RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author 132 TANG Shiu Kin THOMAS, L. F. - THOMPSON, R. W. TOPLEY, Dr. Marjorie TREGEAR, Miss M. TRISTRAM, Mrs. J. TRISTRAM, M. P. W. + + + + - TSEUNG, Dr. F. I. - + - T Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 The Kowloon Motor Bus Co., Ltd., 505 Pedder Building, H.K. 56 Conduit Road, Flat 103, H.K. Dept. of Modern Languages, H.K.U. 6 Peak Mansions, H.K. H.K.U. P.O. Box 845, H.K. Rating & Valuation Dept., Man Yee Building, 9th fl., Des Voeux Road C., H.K. China Building, 4th f., H.K. TURNER, The Hon. M. W. H.K. & Shanghai Banking Corpn., H.K. VETCH, H. VETCH, Mrs. H. VIO, Dr. E. G. - WALDEN, J. C, C, - WALTON, A. St. G. WARD, Miss J.- + + WARD-MORRIS, Mrs. B. WATSON, K. A. WEI, Dr. Tat. WEISS, K.- WELCH, H. H. WONG, Dr. Man WONG Pao Hsie WONG Po Shang WOO, Dr. Arthur W.. WOO, Dr. Pak Foo WRIGHT, D. A. L. WILSON, B. D. - YAO Pe Chun YAO Hsin Nung + - Hong Kong University Press, H.K. Hong Kong University Press, H.K. 315 H.K. & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. Establishment Branch, Colonial Secretariat, H.K. Establishment Branch, Colonial Secretariat, H.K. 35 Chater Hall, Conduit Road, H.K, 18 Hillgate Place, London, W.8. Lammert Bros., Pedder Building, H.K. H.K. Anti-Tuberculosis Assn., Queen's Rd. E., H.K. P.O. Box 718, H.K. Shatin, N.T. Room 108, China Building, H.K. Butterfield & Swire, H.K. B-5 Wah Kiu Mansion, 1st fl., 80 Taipo Rd., Kln. Woo Clinic, Edinburgh House, 1st fl., H.K. 204 China Building, H.K. Hong Kong Club, H.K. Urban Services Dept., Secretariat Building, West Wing, H.K. 18, Monmouth Terrace, 3rd f., Kennedy Road, H.K. 1 Dorset Crescent, Kowloon Tong, Kln. Mental Hospital, High Street, H.K, YAP, Dr. Pon Meng YUEN, Miss I. - 4 Radio Hong Kong. ZIGAL, Mrs. I. - - 12 Bowen Road, H.K. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941 53 19 Sir Francis Henry May (1860-1922), Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Dublin. Hong Kong Civil Service 1881; Captain Superintendent of Police, 1893-1902; Colonial Secretary, 1902-1910; Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner of Western Pacific, 1910-12; Governor of Hong Kong, 1912-1919. First cadet to become Governor. Altogether May spent 38 years in Hong Kong. 20 Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston (1874-1938), Educated at Edinburgh University (Gray Prize; prox. accessit., Lord Rector's Essay); Magdalen College, Oxford (mentioned hon, causa Stanhope Essay). Hong Kong Civil Service 1898; Assistant Colonial Secretary, 1899-1904, Transferred to Weihaiwai 1904; Senior District Officer and Magistrate, Weihaiwai, 1906-17. Tutor to the Ex-Emperor of China, 1919-1925. Commissioner of Weihaiwai, 1927-30. Professor of Chinese and Head of Department of Languages and Cultures of the Far East, School of Oriental Languages, London University, 1931-1937. 21 Sir Cecil Clementi (1875-1947). Educated at St. Paul's School and Magdalen College, Oxford, Hong Kong Civil Service 1899. Clementi, following his uncle and godfather, Sir Cecil Clementi Smith, preferred an Eastern Cadetship, and was posted to Hong Kong. Land Officer and Police Magistrate in the New Territories, 1903-6, Clementi had the task of recognizing the land titles of over 300,000 claims. Appointed Colonial Secretary of British Guiana 1913-1921; Colonial Secretary, Ceylon, 1922-1925; Governor of Hong Kong, 1925-30; Governor of the Straits Settlements and High Commissioner for the Malay States 1930. In 1934 Clementi retired on account of ill-health. 22 James Legge "The Colony of Hong Kong", China Review, Vol. I, 1872-3, p. 173. 23 Dominions Office and Colonial Office List 1939, p. 624, states: "The average number of cadets appointed to Malaya and Hongkong during the period of 1919-31 inclusive was between 9 and 10. Since 1931 the average has been 5-8, 6 generally. In 1937, 7 cadets were appointed, and 9 in 1938. There were none appointed to Hong Kong 1937, and only 2 in 1938. The demand for cadets in Hong Kong was always small”. 24 For example, Thomas Sercombe Smith (1854-1937) was appointed a Hong Kong Cadet in 1882. In 1883 he was attached to the Colonial Office for a year; and in 1884, after a brief spell attached to the Colonial Secretary's Office, Hong Kong, proceeded to Peking where he studied Chinese, 1884-6. On the other hand, Arthur Winbolt Brewin (1867-1946), proceeded to Canton in 1888. Brewin, who was educated at Winchester, succeeded Eitel as Inspector of Schools in 1897; became Registrar General in 1901 and retired in 1912. 25 Victor Purcell The Memoirs of a Malayan Official, London, 1965, pp. 108-109. The Index to Correspondence (of the Colonial Secretariat), compiled in 1902 by R. H. Kotewall, has a cryptic entry: "Cadets studying Chinese in China must reside at a place removed from European social surroundings". 26 Alexander Grantham Via Ports, Hong Kong, 1965, p. 5. 27 I have been able to discover the schools attended by 64 of the cadets: 52 went to schools listed in the Public Schools Yearbook; the other 12 to small private schools. Two cadets (H. E. Wodehouse and A. W. Brewin), it seems, did not go to a university; five I have been unable to trace; and of the rest - 78 in all — 55 went to English universities (Cambridge 25; Oxford 23; London 4; and one each at Leicester University College, Liverpool University, and Manchester University); 10 to universities in Ireland (Trinity College 8); and 11 to Scottish universities (Edinburgh 6, -55 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941 55 19 Kenneth Myer Arthur Barnett (born 1911). Educated at Mill Hill School, London, and King's College, Cambridge, Hong Kong Civil Service 1934. Retired as Director of Census and Statistics 1970. 