; in fact, the Colonial Office was disposed to treat the Colony as belonging to the Crown by right of conquest). The accommodation was to consist of two bungalows, one of three rooms and the other of four bedrooms. Gordon's return of his departmental expenditure reveals that he cut a site \"for the residence of the head of the Government,\" built a carriage road to \"Government House,\" and built a bungalow without offices.\n\n8\n\nThese buildings must be those which appear on both the maps referred to, along with earlier structures. But, though this conclusion seems beyond doubt, Sayer attempts to identify these buildings with another structure altogether: the Albany. He quotes a description of Government Hill given in the Chinese Repository which says that Government House was \"further westward and higher up the hill\" than Johnston's House. Sayer \"unhesitatingly\" identifies the reference with the Albany, a building which used to stand within the area of the Botanical Gardens at the foot of Old Peak Road. It was erected in 1843-1844 as a residence for Government servants at a reasonable rental at a time when rents on the open market were extremely high. There is no record of the Albany ever having been used for anything other than residential purposes. In view of the undoubted presence of other buildings in a place consistent with the description, it is difficult to see why Sayer confused them with the Albany.\n\nBut what of the established fact of Governor Davis's residence in Johnston's house? There is positive evidence that Johnston's house was so used: there is on record a letter from Pottinger to Johnston concerning its hire during the latter's absence on leave,10 and Martin, sometime Colonial Treasurer in Hong Kong and the Colony's most virulent critic, made a specific point of the expenditure on renting the house for the Governor. Some years later, the Friend of China commented acidly that \"the Governor, if he has",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205623,
        "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": 165,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "160\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nnot built a palace, pays the rent of one for his own accommodation out of the public purse.\" The Government accounts for the period reveal that the rent was paid to Johnston for its hire by Government. But it is quite clear from Davis's letter to Stanley that, in August 1844, he could only have been living in Johnston's House if it were then known as the 'Record Office.' That is not beyond possibility for, if the early buildings on the site in the present Botanical Gardens were known as the 'Record Office' when Johnston lived there, his later residence may have attracted the same name to distinguish it from 'Government House.' But that conclusion cannot disturb the main argument.\n\nAs a postscript, it is worth commenting on the suggestion that Sir Samuel Bonham, third Governor, lived at Spring Gardens (Spring Garden Lane in the present Wanchai). Sayer quotes a reference from Robert Fortune's Tea Districts of China (1852) and comments that it is the first and only evidence that a Governor of Hong Kong lived at Spring Gardens. Sayer should have read his Friend of China where he would have discovered advertised, after Bonham's departure from Hong Kong, the sale of a house, doubtless one of those depicted on Murdoch Bruce's sketch of Spring Gardens, which was stated to have been lately in the occupation of Bonham. Fortune was right; or, as Sayer would have put it, he was a veracious witness,12\n\nHong Kong, 1968,\n\nDAFYDD EMRYS Evans\n\nNOTES\n\n1G. R. Sayer, Hong Kong: Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age, 1937, Oxford University Press.\n\n2ibid, p. 211.\n\n3Johnston to Pottinger, 12 November 1841; CO129/10, f. 51 (Colonial Office Records).\n\n4c.g. Pottinger to General Burrell, 7 March 1842; CO129/10, f. 114.\n\n5Pottinger to Johnston, 26 May 1842; CO129/10, f. 204.\n\n6Davis to Lord Stanley, 16 August 1844; CO129/7, f. 20.\n\n7Friend of China, Overland Summary, 23 December 1843.\n\n8Woosnam to Gordon, 18 April 1843; CO129/10, f. 360.\n\n9Gordon to Pottinger, 10 February 1844; CO129/5, f. 141.\n\n10Pottinger to Johnston, 21 October 1843; CO129/10, f. 522.\n\n11Friend of China, 18 April 1846.\n\n12See also Friend of China, 26 December 1849. The house was erected by Messrs. Blenkin, Rawson & Co. on Marine Lot 42 and rented to Government for £500 p.a.\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206002,
