RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x
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of bonnes bouches relating to him and his family. The information, its presentation and language tell us more about William Mesny than about Chinese life. A considerable part of his writings consisted of piecemeal notes or essays written to emphasize, probably unconsciously, both his prominent standing with important Chinese and his foresight as a man of ideas. He played up so many of the episodes in which he was involved that it is difficult not to minimise and even to discount what in practice must have been his quite significant achievements. Three major subjects regularly featured in Mesny's Miscellanies, his economic and political foresight which was inevitably spurned by westerners and Chinese alike; his activities as part of the Chinese imperial military forces in Kueichou quelling a rebellious minority ethnic group; and his wives and women in general.

In one of his forthright, self-congratulatory moments he wrote, "The Editor of Mesny's Chinese Miscellany feels that he has a sort of an inspired mission in China to set forth, preach and proclaim the inspiring and magic-working words of Reform and Progress to the inquiring multitudes amongst China's 400 million black-haired people.'

William Mesny (pronounced “May-knee' in Jersey), was brought up in the bilingual Channel Island community speaking English and French. He left home when he was nearly twelve to travel far afield but without ever losing pride in being a Jerseyman and British.

Mesny was born at La Croiserie Vingtaine in the parish of Trinity in Jersey on 9 October 1842, the eldest son of William Mesny of Alderney and Marie Rachel née Nicolle, second daughter of Philip Nicolle of du Nord, Jersey. Mesny's father was described in one place as a cobbler, a local preacher preaching several times a year in French and English Wesleyan chapels, and a member of the Royal militia (probably the Jersey Militia). Mesny writing elsewhere in his Miscellany described his parents as poor; his mother was 'bed-ridden' and his father, though a Wesleyan local preacher, was forced to work for a living in attendance on divers engaged in the harbour works, and often repaired his own shoes to save the expense of having them repaired at a shoemaker's. Mesny's father and his grandfather, Guillaume Mesny, were both said to be of St Martin, Jersey, whilst Mesny himself claimed that his roots lay in the ancient family of Megny d'Auregny [i.e. Auregny Alderney]. It has also been recorded that Mesny's father and grandfather had both been born and brought up in Alderney with the father moving to Jersey at some stage. Guillaume's brothers included the great grandfather of Miss Lucie
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x
28

[yun-yen].

In October 1874, at the age of 32, Mesny returned to Hankow from Kueichou with the rank of Major-General and, he claimed, an excellent letter of recommendation from the Governor of Kueichou, addressed to Prince Kung and the Ministers of the Tsung-li Yamen in Peking. In 1886 he was promoted to the brevet rank of Lieutenant-General.

In his autobiographical ‘obituary' in the North China Herald, Mesny wrote "The confirmation of my rank as a Major-General in the Chinese Army with the decoration of the Kualing [hua-ling] Plume, the order of the Pa-t'u-lu and promotion to be Brevet Lieutenant-General, with ancestors ennobled for three generations, was published in the Peking gazette, and the documents handed to me by the British Legation officials at Peking, and by the British Consul at Canton": His decoration, the San-tai Erh-pin Kao-feng, an honorary title and patent of retrospective rank conferred upon meritorious officials, their wives and their immediate ancestors for three generations, was recommended to the Throne by the Governor of Kueichou, Ts’en Yü-ying, in 1879. [Grandfather Guillaume Mesny, who had died many, many years earlier and who was now presumably in the Afterworld, must have been most surprised, to say the least!]

Mesny also handed out awards and decorations: During his first campaign in Kueichou, Mesny had a supply of Meritorious Warrants (kung-p'ai [which confers the right of the recipient to wear a button on his hat, normally the fifth or sixth degree with blue feathers]). His supply was already sealed with the commander-in-chief's seal, and Mesny bestowed them on meritorious men after each battle, adding the name of the recipient, the date, etc., and Mesny's own seal. He also had hundreds of the Military Silver Medal [Chung-kung Yin-pai] made during the war in Kueichou from 1867-1874, at his own expense, and bestowed them as rewards to deserving soldiers. It consisted of a thin piece of silver about three and a half inches at its longest diameter, with a slit in it for a ribbon, and the character Shang "Bestowed" in repoussé work stamped upon it.

His ranks and grades during his service with the Chinese Imperial forces are a more complex subject and one that is far from clear from Mesny's own writings. He portrayed himself as having 'senior' mandarin rank, and this has been reflected in one of the postage stamps produced by the Jersey Post Office in 1992, on which he is depicted as a 'Mandarin'.
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