40 Quoted in James Hope Hennessy's Verandah, London, 1964, p. 186. Hennessy is quoting, presumably, from Sir George Bowen's Thirty Years of Colonial Government, London, 1889, which I have not seen. 41 Margery Perham, op. cit., p. 302. Lugard also liked and trusted A. W. Brewin, the Registrar General: "if he once said, he was very 'pro-Chinese' this was really a compliment. He would allow Brewin to forbid his own delivery of a speech to a Chinese gathering. He could not always understand the reason ‘but I trust implicitly in him'." 42 E. J. Eitel "Chinese Studies and Official Interpretation", p. 8. 43 Alleyne Ireland, Far Eastern Tropics, London, 1905, p. 34. In 1901 Ireland was appointed Colonial Commissioner of the University of Chicago for the purpose of visiting the Far East. 44 Ibid., p. 32. 45 Norman Gilbert Mitchell-Innes (1860-1947). Educated at Repton and Edinburgh Academy, Hong Kong Civil Service 1881; Treasurer 1891; left Hong Kong Service in 1896 and transferred to the Home Prison Service. Des Voeux thought highly of Mitchell-Innes. See G. B. Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong 1841-1962, Hong Kong, 1964, p. 112. 46 Report on Defalcations in the Treasury, Sessional Papers, Hong Kong, 1893, p. 546. 47 Ibid., p. 546. 48 Norton-Kyshe, vol. 2, p. 447. 49 Ibid., p. 447. 50 Sir Arthur George Murchison Fletcher (1878-1954). Educated at Cheltenham College and Trinity College, Oxford, Hong Kong Civil Service 1901; transferred to Ceylon 1927; Colonial Secretary, Ceylon, 1926-9; Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for Western Pacific 1929-36; Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Trinidad and Tobago, 1936-38. 51 Geoffrey Norman Orme (1879-1966). Educated at Cheltenham College and Hertford College, Oxford, Hong Kong Civil Service 1902. Director of Education 1924-26. Left Hong Kong Service in 1926. 52 The Report on the Land Court, 1900-1905, Sessional Papers, 1905, gives a list of the presidents and members of the Land Court in order of their appointment, most of whom were cadets. H. H. J. Gompertz was appointed in 1900 and resigned in 1904; Cecil Clementi in 1903; and C. M. Messer and J. R. Wood in 1904. The Registrars in order of appointment - all cadets were: J. H. Kemp, E. D. C. Wolfe, and S. B. C. Ross. The Land Court in 1905 consisted of three members: C. M. Messer, Cecil Clementi, and J. R. Wood. The New Territories became popular with cadets as a place to walk or shoot in on week-ends. Robert Oliphant Hutchison (1880-1920), the Superintendent of Imports and Exports, on his way to shoot snipe at Saikung fell off a launch in a squall and drowned. His body was never found. With him at the time was D. W. Tratman, the Colonial Treasurer. One imagines from the evidence that both had "tiffined" rather too well. 53 "At first British officials were limited in principle to two, dealing with police and land. In 1899 a police magistrate was appointed and also an assistant land officer to deal with land cases, and the police were placed Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g ADV : 32 STEPHEN UHALLEY, JR. 23 Inclosure 7 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 46. 24 Inclosure 8 in No. 32, Ibid., pp. 46-47. 25 Inclosure 12 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 49. 26 Inclosure 13 in No. 32, Ibid. 27 Harvey to Hammond, No. 27, Ningpo, May 16, 1862, Inclosure 2, Ibid., p. 38. 28 Dew to Hope, Ningpo, May 7, 1862, No. 32, Inclosure 15, Ibid., p. 50. 29 Inclosure 16 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 51. 30 Harvey to Hammond, No. 27, Ningpo, May 16, 1862, Inclosure 1, Harvey to Bruce, Ningpo, May 9, 1862, Ibid., p. 36. 31 Dew, "Proceedings of Encounter at Ningpo detailing the events which led to the capture of that city on May 10th, 1862,” Gordon Papers, Vol. VII, British Museum 52392, p. 22. Intriguingly, there is in this handwritten account a following sentence which says that Hope replied to Dew asking the latter to keep the peace until he could get there with sufficient force. This sentence was crossed out in the manuscript. 32 Inclosure 17 in No. 32, "Further Papers relating to..." p. 51. 33 Inclosure 19 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 52. 34 Hsiang Ta, et al, eds., T'ai-ping Tien-kuo, Chinese Modern History Collection, Shanghai, 1952, Vol. 6, p. 602. 35 Inclosure 1 in No. 27, "Further Papers relating to....,” pp. 36-37. 36 T'ai-ping T'ien-Kuo, Vol. 6, p. 604. 37 Admiralty to Hammond, July 14, 1862, Inclosure 2, Dew to Hope, Ningpo, May 10, 1862, Ibid., p. 30. 38 Green to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), Ningpo, May 15, 1862, No. 592, Local Correspondence Section, Ningpo (1858-62), B2/132, Jardine Matheson Archives, Cambridge University Library, 39 Cited in A. F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution, London, 1866, II, 536. 40 Jen Yu-wen, T'ai-p'ing T'ien-Kuo tien-chih t'ung-kao, II, Hong Kong, 1957, p. 1059. 41 Captain D. Patridge to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong) via Shanghai, Ningpo, July 28, 1860, Local Correspondence Section, Ningpo (1858-62) B2/132, JMA, 42 Green to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), Ningpo, August 1, 1862, No. 602, Ibid. 43 Green to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), Ningpo, November 5, 1862, No. 613, Ibid. 44 Green to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), Ningpo, January 20, 1863, No. 622, Ibid. 45 Inclosure 3, Harvey to Bruce, Ningpo, May 16, 1862, in No. 27, p. 39. 46 Russell to Bruce, No. 28, July 22, 1862, "Further Papers relating to..." 47 Alexander Mitchie, The Englishman in China, I, Edinburgh & London, 1900, p. 380. 48 Cited in Lindley, II, 538 49 Ibid., 537. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE DISTRICT WATCH COMMITTEE 141 in the Colony. In 1948 they were taken over by the Medical and Health Department. 58 G. W. Skinner, Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand, Ithaca, New York, Yale University Press, 1958, p. 79. 