        "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": 82,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "# THE BEGINNINGS OF TAIPINGSHAN\n\n77\n\nOffice's records had fallen owing to non-registration of transactions (it being by then more or less necessary for a purchaser to take a chance on the title to land offered to him by a vendor), a strenuous effort was made to regularise the situation and much \"squatting\" without title and consequently, in most cases, non-payment of Crown Rent, came to light.\n\nThe end for old Taipingshan came not in the 1880's but in the 1890's when Bubonic Plague was brought to the Colony from West China. The most virulent reservoir of the bacillus turned out to be Taipingshan. The only solution, not only to the problem of stamping out the plague but also to other forms of social offence given by the district, was to remove the Chinese town physically. This was done by powers given in the Taipingshan Resumption Ordinance of 1894, and the result was wholesale demolition of much property and re-aligning of old and construction of new roads. Taipingshan had to be razed and, fortunately for Hong Kong, never rose again in its former glory.\n\nUniversity of London, 1968.\n\nDAFYDD EMRYS Evans\n\nMr. Evans is Professor of Law in the University of Hong Kong. Two of his earlier contributions to the early history of Hong Kong appeared in the Notes and Queries section of the 1968 Journal.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 The area was known as Taipingshan from the early days of the colony and its name is not derived from its function as a refuge for T'ai Ping rebels in later years.\n\n2 See Gordon (Land Officer) to Pottinger, CO129/Vol II, f. 152,\n\n3 See Gordon to Malcolm (Colonial Secretary), CO129/Vol. II, f. 138 dated 6 July 1843.\n\n4 The rents for both the Upper and Lower Bazaar Lots represented the same rate per square foot as that charged by Johnston for Town Lots.\n\n5 But the Chinese were turning to the use of brick rather than wood by the end of 1841; see Canton Press, 19 February 1842.\n\n6 Gordon to Pottinger, 19 December 1843; CO129, Vol. II, p. 445.\n\n7 Davis to Stanley 26 July 1844; CO129, Vol. VI, p. 435.\n\n8 Woosnam (Pottinger's private secretary) to Gordon, 10 January 1844: CO129, Vol. V. p. 69.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206003,
        "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": 83,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "78\n\nDAFYDD EMRYS EVANS\n\n\"See their petition, reprinted in Friend of China, 4 May 1844, and also below, P. \n\n10 The contents of the petition, Pottinger's reply and the lot-holders' rejoinder were all published in the Friend of China, 4 May 1844. \n\n\"I Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842, (Hong Kong, Institute of Chinese Culture, English translation, 1963) p. 117, maintains that there had long been a settlement in the area of the present Taipingshan, The name is said to have originated from the pacification of the pirate Cheung Po-chai in 1810 who is known to have had a stronghold there. The mountain now known as Victoria Peak was renamed Taipingshan (the Mountain of Peace) and is so known in Chinese today. The Man Mo temple, standing today in Hollywood Road, is said by Lo to have been built by Cheung in the first decade of the 19th Century. There is considerable documentary evidence as to the existence of such a settlement in the early 1840s. \n\n12 Caine, Gutzlaff and Gordon to Pottinger, C.O.129, Vol. VI, p. 440. 13 Woosnam to Caine, Gutzlaff and Gordon, 17 April 1844; C.O.129, Vol. VI, p. 442. \n\n14 Caine, Gutzlaff and Gordon to Bruce, 21 May 1844; C.O.129, Vol. VI, p. 444. \n\n15 Aldrich to Bruce, 20 July 1844; C.O.129, Vol. VI, p. 445. \n\n16 Notification dated 25 July 1844. It appeared in the Hong Kong Register on 30 July 1844 and the gist of it was contained in the Friend of China on 3 August 1844. Only in the former, official, version, does the information about the date of possession for the purchasers appear. \n\n17 10 August 1844. \n\n18 Friend of China, 2 October 1844. The site is still occupied by a branch of the present Western Market, \n\n19 Davis to Stanley, (no. 44 of 1844), 26 July 1844 and Stanley to Davis, 3 January 1845; C.O.129, Vol. VI, p. 438. Under-Secretary Stephen commented on the despatch that, though the expenditure would have to be referred to the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners, \"it must, however, ultimately be sanctioned \" \n\n20 Davis to Stanley, 29 October 1844; C.O.129, Vol. VI, p. 157. The additional expenditure was sanctioned without further comment: Stanley to Davis 1 April 1845; C.O.129, Vol. VI, p. 161, \n\n21 Inland Lots Nos. 223A, 223B, 223C, 223E, 224, 224A, 224B, 224C, 224E, 225, 226, 226A, 229D, 231A, 233, 233A, 234, 234D, 238B, 239A, 239B, 240A, 241, 242A, 243, 243A, 244, 244B, 245A, 245B, 245C, 245D, 245E, 245F, 245G, 245H, 245I, 246A, 247B, 247C, 248A, 253, 253A, 272. \n\n22 Inland Lots Nos. 213, 224D, 228, 228B, 229, 231, 232, 232A, 232C, 233E, 234B, 234C, 234E, 238, 244A, 252B, 255B, 256B. \n\n23 Inland Lots Nos. 223, 246, 246B, 246C, 247, 247A, 247D, 248B, 248C, 248D, 249C, 252C, 253B, 254, 255D, 255E, 256. \n\n24 Inland Lots Nos. 214, 234A, 223D, 227, 235A, 241A, 246C, 246B, 253B. \n\n25 Inland Lots Nos. 238C, 239C, 240, 241B, 241C, 242B, 245, 250, 255A, 256A,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
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]