RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077
NOTES AND QUERIES

THE EUROPEAN GRAVE ON SHEK KWU CHAU, HONG KONG

Sacred

To the Memory of Elizabeth Ann The Beloved Wife of

Capt. A. McIntyre

Who Died at Sea

21st of October, 1845

on Board the Ship “Castle Huntly” Aged 23 Years and 9 Days.

These words appear on a granite tombstone situated near the N.W. shoreline of Shek Kwu Chau, an island about two miles west of Cheung Chau. The island was generally barren and uninhabited until 1963, and the existence of the stone and inscription was unknown except, perhaps, to local fishermen. An old name for the island was Coffin Island, and it is tempting to think that the name was derived from this grave.

The island was taken over in 1962 by the Society for the Aid and Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts and it was quite by chance that a member of the staff, while exploring the territory, stumbled on the grave.

Since then several people have made attempts to trace the history of the "Castle Huntly”, but it was not until recently that any firm information came to light. An Australian friend, after visiting Shek Kwu Chau, thought of contacting the Board of Trade in Cardiff and they were able to provide the following details.

The "Castle Huntly” (or “Castle Huntley") was a three-masted wooden carvel of just over thirteen hundred tons, built at the Port of Calcutta and owned jointly by Thomas Garland Murray of London and John Paterson of Castle Huntley, North Britain. John Paterson was her first Master. Later she passed through the hands of various owners and, in 1838, was re-registered at Bombay.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p
125

unfortunately, we shall never know. We could, perhaps, tentatively add a seventh motive for murder to Tennyson Jesse's list: murder born of pride or 'face', murder from shame,21

22

An earlier Chinese murder had not baffled an English judge and jury; this was a 'murder for profit', to use William Bolitho's phrase. At the Worcester Assizes in 1919, a Chinese Birmingham factory worker, Sung Djang Djing, was accused of murdering a fellow countryman, Zec Ming Wu, on June 23, 1919, in Warley Park on the Warwickshire-Worcestershire border. The victim's head had been savagely battered. Sung was accused of luring Zee to the woods, murdering him, and then stealing his Post Office Savings Book, which had a £240 credit. Sung admitted stealing the Savings Book found in his possession but denied murder, accusing another Chinese of the crime. The evidence was too strong; the motive too obvious. Sung was hanged in Worcester Prison (where, curiously, he was converted to Anglicanism in the weeks before execution). Sung was one of a number of Chinese attracted to the Midlands by the prospect of high wages during the war. It is not clear whether he was, like Lock, a former seaman, or had been a member of the Chinese Labour Corps, recruited in China, especially Weihaiwei, to work behind the lines on the Western Front, or in Britain's war industries. The problem of special ‘Oriental motivation' did not arise in this trial; it was a commonplace murder.2

The Chinese in Britain

In 1925 there were three main areas of Chinese settlement in Britain: Liverpool, Cardiff, and Limehouse in the East End of London. These communities had been formed primarily by Chinese seamen who had either jumped ship or been paid off in England, from the 1850s onwards; for once shipping routes were opened up between Britain and the Far East, the demand for Chinese seamen steadily grew, especially as they, like Lascars, were then a source of cheap maritime labour. Many of those who settled in Britain started small businesses, especially laundries (as did their compatriots in Canada, Australia and the United States). It should be emphasised, though, that the Chinese restaurant business did not expand markedly, or flourish, until
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