59 James Michie wrote: "The means taken to conciliate the Chinese (in Hong Kong) must be deemed on the whole to have been successful. There was first police supervision, then official protection under a succession of qualified officers, then representation in the Colony Legislature and on the Commission of the Peace. The colonial executive has wisely left to the Chinese a large measure of a kind of self-government which is more effective than anything that could find its expression in votes of the Legislature. The administration of purely Chinese affairs by native committees, with a firm ruling hand over their proceedings, seems to fulfil every purpose of government." The Englishman in China during the Victorian Era, Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood, 1900, vol. 1, pp. 280-1. 60 The Labour Advisory Board was established in 1937 and consisted of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, the Secretary and Cashier of His Majesty's Naval Yard, the Assistant Director of Supply and Transport of the China Command, a representative of the Public Works Department, the Manager of the Taikoo Sugar Refinery, the manager of the Hong Kong Electric Company, and the manager of the Taikoo Dockyard. The members consisted entirely of representatives of large government departments and employers of labour. The board rarely functioned. 61 The Chinese General Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1896 principally by Ho Kai and Wei Yuk. It was called at first the Chinese Merchants Bureau. In 1913, after a period of decline, a new building costing $40,000 was erected in Connaught Road. After 1913 the Chamber became one of the most influential bodies in Hong Kong, and many members of the District Watch Committee served at one time or another on its executive committee. The Chinese Club was founded in 1899 by Sir Robert Ho Tung and modelled on the European Hong Kong Club. A description of the Club's premises is to be found in Mrs. Archibald Little, The Land of the Blue Gown, London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1902, p. 323: "We were taken by the Committee into an upper room, where European comforts of curtains and cushioned arm-chairs were judiciously intermingled with Cantonese elegances of black carved wood and landscape marble." Mrs. Little was a member of the Anti-Footbinding League or Natural Feet Society. 62 See G. William Skinner for a detailed analysis of Chinese associations. See especially ch. 6 of his Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand. 63 For Overseas Chinese associations, see important works by the following: Maurice Freedman, "Immigrants and Associations: Chinese in Nineteenth Century Singapore," Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 3, no. 1, 1960, and Chinese Family and Marriage in Singapore, London, H.M.S.O., 1957; G. W. Skinner, Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1957, and Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1958; William E. Willmott, The Political Structure of the Chinese Community in Cambodia, London, The Athlone Press, 1970; and Edgar Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life 1850-1898, New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 1965. 64 See Wilfred Blythe, The Impact of Chinese Secret Societies in Malaya, London, Oxford University Press, 1969. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART 75 out the nineteenth century, a fashionable pursuit for the dilettante and the serious amateur scholar; even Elizabeth I, Queen of Rumania, acquired a European reputation, under the pen-name of Carmen Sylva, for her writings on the legends and fairy tales of her country of adoption. Lockhart, like N.B. Dennys and R.F. Johnston, became an addict of the new cult and study of folklore. The term 'folklore' was coined as late as 1846 by the antiquarian W.J. Thoms; but the foundations of the study can be traced back to the influence of Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, published in 1765, and above all to the German brothers Grimm, whose Kinder und Hausmärchen appeared in 1812 and Deutsche Mythologie in 1835. They, in particular, laid the foundations for a study of folktales and popular superstitions upon a more scientific, comparative basis and examined problems from a wider point of view than that of the local antiquarian or literary romantic. The first folklore society in Britain was founded in 1878 and in that year appeared the first journal dedicated entirely to the study. This was the Folk-lore Record, the name of which was changed to the Folk-lore Journal and finally to plain Folk-lore. In 1885 Lockhart was appointed to act as local Secretary of the Folk-lore Society of Great Britain and soon after he published an advertisement in the China Review asking readers to submit specimens of Chinese customs, superstitions and beliefs. He appealed to both European and Chinese readers and stated he would be pleased to translate communications in Chinese. He urged Europeans and Americans resident in China to co-operate for 'there can be little doubt that, either by their position or influence, they could materially contribute towards a thorough investigation of a subject which is daily becoming of great interest, and which is gradually assuming a place of no small importance among other branches of science.' It is not clear what sort of response Lockhart got from the readers of the China Review: but he did publish an article in 1890 in the British Folk-lore Journal, which was mainly a translation of material that had appeared originally in the Hong Kong Chinese newspaper, the Chung Ngoi San Po (Chung-wai Hsin-pao)† †† #報1 Lockhart's private papers are now lodged with his old school, George Watson's College, Edinburgh, and contain much material on Chinese folklore.62 What Lockhart intended to do with his treasure ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART 81 21 'Despatches and Other Papers Relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong', Sessional Papers, no. 32 of 1899, p. 13. 