RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING 61 acquire at Peking a site for Building, or may hire Houses, for the accommodation of Her Majesty's mission, and that the Chinese Government will assist it in so doing". Then, when the Imperial Government appeared to procrastinate over the ratification of these treaties, another English and French force fought its way to the capital and compelled the Manchu authorities to ratify them by the Convention of Peking. This was signed by the British envoy, Lord Elgin,1 and by Prince Kung,2 the chief Chinese representative, on October 24th, 1860 in the Hall of Ceremonies situated in what was later to be called Legation Street. The second clause of the Convention stated that "Her Britannic Majesty's Representative will henceforward reside permanently, or occasionally, at Peking, as Her Britannic Majesty shall be pleased to decide”. Lord Elgin proposed that Prince Kung's own residence should be rented to the British, but Prince Kung memorialized the throne as follows: As regards the matter of the English residing at the capital in the near future, we have been discussing it with them during the past few days. The chief barbarian official [Lord Elgin] considers that the quarters in Prince I's [Prince Kung] palace are spacious and he insists that it is to be their future residence at the capital. Moreover, he stated that there were still open spaces in the palace and that he wants to build houses there himself. It seems to your ministers that to 1 James Bruce, eighth Earl of Elgin. He served as Governor-General of Canada 1846-1854. In 1857 he was appointed envoy extraordinary to China and signed the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858, returning to England early in 1859. In 1860 he was again sent to China as special envoy, and signed the Convention of Peking. He returned to England in 1861 and was appointed Governor-General of India in the same year. He died in India in 1863. His younger brother Frederick William Bruce held the post of Colonial Secretary at Hong Kong from 9 February 1844 until 27 June 1846. In 1857 he accompanied his elder brother to China as principal secretary. He was appointed minister plenipotentiary to the Emperor of China in December 1858, but had to wait until March 1861 before actually taking up residence in Peking. He left China on his appointment as British Minister to Washington in 1865. 2 I-hsin (1833-1898), the first Prince Kung, was the sixth son of Emperor Tao-kuang. When the joint French and British forces approached Peking in September 1860 the Emperor Hsien-feng fled to Jehol leaving his half-brother, Prince Kung, to make peace with the allies. When a prototype Chinese foreign office, the Tsungli Yamen, was set up in 1861, Prince Kung was in charge of it, and he played an important part in Chinese affairs for the next fifteen years. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING 63 These extracts give the official Chinese version of how the British came to occupy their first Legation quarters, and agree closely with Lord Elgin's own account contained in a despatch to Lord John Russell, the Foreign Secretary, dated Tientsin, 13th November 1860: On the 7th instant Mr. Bruce reached Peking, having hastened up from Shanghae in compliance with my request. His arrival was most opportune, as it was very important that before my departure from the capital I should be able to confer with him on various matters, and more especially on the subject of the place of residence for the future of Her Majesty's Representative in China. Mr. Bruce informed me that he was perfectly willing to take up his abode in Peking at once. On consultation with Baron Gros and General Ignatieff, however, I found that the latter was about to leave Peking for the winter, and that the former was of opinion that it would not be advisable that M. de Bourboulon should establish himself in the capital until the spring. I considered it, therefore, to be my duty to advise Mr. Bruce to return with me for the present to Tien-tsin, and to remain there until a suitable residence should be provided for him in the capital. In order, however, that there might be no misapprehension on the part of the Chinese Government in reference to this point, we selected a house which we thought might be adapted to the purpose, and which was procurable on easy terms, and we accepted the services of Mr. Adkins, one of the Student Interpreters, a very promising young man, who volunteered to remain at Peking, and to superintend the arrangements necessary for putting it in order. Harry Parkes, who was Lord Elgin's interpreter at this time, writing to his wife on November 17th 1860 gave a few more details: Peking is in a wretched state of dilapidation and ruin, and scarcely one of their palatial buildings is not falling into decay. We have obtained one of the best, and yet it is quite * Elgin to Russell, 13 November 1860. Parliamentary Papers, “Correspondence Respecting Affairs in China 1859-60", 2754 of 1861, No. 119, p. 254. See also ibid. p. 259 for a note from T. Adkins to Frederick Bruce dated Peking, 12 November 1860, reporting that the capital was returning to normal and that he had found no opposition to his residence there. