RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 THE BEGINNINGS OF TAIPINGSHAN 71 which the European had no place and was not really expected to penetrate. Two Europeans (Richard Oswald and F. J. Porter) did apparently have lots there though how they came by them is not recorded, and the American Baptist Mission Board had a school house and small chapel. A third area was Tai Ping Shan where many Chinese lived in matsheds, but it is not known how many lived there in these early days. But one inconvenient feature soon revealed itself as the demand for building land increased in the Colony on the establishment of regular government in the middle of 1843. The town was restricted in its possibilities of development to the east by the reservation of 'Government Hill' (the area on which the Government Offices now stand) for Government purposes only. Beyond Government Hill to the east lay the military cantonment and, since the main part of the town was now inevitably fixed where the present central district stands, the only possible direction which expansion could take, other, that is, than up the mountainside, was to the west. But, between Inland Lots 43 and 10 on the Queen's Road lay the Upper Bazaar, an uncomfortable fact which not only meant that there would be a large number of Chinese-type houses in the middle of the 'European' town (with their attendant rather greater risk of fire) but that their presence would interfere with the proper development of the area with drainage and streets and so on. In terms of extent, the Upper Bazaar was occupying almost 11 acres of valuable building land for which speculators would be willing to offer far higher Crown Rents than those which the then inhabitants were paying. So almost inevitably, the suggestion came to move the Upper Bazaar lot-holders away to another location. The story of the removal of the Upper Bazaar is of interest on several counts: it is the first 'resumption' of land for public purposes in the history of Hong Kong, a process since employed on an ever increasing scale by the Government for the improvement and redevelopment of the environment. It provides us with an insight into government practices of the day and the cumbersome manner in which decisions could be taken and implemented, and also of the role of the Press at that time. Finally, it led to the establishment, as a matter of deliberate Government policy, of a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 28 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS PART I: JANUARY — NOVEMBER 1941 1: JANUARY Reports coming in from our South China missions indicate almost a "rush" on the part of the people to enroll in Doctrine courses leading to Baptism—we learn that Father Regan in Kweilin has baptized over a hundred in the past six months. Father Sandy Cairns, sojourning at Stanley during January, introduced deck tennis and badminton, to keep us in shape during the winter months—and overcame his hereditary inhibitions to the extent of paying for the equipment. Father Sandy is awaiting favourable winds, and a slackening of pirate activity, to take him back to his mission in Sancian Island after his relief work in Canton. Dr. Baker of the American Red Cross, spent an evening with us. He told of the arrival of several hundred tons of cracked wheat for the East River area. Since all the people of that area speak Hakka, he is hoping Bishop Ford will lend him two priests to act as inspectors to see that the wheat is properly distributed. FEBRUARY Father O'Melia has been invited to sit on the Government Board of Examiners, to pass on the Chinese qualifications of all Government servants who require a knowledge of Cantonese in their work. This is fine recognition of Father O'Melia's stature as a Chinese scholar. On the 13th, Dr. Wong-Man, Commissioner of Public Health for Kwangtung Province and Dean of Lingnam University Medical School in Canton, had dinner with us, gave us a talk on the Provincial Health Program, learned of the Maryknoll Fathers dispensary work in the Province, and promised to work out a plan of cooperation between the Government and Maryknoll. Bishop Paschang received a pass from the occupation forces to visit Hong Kong but his purpose for coming here was only to leapfrog to the unoccupied areas of his Diocese to visit the priests and Sisters. While he was here, Father Joe Sweeney arrived, describing the exciting trip he had just made: the motor launch carrying himself and other passengers was attacked by a Japanese patrol boat as evening was coming on, but escaped capture when darkness ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 162 NOTES AND QUERIES American Baptist Foreign Mission Society and the Board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church in trust, to invest, reinvest, and keep invested for the upkeep of the rest home at "The Barrens." [the Geil property at Doylestown] The trustees are directed to sell any other real estate necessary for funds for the upkeep of the rest home and the inmates. MARYKNOLL IN CHINA Those readers who enjoyed reading the long extract from the unpublished history of the Maryknoll Mission which appeared in the last issue of the Journal may wish to know of three books which through the lives they record, provide more information on its work in China. The first, Bishop Walsh of Maryknoll, by Raymond Kerrison, published by Putnam's of New York in 1962, deals with one of the first six students to enroll in the Maryknoll Society in 1912, a newly founded order devoted to training foreign missionaries. From 1918 to 1936 he served in South China, returning to the United States to become superior-general of the Order for the next ten years. The second, entitled The Pagoda and the Cross, The Life of Bishop Ford of Maryknoll, is by a fellow Maryknoll priest, John F. Donovan, M.M., who served in China with Bishop Ford for ten years. Father Donovan, whose account of Bishop Ford was published by Scribner's, New York, in 1967, is also the author of the third book, a life of Father Bernard Meyer, M.M., under the title A Priest Named Horse (a reference to his Chinese surname of Ma) which was published for the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America in 1977. All three men were among the party of five priests who arrived in Yeung Kong, Kwangtung, at midnight one week before Christmas, 1918. They came to this area because, the year before, the French Roman Catholic bishop of Canton had agreed to cut off the southern portion of his vast South China vicariate and give it to the new, untried American missionary society. In 1921 this mission area was extended to take in a large section of north-east Kwangsi, with the city of Wuchow as a centre, and in 1925 to include half the former Swatow vicariate of the Paris Foreign Missionary Society. This was the body which had decided in 1917, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 136 JAMES HAYES p. 78. There was a custom-made school building on the edge of Wong Nei Chung village which is shown on maps from Collinson's survey onwards. 