22 Ibid., p. 36. 23 Ibid., p. 65. 24 Ibid., p. 69. 25 'Report on the New Territory during the first year of British Administration', Sessional Papers, no. 15 of 1900, p. 252. 26 'Report on the New Territory for the Year 1901', Sessional Papers, no. 22 of 1902, p. 4. 27 Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1921. 28 Alfred Hancock and his brother Sydney were partners in the firm of A. and S. Hancock of Queen's Road, Hong Kong. In 1906 Alfred Hancock had resided for over fifty years in Amoy and Hong Kong. In the 1920s the firm had moved to Des Voeux Road and the chief partner was H. R. B. Hancock, Lockhart's brother-in-law. The firm was still active in 1940. 29 The walled city of Weihaiwei, captured by the Japanese in 1894, by the terms of the 1898 Convention was not under British jurisdiction but nominally under a Chinese sub-district deputy magistrate. The British sphere of influence extended for an area of 1,500 square miles east of the Leased Territory. 30 On the Chinese Regiment see: Captain A. A. S. Barnes, On Active Service with the Chinese Regiment, London, 1902; C. E. Bruce-Mitford, The Territory of Wei-Hai-Wei, Shanghai, 1902, pp. 22-24; R. F. Johnston, Lion and Dragon in Northern China, London, 1910, pp. 82-3; and Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1906. The only servicemen left in Weihaiwei after 1906 were the small body of Royal Marines of the Island Guard, 31 Johnston, op. cit., p. 82. 32 L. K. Young, British Policy in China 1895-1902, London, 1970, p. 73. 33 Johnston, op. cit., p. 80. 34 The Weihaiwei School was opened with only four pupils in 1901 by a Mr. H. J. L. Beer. In 1903 a new school house was built near Port Edward, partly with the aid of a debenture loan subscribed by British subjects in Shanghai. The new school had dormitories for forty boys. The school, which took boys between ages of 8 to 14, was mainly for the sons of British expatriates. Pupils came from places as far apart as Mukden, Canton, Kobe, and Chungking. The school closed in 1925 when it became apparent that the rendition of Weihaiwei was close at hand. Weihaiwei's fine climate contributed to the school's success with expatriate parents. 35 Johnston, op. cit., p. 96. 36 Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston, K.C.M.G. (1874-1938). Johnston was educated at Edinburgh University and Oxford. He arrived in Hong Kong as an Eastern Cadet, fresh from Magdalen, on Christmas Day, 1898. In 1904, Robert Walter, Secretary to Government and Magistrate at Weihaiwei, was seconded for service as Emigration Agent at Ch'iu-wang-tao for the Transvaal Government and Johnston was appointed to take his place. In 1906 he was appointed District Officer and Magistrate and resided in the heart of the Territory. In 1919 when he took up his appointment as tutor he was Senior District Officer. In 1927 he returned to Weihaiwei as Commissioner. After the rendition of Weihaiwei in 1930 he became Professor of Chinese, University of London, and Head of the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Far East, School of Oriental Studies, 1931-37. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 260 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: O'HARA, Randolph O'H WARD, Dr. & Mrs. F. A. OTTWAY, Mrs. Joy OXLEY, C. W. B. PARKIN, Mrs. Elise PARRINGTON, Miss June PAUL, Mr. & Mrs. Anthony M. PAYNTER, J. L. PERESYPKIN, Oleg P. PICKFORD, J. B. PORDES, F. POW, Hugh J. PRESCOTT, Jon. A. PRYOR, Dr. E. G. c/o The City Hall Library, Edinburgh Place, H.K. Flat 58, 140, Pokfulam Road, H.K. 216, Windsor House, H.K. District Office, Sai Kung, Sai Po Kong Government Offices, 692, Prince Edward Road, Kowloon. 12, Peak Mansions, H.K. Arts Faculty Office, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. 9, Jade House, 47C, Stubbs Road, H.K. Canadian Trade Commission, P.O. Box 126, H.K. P.O. Box 1382, H.K. E/M Dept., Public Works Department, Caroline Hill, H.K. 209, Gloucester Building, H.K. School of Physiotherapy, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kowloon. 67B, Perkins Road, Jardine's Lookout, H.K. Colony Planning Division, Crown Lands & Survey Office, Murray Building, H.K. History Department, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. QUESTED, Mrs. R. K. I. REYNOLDS, W. A. 19, Middleton Towers, 140, Pokfulam Rd., H.K. RICKETT, Mr. & Mrs. E. A. 35A Shouson Hill Road, Deep Water Bay, H.K. RIFKIN, Miss S. B. RITCHIE, D. J. ROBERTSON, Mrs. A. G. ROBERTSON, Mrs. W. G. ROGERS, R. ROPER, C. W. ROSE, Miss Patricia RUDANT, Jacques SALMON, Mrs. P. A. American Consulate General, 26, Garden Road. H.K. Flat A-4, 45, Repulse Bay Road, H.K. 5A, Hatton House, 15, Kotewall Road, H.K. Park Mansions, 4 Mile Taipo Road, Taipo. 1st floor, Kowloon. The Chartered Bank, 10, Granville Road, Kowloon. Police Headquarters, Arsenal Street, H.K. c/o Diocesan Girls' School, 1, Jordan Rd., Kowloon, French Trade Commission, 1505-7 Hang Seng Bank Bldg., 77 Des Voeux Rd., C., H.K. 40, Plantation Road, The Peak, H.K. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: MAO, Dr. P. W. C. - MARKEY, J. C.- MATHEW, D. MATHEWS, D. A. MATHEWS, J. F. MARTIN, Miss R. M. MCCABLE, Mrs. S. J. MCCAHILL, W. - MCELNEY, B. S. MCKINNON, J. W. MELLOR, Mrs. M. - MINERS, Dr. N. J. MINTER, C. J. W. - MORRIS, M. G. MORROW, Miss S. E. MOYLE, G. C. - MULLOY, G. N. NEWBIGGING, D. K. NG, Miss Tonia NG, P. P. K. NGUYET, Mrs. T. NISHIMURA, M. O'HARA, R. ONG, Dr. G. B. - OXLEY, C. W. B. - + + PALMER, Mrs. R. M. + 1 - + + + + - + 255 326-8 Tung Ying Building, 100 Nathan Rd., Kowloon. Estates Office, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Jardine Matheson & Co. Ltd., World Trade Centre, Hong Kong. SM Bowen Road, 3/Fl, Hong Kong, c/o Legal Dept., Central Government Offices, Hong Kong. Flat B 1, 10 Dianthus Road, Yau Yat Chuen, Kowloon. Penthouse 2, Valverde, 11 May Road, Hong Kong. American Consulate, 26 Garden Road, Hong Kong. Johnson Stokes & Master, Hong Kong Bank Building, Hong Kong. New Zealand Commission, 3414 Connaught Centre, Hong Kong. c/o The Secretary's Office, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. 