RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g NOTES AND QUERIES 159 The clan possesses a small ancestral hall in the second row of houses, and here are housed the ancestral tablets of the most important ancestors. These tablets usually have a sliding wooden slot at the back on which is given a short biography of the person commemorated, usually his birth and death, and sometimes a geomantic description of his grave site. From these records and the recollections of the present generation, information was obtained about two of the more distinguished clansmen of recent times. CHAN Jit-meng (M) alias Tak-hang (7) of the 20th generation, was born on the 2nd day of the 10th month in the year of the Tao Kwang (†) (i.e. 1828) and died on the 3rd day of the 12th month in the year of Kwang Hsü (**) (i.e. 1891). He was a successful businessman who had a shop at Fat Shan (#) near Canton and a large cargo junk with which he traded to and from the Kowloon area. With the trading junk he brought a large amount of stone and building materials to the Tseung Kwan O area and is said to have been responsible for many public works: the village school, the pier at Hang Hau market (},□) nearby and the stone paved paths up the valley to Tseng Lan Shue and along the line of the present Clear Water Bay Road. He also owned a shop called Yi Hing (M) just outside Kowloon City. He was a member of the Kowloon City Kaifong and one of the founder members of the Lok Sing Tong (#44) in 1879. This was an association of local gentry and leading villagers from the surrounding areas. In later life, he bought the degree of Kwok Hok Shang (M *) in Canton, According to his ancestral tablet he had a wife NG (A) and a concubine WONG (£). CHAN Kwok-yan (RQ) alias Wai Tong (†) son of the above. This man's ancestral tablet does not show his dates of birth and death, but these are thought to be 1872-1933. As his father CHAN Jit-meng was a fairly rich man, he had a middle school education in Canton or Fat Shan. At some time in his career he met Sir Cecil Clementi (✯✯) the future Governor ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 72 HENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE their duties effectively. Of this latter group, student-interpreters in the Consular Corps probably made the greatest contribution — such names as Herbert A. Giles, E.H. Parker, E.D.H. Fraser, W.F. Mayers, Thomas Watters, G.M.H. Playfair, E.T.C. Werner,44 speak for themselves but Hong Kong cadets, although few in number (from 1861 to 1941 only eighty-five were appointed), also made a significant contribution and one should cite not only Lockhart but Sir Cecil Clementi45 and Sir R.F. Johnston. All these early British 'scholar-officials' helped to lay the foundations in Britain of Chinese studies and were among the first to staff and to head new departments of Chinese studies or to interest people in the study of a unique Asian civilisation and culture. Lockhart, of course, was a busy, conscientious and efficient civil servant who could not spend his working hours brooding over knotty problems of translation or sinological conundrums; but he was always a remarkably energetic man and, according to his daughter, rose early in the morning and did his private work long before his Department was open officially. Lockhart's studies appear to have extended into the evenings as well. There is an interesting reference to him, by T. Kirkman Dealy, in the Preface (1907) to his revised edition of Chambers' English-Cantonese Dictionary: I still vividly retain very clear recollection of a periodical after-dinner meeting which I was privileged to attend, in the middle eighties, at the former London Mission House, where, round a lamp-lighted table, under the personal presidency of the then venerable head of the London Mission [Dr. John Chalmers], sat the late Dr. Faber, Mr. J.H. Stewart Lockhart (now His Honour the Commissioner for Wei-hai-wei), Mr. (now Dr.) G.H. Bateson Wright, Head Master of Queen's College, Mr. Addys of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, the late Mr. A. Falconer, Second Master of the old Government Central School, and others, eagerly discussing, assiduously comparing, commenting on, and revising, translations of portions of a minor Chinese classic made, since the previous session, by individual members of the class.46 This very Victorian passion for work, which embraced not only his official duties but his private interest in sinology, allowed Lockhart to publish in 1893 his first book, a Manual of Chinese Quota- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 SHIWAN POTTERY EXPLORED 103 My own research on Shiwan has continued in the Department of Fine Arts and the Centre of Asian Studies over the past two and a half years. This included in March of 1978, the opportunity for a three-week individual study trip in Guangzhou and Shiwan. Encountering the concrete reality of what I had researched for so long, discovering a wealth of material I had no idea existed, while adjusting to completely different perceptions of life and study methods within a socialist system, heightened my sense of exploration. Hence the intent of the present lecture is to introduce, in a little more depth, a few of the problems explored on that trip. Exploration across the border revealed that significant archaeological research relating to Shiwan had been carried on for a number of years. There was great excitement over these discoveries and I was warmed by the measure of trust placed in me by the researchers who, despite their own uncertainty, showed me the new discoveries before publication.2 The research itself calls for the re-thinking of traditional beliefs concerning the history of Shiwan pottery. These traditional beliefs can be traced back to two major written sources. In 1941, Li Jing-kang (*), principal of the Clementi Middle School in Hong Kong, wrote what was up until that time the most careful and logical account of Shiwan history, taking into account scanty written references, oral traditions, and actual objects available. His main source was a handwritten manuscript in the possession of “a certain gentleman in Fushan". This manuscript recounted that Shiwan pottery began in Yangjiang Xian (縣), where due to the turmoil of war, potters migrating from the Jun (鈞) kilns in Northern Honan Province (河南), established kilns sometime in the late Southern Song dynasty (early 13th century). In the Ming period (A.D. 1368-1643), according to Li, these Yangjiang potters moved to the present location of the potteries in Nanhai Xian (Figure 1). Xu Zhiheng (#2), a Cantonese, and professor of Chinese literature at Beijing University in the early Republican period, recounts the same story and describes this so-called "Yang-jiang ware" as having sky blue-indigo blue-ash blue flambe (i.e. streaky multicoloured) glaze, which imitated Honan Jun ware.4 A group of wares which corresponded to this description were identified and placed on exhibition at the Fung Ping Shan Library in 1940.5 ================================================================================