RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077
"OH FOR THE JOYS OF ENGLAND"

LT. ORLANDO BRIDGEMAN'S LETTERS FROM CHINA AND HONG KONG, 1842 - 1843

ROBIN MCLACHLAN*

Lieutenant Orlando Bridgeman was a minor participant in British activities in China in the early 1840's. Mention of this quite unimportant subaltern is not likely to be found in any of the dozens of histories and memoirs narrating the First Anglo-Chinese War and the early years of Hong Kong. However, Orlando Bridgeman has left us his own personal record of his sojourn in the Far East in the form of several entertaining, if somewhat illegible, letters preserved in the archives of the Nottingham County Record Office.1** His correspondence home provides the rare opportunity of seeing what life could be like in the Far East for a very homesick and bored young British officer on his first overseas service. The impression that Bridgeman gives of life in China and Hong Kong is quite different from the more romantic and adventurous picture provided by more experienced and hardier souls. For Bridgeman, his time there was little more than an adventure in misery.

Limited biographical information on Orlando Bridgeman can be gleaned from Hart's Annual Army Lists and Burke's Peerage.2 His full name was Orlando Jack Charles Bridgeman; he was born in 1823, the younger son of Captain Orlando Henry Bridgeman (1794-1827) and his wife, Selina. Both parents were the children of British aristocracy; his father was the third son (of four) of Baron Bradford and his mother was the daughter of the Earl of Kilmorey. The careers of the four sons of Baron Bradford comply with the popular stereotype of careers followed by the sons of eighteenth and nineteenth century British nobility. The eldest son, of course, succeeded to the family title; for the second, third and fourth sons there were careers in the navy, army and church respectively. Following their schooling at Harrow, both Orlando Jack Charles Bridgeman and his brother, Francis Orlando Henry, followed their

* Mr. McLachlan is a member of the Department of Far Eastern History at the Australian National University.

**The notes to this article will be found at the end.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g
195

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Blackburn Chamber of Commerce, Report of the Mission to China of the Blackburn Chamber of Commerce, 1896-7, Blackburn North East Lancashire Press, 1898

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Bohr, Paul Richard, Famine in China and the Missionary Timothy Richard as Relief Administrator and Advocate of National Reform, 1876-1884, Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1972

Boone, Murel, The Seed of the Church in China, Edinburgh St Andrews Press, 1973

Braam Houckgeest, Andreas Everard van, An Authentic Account of the Embassy of the Dutch East India Company to the Court of the Emperor of China in the Years 1794 and 1795 (Subsequent to that of the Earl of Macartney) from the journals of..., London printed by R Phillips, 1798

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Bredon, Juliet, Sir Robert Hart: The Romance of a Great Career, London Hutchinson, 1909 (New York Dutton, 1909)

—, Peking, Shanghai Kelly and Walsh, 1931 (Hong Kong reprint Oxford University Press)

Bruce, Clarence D., In the Footsteps of Marco Polo, Edinburgh Blackwood, 1907

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Cable, Mildred, Through Jade Gate and Central Asia, with an introduction by Rev John Stuart Houghton, London Constable, 1927
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278
CONTRIBUTORS

Andrew Abraham, is a noted Singaporean academic.

Paul Bolding, works as a financial journalist at the news and information organisation Reuters in London. He has been with Reuters since 1974. He lived in Hong Kong from 1993 to 1997 and has travelled widely in Asia. Mr Bolding has previously worked in Europe and the Middle East including Brussels, Berlin and Nicosia. He is a co-author of the Insight Guide to Turkey (pbolding@onetel.net.uk)

Julia Chan, is the Hon Librarian of HKBRAS and a member of Council (jlychan@hkucc.hku.hk).

Chohong Choi, obtained a B.A. in History from Queens College of the City University of New York, and an M.Phil. in History from the University of Hong Kong. He is currently a research assistant in the Department of Real Estate & Construction at HKU.

The late Arnold Graham, was an old China hand. He was well known for his steady stream of Letters to the Editor in Hong Kong under the pseudonym Ancient Gweilo (a play on his initials). He donated a large number of books to the Library of HKBRAS in 1994. He ultimately relocated to New Zealand where he passed away in 1996.

Peter Halliday, was formerly an assistant commissioner with the Hong Kong Police Force and its chief information officer for over six years. He now heads his own information technology consulting and training company, Elite IT Services Ltd. He is the Hon Editor of HKBRAS and a member of Council (Peter.Halliday@e-liteitservices.com).

Peter Hansell, is an active member of the Friends of HKBRAS in Great Britain.

Paul Harrison, started his conservation career as a volunteer at Leicester Museum, U.K., in his school holidays. He has a B.Sc. in Archaeological Conservation and a M.Sc. in Archaeometallurgy from the Institute of Archaeology, now part of University College London. He has also worked for the Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust, the British School at Athens in Crete, studying an ancient Minoan City - Palaikastro - and Bradford University's Department of Archaeological Sciences. He was formally with the Central Conservation Division (Metals), Museum of History, Leisure and Cultural Services Department. He now heads his own conservation company, Phoenix Conservation Ltd., (paulehar@netvigator.com).

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