69 Middleton Towers, 140 Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Survey Research Hong Kong Ltd., 10F Development House, 30-32 Queen's Road East, Hong Kong. 504 Tower Court, Hysan Avenue, Hong Kong. Flat 8C, Cambridge Villa, 8-10 Chancery Lane, Hong Kong. 64 Mile Taipo Road, N.T. 6 King's Park, Kowloon, Jardine Matheson & Co. Ltd., Jardine House, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Tourist Association, Connaught Centre 35/F, Hong Kong. 304 Man Yee Building, Hong Kong. Arts of Asia, Metropole Building Rooms 1002-3, 5/F1, Peking Road, Kowloon. Fook On Building, Block 3, 11th FL, 2, Wan Tau Street, Tai Po Market, N.T. City Hall Library, Edinburgh Place, Hong Kong. 10A Skyline Mansion, 51 Conduit Road, Hong Kong. c/o District Office Tai Po, Tai Po, N.T. 2, Old Peak Road 2/F Front, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 ORDINARY LOCAL MEMBERS MORGAN, Ms. V. Elaine, The Library, University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG. MORITZ, Mr. Frederick A., 4B, Sea and Sky Court, 92 Stanley Main Street, Stanley, HONG KONG. MORTON, Mr. R. J. McK., Legal Aid Department, 19/F Sincere Building, 173 Des Voeux Road C., HONG KONG. MOYLE, Mr. G. C., 64 Mile Taipo Road, NEW TERRITORIES. MULLOY, Mr. G. N., Flat C, 1 Homestead Road, The Peak, HONG KONG. NEWBIGGING, Mr. D. K., 35 Mount Kellett Road, The Peak, HONG KONG NG, Dr. Margaret N., Arts Mansion 5/F, Flat C, 43 Wongneichong Road, Happy Valley, HONG KONG NG, Miss Tonia, H.K. Tourist Association, Connaught Centre, 35/F, HONG KONG. NGUYET, Mrs. Tuyet, c/o Arts of Asia, 1309 Kowloon Centre, 29-43 Ashley Road, KOWLOON. O'HARA, Mr. Randolph, c/o The City Hall Library, Edinburgh Place, HONG KONG. OJEDA, Mr. J. de, Spanish Consul General, 1403 Melbourne Plaza, 33 Queen's Road Central, HONG KONG. ONG, Dr. Guan Bee, Dept. of Surgery, University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG. ORR, Mr. I. C., Room 506 Central Govt. Offices, Main Wing, Lower Albert Road, HONG KONG. OUTCH, Mr. W. T., c/o Essex Asia Ltd., 118 Austin Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, KOWLOON. OXLEY, Mr. C. W. B., District Office, Sai Kung, Sai Po Kong Govt. Offices, 792 Prince Edward Road, KOWLOON. PALMER, Mrs. R. M., 2 Old Peak Road, 2/F Front, HONG KONG. PARR, Mr. M. J., c/o Wardley Ltd, G.P.O. Box 8983, HONG KONG. PARRINGTON, Miss June, Arts Faculty Office, University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG. PARRY, Mr. Roger H., c/o The Marine Department, 102 Connaught Road C., HONG KONG. PAUL, Mrs. Anne Carse, 9 Jade House, 47C Stubbs Road, HONG KONG. PEACOCK, Mr. I. R., 5A Manhattan Tower, 63 Repulse Bay Road, HONG KONG. PERESYPKIN, Mr. Oleg P., P.O. Box 1382, HONG KONG. PICKARD, Mrs. Jane, Flat A6, 14 Shouson Hill Road, HONG KONG. 249 ================================================================================ 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-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 201 There were two museums which I intended to visit but as my daughter's birth day approached the time available for such luxuries declined. I wrote to the Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment museum, at Lichfield, Staffordshire, and received a very helpful reply. The 98th Regiment, later the 2nd North Staffords, served in the First China War and in Hong Kong. On display at the museum are a "soldier's watercolour" in the uniform of the period c1840-50. "This also shows a sentry box and the Colours and seems intended to indicate a coastal location. The 'China Dragon' is on the colour and the painting could well relate to the Regiment's subsequent service in Hong Kong (1842-45)". There is an officers' Shako plate (1829-44), an officers' shoulder belt plate, an officers' sword belt clasp (1826-55) and "two buttons, a shoulder numeral and a few other relics of the period, subsequently dug up in Hong Kong". The other museum which I missed was that of the Royal Berkshire Museum, successors to the 49th Regiment, in Salisbury, Wiltshire. My experience in 1983 proved that visitors to England should make a point of calling in at virtually any regimental or army museum that they pass. What may be judged an unimportant relic against the span of centuries of regimental history may be viewed quite differently from a Hong Kong point of view. Not army, but equally interesting, is the National Railway Museum, in York, which might seem an unlikely place to search for souvenirs of China--but it houses what is probably the biggest one in Britain. There, sparkling and gleaming, is a mighty Chinese National Railways Class KF 4-8-4 locomotive. The 93-foot long behemoth was built in the mid-1930s at the Vulcan Foundry, Newton-le-Willows, to haul 600-ton trains over the mountainous central section of the Canton-Hankow Railway. After 43 years in service the locomotive was presented to the museum by China and it left Shanghai for England in 1981. The sheer size of this monster makes it stand out and it looked to me far and away the biggest in the extensive collection. The engine weighs in at 114.9 tons with a 77-ton tender. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 225 Hayes, James, The Hong Kong Region, 1850-1911, Hamden, Conn., 1977. Herrman, Albert, An Historical Atlas of China, Edinburgh, 1966. Hook, Brian (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China, Cambridge, 1982. Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, 1961. Lethbridge, H. J., Hong Kong: Stability and Change, Hong Kong, 1978. Needham, J., Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge, (series still in progress). 