13 By "town", Collinson means village. 14 The Last Year in China by a Field Officer actually employed in that Country (London, Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 2nd edition 1843) p. 75. 15 Cited from the Canton Press for January 1842 by G.R. Sayer op. cit., p. 121. For information on present day So Kon Po, see the Notes by Revd Carl T. Smith and myself in JHKBRAS, Vol. 23 (1983) p. 7-77. 16 Wright and Allom, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 17 and again at p. 33, "Bamboo Aqueduct at Hong Kong". For a fuller account see J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911, Land and Leadership in Town and Countryside. (Hamden, Conn., Anchor Books, 1977) pp. 25-32. E A copy of this letter from Mr. Chow Yat-kwong, JP, dated 30 March 1967, is now in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong, 19 This statement can be found in the manuscript volume Summary Report of the Squatters Commission 1891-1906 in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong, under the date of hearing 6 July 1893. By "100 years" is meant "from before anyone now alive can remember," as normally in local village usage. 20 21 Ibid, hearing of 26 January 1891 of claims at Wong Nei Chung. Report of the Hong Kong Mission, Vol. 23, June 1843, November 6, p. 157, in American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions Archives, Valley Forge, Pa., by courtesy of Revd Carl T. Smith. 22 American Baptist Mission Archives, folder of Revd I.J. Roberts, No. 1 — China, also by courtesy of Revd Smith. 23 Captain A.A.T. Cunynghame, quoted in Sayer, op. cit., p. 104. 24 Stanley and Aberdeen in 1841 would seem to have been very similar in size and composition to the New Territories Market Towns in 1898 and earlier. Thus, Sai Kung had 50 shops and 150 houses in 1898 with a population of 512 (cf. C. Fred Blake Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town. (Hawaii, 1981 p. 27-28), Tai Po New Market had 38 shops within eight years of its foundation (J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region, op. cit. p. 36 and n. 78), and Yuen Long Old Market had about 160 buildings of which at least 100 were shops (see unpublished Report 24 (Yuen Long Kau Hui) produced by Antiquities and Monuments Section, Hong Kong Government). 100 shops specifically noted as being from the Yuen Long Old Market donated to the restoration of the Tai Wong Temple there in 1837. At the Yuen Long Old Market many of the families working in the Market lived in the adjacent villages of Nam Pin Wai and Sai Pin Wai. As well as the 100 shops donating in 1837, 7 residents in the Market, 52 in Nam Pin Wai, and 22 in Sai Pin Wai donated, suggesting a total community of about 200 families, about half of which had shops. Tai O must have had more than 100 shops: 119 shops donated to the restoration of the Tin Hau temple there in 1838, 98 to the restoration of the Hung Shing temple there in 1841, and between 105 and 126 to the restoration of the Man Mo temple there in 1852 (in each case counting "workshops" and "ferries" as shops). 科大衛,陳總集,吳倫電位,合術 香港碑靠藥衚 MOMSKOM * (D. Faure, B. Luk, A. Ng The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong) (Hong Kong Urban Council 1986), pp. 86-90, 90-93, 95-97, 103-107, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 159 of school age. In addition, two sons of a printer, who had come to Hongkong with the mission press, were available as students. These four formed the first class. They met in quarters rented by Legge for his family residence. There was little prospect of growth until more accommodation could be found. The London Missionary Society applied to the Hongkong Government for a free grant of land on which to build a school. Already grants for schools, chapels and hospitals had been made to the Morrison Education Society, the China Medical Missionary Society, the American Baptist Mission, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission, the Roman Catholic Society for the Propagation of Faith and the Church of England. Since these grants had been made, however, no further land was to be allocated until definite instructions regarding the future of Hongkong and its land policy were received from the Home Government. In spite of this, the mission applied for the hill east of Wanchai where presently stands Wah Yan College. In presenting their case, it was stated that of the several hundred students who had been educated by the school at Malacca, "some acted as interpreters to the courts of the several settlements, others are among the wealthiest native merchants." The petition mentioned somewhat apologetically that, “the location... was unfortunate as the native tongue of the Chinese there was Malay so their progress in Chinese was slow and they in turn were slowed down in mastering English.” These remarks may have been included because of the Governor's known unfavourable view of the school's achievement. In reply, the Governor not only rejected the request for a grant of land, but also expressed his view that the location of the school in Hongkong was unnecessary as the Morrison Education Society School was already in operation. He wrote: "Two institutions of the sort in a small place like Hongkong, where I conceive it to be extremely doubtful any respectable Chinese will ever voluntarily ...... ================================================================================