RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299
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international communities, the smaller treaty ports had come to depend for their foreign population on the few large companies which maintained organisations throughout the country. These included the British American Tobacco Company, the Asiatic Petroleum (Shell) Company, amongst the distributing companies, and Messrs. Jardine Matheson and Company generally known as Ewo, and Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, amongst the shipping companies. Imperial Chemical Industries as a rule only had offices in the larger ports. China at one time offered the largest market in the world for cheap quality cigarettes, and for kerosene (paraffin as we call it). The motorist in Britain and America paid less for petrol because of the kerosene offtake in China. It is self-evident that amongst the cuts distilled from the crude oil petrol, kerosene, lubricating oil, diesel oil, wax and asphalt the cost of production is recovered in proportion on each finished product and, if the market for one of those products is limited, then the price proportionately increases on the others.

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But let not our Chinese friends claim that the distribution of kerosene in China was a form of oppressive dumping. It was not. A very real demand for illumination was met, where other satisfactory illuminants were missing, and at a price below that at which the locally produced and less efficient vegetable oils could be marketed. And this despite the heavy duty which was collected on the imported product for revenue purposes, so that it could be said of kerosene that in China it not only provided almost the sole source of illumination, but also a substantial contribution towards the cost of government.

The urgency of war was more evident in Kiu Kiang, though the Japanese had refrained from bombing the former Concession area. My old Chinese friends all wanted to know what was going to happen. How could I tell them?

The Club had moved from the Customs godown to our former flat, the interior of which had been reconstructed to meet the new purpose. The bar was in our former bedroom, and from behind it the same ancient retainer dispensed the drinks; even the dice boxes looked the same with their heavy yellow ivory dice. But I could not loiter to rattle these for long. There was a decrepit railway to Nanchang, the provincial capital, a hundred miles to the south, and with some difficulty I procured a seat for myself on the train, which as always in China was overcrowded.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x
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published weekly under the editorship of Ezra, was in English. Others were in Russian and German.

Schools

Youngsters from the Sephardic community were educated at the Public School in the International Settlement. The fee was too hefty for most of the Ashkenazi boys. As a result, the Kadoorie family endowed the School for Hebrew Boys where there was a respectable scholarship program.

B'nai B'rith

An article entitled 'Shanghai Fortunes' in the National Jewish Monthly (June 1930) revealed that B'nai B'rith, considered the foremost secular Jewish organization in the world, but by the Sephardic community as particularly Ashkenazi, had trouble getting started in Shanghai. The Shanghai lodge was established officially in 1928, but, 'the circumstances of Jewish life in Shanghai are such that the organization of a B'nai B'rith Lodge was fraught with the most unusual difficulties. National divisions are sharp, particularly between the older Jewish families of the city and the more recently arrived Ashkenzim.

Eventually the Shanghai Lodge of B'nai B'rith went on stream when leading citizens of the Sephardic community, notably the Kadoorie, lent their support. It sponsored such activities as the Jewish Boy Scouts and the Jewish Girl Guides. On Seder Night, hospitality was extended to all Jews. At a Hanuka tea, 500 children were present.

Clubs

17

The Jewish Club opened in 1919 or 1920 in a colonial style building at the corner of Great Western and Tifeng Road. The cost for the building was $250,000. The entrance fee was $25 and the monthly subscription was $7. There was an auditorium of 80 by 40 feet for lectures, and a billiard room 'that was rarely neglected.' Meanwhile, Jews joined major clubs such as the Shanghai Club, the French Club, the American Club, and the Country Golf Club. They were also active in horse racing.

As the reader can see, a great deal of work remains to be done in order to obtain a more complete portrait of the Jewish community in Shanghai.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794
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Several questions remained unanswered. We have no idea what happened to Mary, his first wife who is not referred to anywhere after 1911. R R Sowerby recorded their marriage and added that she bore him a son.... "there is one son of the marriage, now [1956] living in Australia.'

Another aspect of Sowerby's life about which we know nothing is the financial side. His father is unlikely to have left him much if anything. He is unlikely to have earned much teaching in Tientsin or working for the wealthy American. His printing press would not have been cheap and his and his wife's collecting hobby again reflects an adequate income. He had several business directorships, was the manager of China Industries and, of course, had an income from the Journal. During his earlier years he did, of course, receive financial support from Mr Clark during expeditions. There is no doubt that there was money; perhaps brought into his life by his second wife? The 1938 and 1939 China Hong Kong Lists record the Sowerbys as living in the area beyond Bubblingwell, and near the American Country Club, at 34 Lucerne Road, a very upmarket address. Of tangential interest only, their neighbours at No. 33 were Captain and Mrs J V Davidson-Houston, the British Assistant Military Attaché, whose autobiography of the era was quite gripping.

Sowerby's works include The Naturalist in Manchuria, A Sportsman's Miscellany, Sport and Science on the Sino-Mongolian Frontier, A Naturalist's Notebook in China and, in joint authorship with Robert Clark, Through Shenkan.

My sources have included The Passing of the Manchus, Through Shen-Kan and also Sowerby of China, a privately produced short booklet published in Kendal in 1956 by R R Sowerby.

Post Script

Since submitting this article to the Editor of the Journal, I have been fortunate to come across the 'Obituary of Arthur Sowerby' written in 1954 by Professor Frank Drake of the University of Hong Kong who had the great advantage of having personally known Sowerby.' It has thrown a little more light on the life and times of our subject and I
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