1953- + Ng, Peter Y. L., New Peace County: a Chinese Gazetteer of the Hong Kong Region, Hong Kong, 1983. Watt, John R., The District Magistrate in Late Imperial China, New York, 1972. Wu Ching-tzu, The Scholars, Peking, 1957. Of all the books I have quoted from, three stand out as my clear favourites. J. J. M. De Groot's Religious System of China is such a mine of information and so well supported with Chinese quotations that it could, I think, have supplied almost everything I wanted on the religious side. J. Dyer Ball's Things Chinese, with its idiosyncratic treatment of Chinese culture under such headings as 'Topsyturvydom', 'Forfeits', 'Mendicants' and 'Lighthouses', betrays a sound knowledge and excellent if cynical understanding. And the Rev. Justus Doolittle's Social Life of the Chinese, based mainly on observations in Fukien province, gives a broad coverage of Chinese society in a systematic and very readable way. Happily, all three of these books have recently been reprinted, two of them in Taiwan, and Ball in Hong Kong. Between them they have delighted readers for over 270 years and there seems no reason to suppose that they will not continue to do so for centuries to come. I dare to hope that all the titles listed in this note will serve to spread that delight even further, by encouraging the reader to wander further into the mysteries of Chineseness. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 212 Kong CT. London Missionary Society Archives, South China, April 24, 1845: Legge writes to the headquarters, sending copies of Collie's work to them. C Andrew J Nathan, "The Place of Values in Cross-Cultural Studies: The Example of Democracy and China", in Paul A. Cohen and Merle Goldman, eds., Ideas Across Cultures: Essays on Chinese Thought in Honor of Benjamin I. Schwartz (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1990), pp. 293-314. I quote here the three relevant sections. **After World War II] relativism especially recommended itself as a corrective to our society's nineteenth and early twentieth-century missionary impulses... that their way of life was not going to sweep the world.... (Ibid. p 296). **The relativist position |-| adopted in order to prevent missionary zeal from clouding our understanding of the non-Western world |. led in some cases to an equal but opposite kind of self-deception”. (Ibid. p 304). "Evaluative universalism by no means requires a return to the missionary mode of promoting Western values. It is not a call for proselytism but an expression of the belief, first, that value differences when they exist can, and can only, be honestly expressed, and second, that beliefs originating in different societies can fruitfully be confronted with one another, compared, and judged, even though disagreement is expected to persist”. (Ibid. pp 312-313). Recorded in Legge's autobiographical account entitled "Notes of My Life" (pp. 25-27), kept now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. 12 These books are Paraphrasis Psalmorum Davidis Poetica (n.p., 1566) and Rerum Scoticorum Historia (ed. apud A. Arbuthnetum, 1582). English translations of both were available in Legge's time. Li This version was apparently intended as a replacement of the earlier rendition of The Book Of Poetry published by Legge in 1871. It was a completely revised text of both the verse and the commentarial notes. Because it only included the English text and not the Chinese text which appeared in the first edition, however, the later Oxford edition of 1893-1895 republished the earlier text. A comparison of this earlier rendition with the second edition (which others called Legge's "metrical“ Shijing "jén) would display the kind of discipline Legge had as a translator of classical texts. See James Legge, The Chinese Classics: translated into English, with Preliminary Essays And Explanatory Notes – Vol III: The She King; or, The Book Of Odes (London: Trübner & Co., 1876). See also Alfred Lister, "Dr. Legge's Metrical Shi-King", The China Review 5:1 (July 1876), pp. 1-8. 11 This Hebrew Psalter was prepared with a twenty-seven page introductory essay which included some critical commentary, and over three hundred pages of metrical paraphrases of the Psalms. Legge's position in presenting the Psalter was primarily meditative and not textual-critical; neither did this tome contain the kind of extensive commentarial apparatus which The Chinese Classics always included. Perhaps it is for some of these reasons that the manuscript was never published. It is now kept in the library of New College at the University of Edinburgh. 14 The printed text of this poetic summary of Chinese history I found in the Oriental Studies Library in Oxford. It was clearly planned and printed as part of some larger work. For the value of "cherishing the old", see the Analects 2:11, The Chinese Classics: Vol 1, op. cit., p. 49. Han Yu's opposition to Buddhist and Taoist superstitions, his courageous attack on their spiritual deceptions, and his consequent punishment must have stood as a courageous example to Legge. Han's specific interest in the old style, and his influence in stimulating interest in the renewed study of ancient texts and writing styles, parallels some of Legge's own interests. 