RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q CHAN LAI-SUN AND HIS FAMILY 113 and then in Ningpo, mentions Ruth and her friend Christiana A-kit in the Annual Report of the London Tract Society for 1847: I have two young women Indo-Chinese converts, who, fleeing from persecution, joined me in this country [Batavia]. They have applied themselves to the study of the English language since their arrival in the north, and one of them in particular is thirsty for the intelligence which that language opens out to her. Her desire for information has reference especially to religious subjects. As we shall note A-tik's home after her marriage to Lai-sun was what nineteenth century missionaries called “pious", but piety was connected with a concern for a modern education for Chinese girls and for some years she taught in the missionary school in Shanghai. A missionary educator visited their home at Shanghai, and her account published in 1857 in the American Episcopal Church journal, Spirit of Missions (v. 22, p. 350), gives evidence of the manner in which they combined their western type education and connections with the Chinese community in which they lived. At the time of the visit Yung Wing, later the initiator of the Chinese Educational Mission in which Lai-sun participated, was a guest in the home. The missionary visitor noted that Yung Wing greeted her "with quite an American air”, though he had to admit he had forgotten her name. When Yung Wing, even then interested in education, asked if he could visit the girls' school under the missionary's charge, she politely turned him down as she felt that since the girls were so modest and unaccustomed to a male presence at the school, it would unduly upset them, but she turned to Mrs. Chan and her friend Christiana A-Kit, wife of Kew Teen-shang, and asked their opinion on the matter. They said they never objected to associating on social and friendly terms with Christian gentlemen. "But", said Kit, "when merchants or other heathen men call to see Attee's husband, she always retires." Yung Wing remarked, "When I was in the United States as a student, I often visited young ladies' seminaries and they never objected, in fact, I think they rather liked it.” The missionary lady took the occasion to probe a little deeper into the attitudes of American educated Chinese, posing the question, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p H. J. LETHBRIDGE she opened a shop in Hong Kong, selling curios and objets-d'art. In 1927 she took a consignment of Chinese antiques, many from her late father's collection, to New York to sell. On October 10, 1927, she met her future husband in that city. Sir Travers Humphreys avers she was not, to English eyes, good-looking; others claimed she was attractive.20 But all agree she was charming and good-natured, much involved in charitable work. Less is known about Dr. Miao. Wai-sheung's relatives and friends never met him. He was a year younger than his wife. He was born in Chekiang (Chiang Kai-shek's native province) and, at the time of his trial, had a mother and sister living in Shanghai in the Chinese city. He claimed his father was a member of the Chinese Legislative Council (sic) and a Justice of the Peace. Miao studied law in China and later at Loyola University, Chicago. He was described as being extremely tall and slim, fluent in inaccurate English. His wife, a Cantonese, was petite, under five feet tall; so they were a noticeable couple together. They were married according to the rites of the American Episcopal Church. Siu was a devout Christian. Miao was probably a Christian, for Christianity was a sign of modernism in the early 1920s among the westernised, educated elite in Shanghai (later Marxism or Nationalism was to largely supplant all forms of religion and YMCA fraternalism among Chinese students and intellectuals). A newspaper report stated, in any case, that Miao 'professed Christianity before he died' (i.e., was hanged).91 After marrying in New York, they honeymooned in Buffalo, then Albany where the bride had a minor operation to facilitate sexual relations (probably dilation of the hymen). About four or five weeks after their wedding, they left for a two-months' vacation in Europe before returning to China. They landed at Glasgow, stayed in Edinburgh a day or two, and on June 17, 1928, stopped at Grange-in-Borrowdale, a Cumberland village, close to Derwentwater. On the next day, January 18, they went for a walk in the morning, returned for lunch, and left for another walk, hand-in-hand, at two o'clock. Miao returned home at about 4 p.m. and said his wife had gone to Keswick, about four miles away, to buy some warmer underwear. She did not return Page 150 Page 151 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 212 J.H. HAAN CRYDER, William Wetmore 1858-1859, 1859-1860 Junior partner in Wetmore & Co.;23 from May 25, 1857 partner in Wetmore, Williams & Co.24 CUNNINGHAM, Edward 1852-1853, 1854-1855 Born 1823, died 1889. Mercantile assistant Russell & Co. 1845-1849; partner 1850-1857, 1861-1863 and 1867-1877;25 part of 1849 and in 1850 he stayed in Canton,26 United States Consul 1851-1854; Consul for Sweden and Norway 1853-1864.27 Member Recreation Ground Committee 1861;28 trustee British Episcopal Church 1863;29 member of the NCBRAS, as resident until 1870,30 as non-resident until 1877,31 Member Committees I, III, IV, VI and VII. Apart from his political functions, Cunningham's philanthropic attitude was praised from several sides. Cordier called him "one of the most public-spirited men Shanghai has ever known"32 and S.W. Williams dedicated the fifth edition of his "Commercial Guide" to "Edward Cunningham Esq. of Shanghai (...) as a mark of respect for his character as a philanthropist and merchant (...)". At the time of his return to the United States he took with him a large bell which is now in the possession of the Museum of the American China Trade, Milton.33 Later a street was named after him (Cunningham Road). Portraits. Author.34 315 DENT, Henry 1863-1864, 1864-1865 Partner in Dent & Co. from July 1, 1860.36 Consul for Portugal 1863-1865.37 Member of the Commission Provisoire that ran the French Concession 1865-1866.38 Trustee British Episcopal Church 1863, treasurer Recreation Fund 1863-1865;40 trustee Chinese Hospital 1865.41 Treasurer NCBRAS 1864,42 Member Committees IV and IX. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 213 FEARON, Charles Augustine 1854-1855 46 Arrived in China probably 1836; lived in Shanghai from 1846;44 at first partner in Fearon & Co.,* later in Aug. Heard & Co.; agent for Heard in London from August 1856. FORBES, Frank Blackwell 1864-1865 Born 1839, died 1908. Came to China as private secretary of the American envoy William Reed in 1857. 48 Partner in Russell & Co. from January 1, 1863. 49 Consul-General for Sweden and Norway from September 13, 1864.5 54 $1 Member of the Conseil Municipal of the French Concession 1868-1869, 1869-1870, 1870-1871, 1871-1872, 1872-1873. Trustee Recreation Fund;7 member of the NCBRAS 1864 until 1874 (as resident), until 1882 (as non-resident);53 Vice president NCBRAS 1872, president NCBRAS 1873 and 1874;5 member of a committee of the NCBRAS to study the "feasibility of establishing a Public Library", 1868;56 member of a committee of the NCBRAS “appointed for the consideration of the expediency of publishing a reprint of the Chinese Repository", 1868.7 Portraits.** Author of, among others, botanical works. GIBB, Hugh Bold 1857-1858, 1858-1859 $9 Authorized to sign for Gibb, Livingston & Co. from March 8, 1855;6 later he became a partner. 61 Trustee British Episcopal Church 1858.62 Unofficial member of the Legislative Council in Hong Kong 1860-1870, 1879.63 GRAY, George Griswold 1856-1857 64 Authorized to sign for Russell & Co. January 3, 1854, partner from January 1, 1855 till December 31, 1859.4 He took part in the Battle of Muddy Flat, April 4, 1854, and was reported wounded. 66 Portrait. 67 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 215 He was known as a philanthropist; one of his charitable acts was the donation of a sum of money to the NCBRAS with which the library could be enriched. 88 Founder of the school at Boone Road that bore his name (1891).* Hanbury Road was named after him. Author. 90 HEARD, George Fairley 1863-1864 Came to China as secretary of the American envoy John Ward.1 Partner in Aug. Heard & Co. from June 1, 1862. HEINSSEN, Rudolph 1864-1865 The first representative of the German firm Siemssen & Co. who established a branch office in Shanghai January 1, 1856.1 Consul for the Hanseatic Towns 1864-1865. 94 HOGG, James 1865-1866 Mercantile assistant Lindsay & Co.,2 partner from July 1, 1854.3 Partnership with E. Jenner Hogg as Hogg Bros. from January 1, 1861. 97 Consul for Italy 1863, 1864. 98 Member Committees I, IV, VII and IX. HOGG, William 1852-1853 Resided in Hong Kong in 1846,99 from 1847 in Shanghai,100 Partner in Lindsay & Co., 1858.102 101 interest in which ended June 30, Consul for Hamburg 1852-1855(?),103 Member of the Committee to study the erection of a new building for the Shanghai Library 1852;104 trustee British Episcopal Church 1853-1855.105 HOWARD, William 1861-1862 Manager of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, Shanghai branch, from November 8, 1859.106 躲 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 291 + In early December 1881 Hudson Taylor convened an informal missionary conference at Zhenjiang to discuss the crucial and imperative need to increase their numbers in order to accelerate the pace of converting China. This was an on-going problem raised and discussed by Protestant missionaries across China down the years. The staff and language students from the Missionary Language School at Anqing, another city on the Yangzi, were invited to attend the Zhenjiang conference as were missionaries of the American Episcopal Church. In 1900 Mr Absolom Sydenstricker and his wife were both Presbyterian missionaries living in Zhenjiang, together with their daughter Pearl who was eight. During the first months of the Boxer troubles they refused to flee, then in July of that year when conditions had worsened they were compelled to escape to Shanghai, to return a year later. Life for a growing young woman was fairly circumscribed with the white population limited to the few in the consulates, other missionaries and a dozen or so men working with British and American companies. Pearl left in 1917 to marry Mr Buck, an American missionary and academic interested in China's rural economy, at Nan Suzhou in Anhui. Pearl's mother died in Zhenjiang several years later and was buried in what was then known as Zhenjiang's foreign cemetery. In 1920 Pearl's father sold their house and moved to Nanjing. Pearl Buck spent in all some forty-three years in China, and her writings brought Chinese social inter-relationships, especially those of the peasants, to western readers, possibly the first to achieve a world-wide circulation leading to many a westerner's first fascination about China. She wrote many a book and chaired many a public meeting telling people, mainly in the US, of the enduring spirit and resilience as well as the wretched lives lived by Chinese peasants and of the threat from Japanese Imperialism. Her best known works include The Good Earth, and a translation of the Shuihu Ji, 'All Men are Brothers', one of China's most popular pieces of literature. Her parents' family house in Zhenjiang, at the present day address of 6 Runzhou Shan Lu, is now one of the leading tourist attractions, for Americans in particular, despite being part of a semiconductor factory. In May 1905 Hudson Taylor, freshly back from recuperation in Europe, stopped by Zhenjiang on his way to Changsha, where he visited the graves of Maria [his first wife who had died there in July 1870] and his children in the little cemetery among the hills. He, himself, ================================================================================