17 After graduating from King's College, the young James spent time with his father ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 114 of it are hard to come by One of the best-known sources in English, whose descriptions I shall speak of later, is Charles G. Leland. In his book, "Pidgin-English Sing-song" published in 1876, Leland polishes off his introduction to the language with the words: "There are, in all, not more than thirty altogether foreign or strange words in ordinary use, and a number of these are familiar to all persons of the least general information. What remains can present no difficulty to anyone who can understand negro minstrelsy or baby talk" To the modern person who has not lived in the Pacific Islands or Papua New Guinea, Pidgin English brings to mind partly apochryphal stories of Duke-of-Edinburgh worship and terms like "mixmaster-bilong-Jesus" (a helicopter) and "big-man-box-you-bash-him-teeth-he-cry" (a grand piano). We have set the background to the article. Before we go further, let's just remind ourselves what China Coast Pidgin English spoken in the later part of the last century really did sound like. Listen carefully for the baby talk. "O-lo dim Hongkong sai hab dou-mat-ji man tok-gi Ying-li-sı a-la sim mai. Je-sı naau no hap gat; a-la daat man go dai. Je-si naau mai ding-ki you no gen hi-ya wan pr-si Chee-na man tok-gi long daat o-lo dim man sim, fa-san. ++ Historical background Macau was occupied by the Portuguese in 1557. They had previously been trading with south China for many years from a place called, in Portuguese, Lampacau Dr Graciete Batalha, who has carried out extensive research on the Portuguese dialect of Macao (Glossario do Dialecto Macaense, Instituto Cultural de Macau. 1988 from original articles published from 1971-1977), has formed the opinion that during this early period of the development of the Macau "patoa”, the formative influence was not so much the way that Chinese people learned to speak Portuguese, but the manner in which the Macau Portuguese formed the habit of speaking to the Chinese in the Portuguese language. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x FRIENDS OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH IN THE UNITED KINGDOM It only seems like yesterday that I was reporting on the Society's activities in its first year of existence, and now your ever energetic President is reminding me that the second report is now due. And what a pleasure it is to report because we have succeeded in surviving another year: it now looks as if we have a sufficiently sound base to move forward for several more years. For this happy state of affairs we have not only to thank all those on the committee but also to the great encouragement we have received from our friends in Hong Kong; indeed it gave us great pleasure to welcome your President, Dr Dan Waters at our first annual general meeting in May 1999, at which he kindly gave us a very enlightening and personal impression of the changes in Hong Kong during his lifetime and reminding us all of the great changes that have taken place over fifty years or more. Members of the Society now number around 80 (provided they have all paid their subscriptions and most of them have!). However, they are scattered far and wide; not only do they live in the London area, but there are members from Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Ireland, and even Hong Kong itself. Welcome as this interest is, (and I do not think it is purely nostalgic interest) it is difficult to cater for such a wide spread membership. So far we have been meeting around once a quarter in London and in the last year we had: a) May 1999-Lecture by Dr Dan Waters. b) October 1999-Visit to the British Museum to view the collection of Sir Aurel Stein. The Friends were very privileged to be shown some of the undisplayed objects by the curator Dr Anne Farrer. A masterful account by Dr Paul Bolding of this visit has now been sent to your Council and a copy can be obtained from your President. c) Visit by an intrepid few to Durham and Edinburgh led by Keith Stevens. xxii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 169 economy and the experience of emigration and global diaspora have surely been crucial (cf. Wang Gungwu 1994). "The post-colonial is about the diasporic consciousness", complains Friedman (1999), defining it as a 'discourse of hybridity' concerned with a 'conscious critique of the colonial in all its forms, from the economic to the cultural'." And it is in this context that I should like to raise the question of nostalgia and its power to overcome barriers of time and space. Jon Mitchell, a former colleague of mine in Edinburgh, has described how a displaced urban Maltese community made use of nostalgia as a 'strategic resource' to reconstruct through imaginary means a vanished community and a sense of community which had been inevitably destroyed (Mitchell 1998), and similar work has taken place for the Algerian-Jewish community in France.1 More detailed work by Paerregord (1997) on migrants returning to their native village in the Peruvian Andes contrasts nostalgic images with other kinds of image which are held by different groups of migrants and which affect life back in the village in different ways. Nostalgia implies the displacement from an origin, and in an age of the flexible accumulation of capital (Harvey 1989) and globalised flows of people, commodities and signs (Lash and Urry 1994) in which local contexts have become increasingly problematised as imaginary constructs, the emotion of nostalgia provides perhaps the most important and appropriate vehicle for the sentimental articulation of links between the global and the local, the present and the past. As the direct corollary to the idealism of utopianism, the idealism of nostalgia adopts a temporal structure, expressing a dissatisfaction, an unease or disenchantment with the present, together with a yearning for an imagined, or recollected, what-went-before. Lowenthal (1985) reminds us that nostalgia (like melancholy and consumption) was for a long time thought of as a particular disease. In the seventeenth century nostalgia was common among travellers far from their native homes, who pined and sighed for their remembered pasts, in a kind of anomie which has probably always had a particular association with travelling, and with the Voyage which was to become institutionalised through the European Grand Tour pioneered by the Romantics. Nosos (return to native land) with algia (suffering). Hong Kong has often enough been characterised as a forward-looking 16 17 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 230 Chinese Son, pp. 115-116). For a fuller account of Taiping demonology, see the article on “Taiping Tiânguó de 'móguï'” (“The ‘Devil' in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom") by Wang Qingchéng in his book, Taiping Tianguó de lìshí hé sixiang (The History and Ideology of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom) (Běijing: Zhōnghuá Book Co., 1985), pp. 328 ff. From another perspective it must be remembered that Christian missionaries in the 19th century also regularly employed demonology to express their frustations with obstructive Qing officials, Chinese cultural attitudes, and opposing religious alternatives. 46. Quoted in David Johnson, “Communication, Class and Consciousness in Late Imperial China,” p. 47, 47. A helpful biographical account of Burns' career is written by I. Hamilton, "Burns, William Chalmers" in Nigel M. de S. Cameron, et. al., eds., Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), pp. 114-115. 48. First published in Amoy (now Xiàmén) in 1853 and repeatedly published in various revisions in Hong Kong, Canton, and Shanghai for many years, the copy of this work I have seen is entitled Tianlu lichéng túhuà (Pilgrim's Progress in the Local Language [Cantonese]) (City of Sheep [i.e. Canton]: Huishi litang, tenth year of the Tongzhi reign [i.e. 1871]). 49. This Chinese conception of conversion has also been discussed in Lauren Pfister's "A Transmitter but not a Creator." 53 50. According to Paul Reuter, international standards and institutions for settling treaty disputes were first put into place in Europe in the 1870s, and so the only formal way of advancing political agendas at this time was through war. This single and often overlooked historical fact manifestly shaped the whole situation, so that local Chinese residents could only consider the foreign military presence as a preamble to a full invasion by an even "more foreign" power—the Manchurian elite. Consult the initial pages of Paul Reuter, Introduction to the Law of Treaties, trns. José Miro and Peter Haggenmacher (London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1995). than 51. EMMC/MM (September 1857), p. 207, the quotations coming from the translation of a dictated document prepared by Ch'ea for Legge and Ho in May 1857. 52. Legge himself had vomited twice from consuming some of the bread, one of the first to feel its effects because it was his habit to rise early and work on his project related to the Chinese Classics. See reports of the trial against Cheong Alum in the China Mail, a three-page "Extra Edition," dated February 7, 1857, and Legge's own recollections in his public lecture (presented on November 5, 1872) entitled "The Colony of Hong Kong." Legge's lecture was later published in the China Review 1:3 (1872-1873), pp. 163-176. An edited version of this essay was published as a centennial recollection in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 11 (1971), pp. 172-193. A helpful article revealing details about this event is "Cheung Ah-lum: A Biographical Note”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 24 (1984), pp. and 53. The last phrase is quoted in Helen Legge, James Legge: Missionary Scholar, p. 103, from an unknown letter she claims came from a missionary in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 362 May 1859 after the departure of Sir John Bowring, but was revived with the approval of the parent Society in London and reconstituted as the Hong Kong Branch in December 1959 under the active patronage of the Governor, Sir Robert Black. It is currently very active and is in a sound financial position. The Library Similar to other branches, the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society set up a collection of books within its field of interest, relating to Asia and its culture. As a result of the merger with the Medico-Chirurgical Society, it had the benefit of inheriting all the books from this Society. The Society in Hong Kong was not as fortunate as its Shanghai counterpart where the Government, in 1868, provided a site for its building at a nominal rent and later granted it in perpetuity to the Society.2 For many years, the Hong Kong Branch did not have any permanent site, and thus its collection moved from place to place. In the early days, in 1849, as allowed by the then governor Sir S. G. Bonham, the collection was housed in a room at the Supreme Court building where the Society had its meetings. In 1859, when the Society ran into difficulties, the, by now, valuable collection of 400 books was placed in trust with the Morrison Education Society (formed in Canton in 1835) which, from 1855, had also kept its library in the Supreme Court house. In November 1869, when the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Colony to open the first City Hall, the Morrison Education Society presented its own library as well as that of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society to the first City Hall Public Library to serve as the reference collection. This laid the corner stone for the future relationship of the Society with the Hong Kong Public Libraries which eventually would become the permanent home for the Society's collection. In fact, following the resuscitation of the Hong Kong Branch in 1959, the President's first annual report stressed the need for ‘a meeting place of our own where we can build our Oriental library which should fill a special need'3 and expressed the hope that some accommodation could be made available in the City Hall. However, this was not realized until after several movements of both the Society and the collection. ================================================================================