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 64 J. L. CRANMER-BYNG uninhabitable according to our notions, and we therefore tell the Chinese that the Minister is obliged to postpone taking up his residence until the residence is fit to receive him. Mr. Adkins is therefore charged with the task of repairs, and in March of next year or possibly earlier Mr. Bruce expects to take up his quarters there. His arrival at Peking before we quitted it was a happy hit. Formal interviews took place between Lord Elgin and Prince Kung at which the former introduced his brother and abdicated in his favour; so that before we quitted Peking Mr. Bruce had commenced his business with the Chinese authorities, while that of the Special Embassy terminated.7 So interpreter Adkins remained alone in the Palace of Duke I-liang throughout the winter of 1860-61, until in March 1861 Bruce set out from Tientsin, accompanied by Thomas Wade, his interpreter, and Dr. Rennie, physician to the new Legation. Colonel Neale, the Secretary of the Legation, with two attachés, St. Clair and Wyndham, had gone ahead with the baggage. We are fortunate to have a detailed account of the first year at the British Legation kept by Dr. Rennie. In the Preface to his book Peking and the Pekingese he explained that "a few months after Her Majesty's Legation had been established in Peking, a feeling began to be entertained by its members, that, with a view to future publication, some record should be kept of the various incidents which were from day to day occurring, during what may be termed the inaugural period of foreign diplomatic residence at the capital—the most important event in the modern history of Anglo-Chinese intercourse." Since Rennie had been keeping 7 Quoted in The Life of Sir Harry Parkes by Stanley Lane-Poole, 2 vols., (London, 1894), I, 404-5. Parkes was born in 1828, and came out to China in 1841 to join his two sisters who were living with their cousin, the wife of the Protestant missionary, the Rev. Charles Gutzlaff. Parkes was attached to Sir Henry Pottinger's suite in the expedition up the Yangtze in 1842 and witnessed the signing of the Treaty of Nanking. He started to learn Chinese and at the age of fifteen was attached to the British Consulate at Canton. Many appointments as interpreter and consul followed until 1865 when he was appointed Minister to Japan. In 1883 he became British Minister at Peking. He died in 1885. * D. F. Rennie, Peking and the Pekingese during the First Year of the British Embassy at Peking, 2 vols. (London, 1865) vii. Page 75 Page 76 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 68 J. L. CRANMER-BYNG and shown the sights of Peking. This became an agreeable task for the members of the Legation, and there was a constant stream of visitors to Peking enjoying the hospitality of the old Legation right up until its closure in 1959. One of the earliest of these visitors was Sir Robert Hart, the Acting Inspector-General of the Chinese Customs. Meanwhile the business of engaging Chinese clerks, gate keepers, and language teachers proceeded. At various times Rennie mentions such familiar things as burglaries within the Legation, and the virulence of the mosquitoes. By now the Legation was the haunt of curio dealers, many of the things they had to offer being of real value, since the destruction of part of the old Summer Palace by the British and French forces had occurred as recently as the previous autumn, and a great deal of loot was now in Chinese hands. In fact, what with buying antiques, conducting visitors round the sights of Peking, and going to the Western Hills in the summer the members of the foreign legations had already set a pattern during their first year in Peking which has continued much the same until the present. The local craftsmen found nothing beyond their capacities, and one Chinese tailor made a fine new Union Jack with the old one to copy from. Rennie remarks: "The Peking tailors have already mastered the making of European clothing, and several members of the Legation have had things made by them". The total number of Europeans in the three legations (English, French and Russian) was twenty-two. The first American minister to reside at Peking did not reach the capital until July, 1862. On 23 August, 1861 Rennie records: "We have been busy to-day getting ready for Her Majesty's Foreign Office a large bird's-eye view of the Leang-koong-foo, made by a Chinese artist. Figures for reference have been painted on it by Colonel Neale, and a key also made. The drawing is very exact, every building being carefully depicted." In October buildings next to the Legation on the south side were bought by the British Government from a brother of Duke I-liang. This new area was leased to a medical missionary, William Lockhart, who wanted to set up a medical mission in Peking. By January 1862 the extensive alterations to the Legation had come to an end, and the Chinese interpreter, who had made a good harvest of 'squeeze' out of it, now resigned and departed for Tientsin where the foreign troops were stationed. The time ran out. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING 77 Queen. While we were waiting for our examiner, a sudden desire seized Gordon to show his loyalty, after the custom of the country; so he dropped down in front of the portrait, and solemnly knocked his head nine times on the floor, kotowing in proper form. He seemed much inspirited by it, and had a feeling that he was now in some way under the special tutelage of Her Majesty, and could be trusted to floor the paper. The impression given by Wilkinson's account is that student life in Peking at that period held much that was enjoyable. However, there was plenty of work for them to do on being sent to their posts. As one observer wrote in 1900 "Our Legation ... is a bigger establishment than that of any other country, owing to the fact that the British Consular Corps in China has exceptionally large requirements. In the Legation the Student Interpreters, who subsequently become Consular Assistants and Consuls, learn the language of their adopted country and to some extent their future political, judicial and commercial work. After two years at Peking they move on to a Treaty Port and begin to put theory into practice. There are often as many as twenty of them in Peking at a time, besides an efficient staff of older men who act as the Chinese Secretaries.”21 Meanwhile trouble was imminent and another visitor at this same period mentions the marines. Describing the Legation Quarter he wrote: "The familiar redcoats of British marines drilling on the lawn lent perhaps an extra touch of homeliness to the well-kept grounds. For in view of possible troubles, most of the foreign legations were provided last winter [1895- Ed.] with a special guard drawn from the fleets in the Gulf of Tchih-li. They have since been for the greater part withdrawn. ... As if to heighten the contrast, the Chinese authorities had also assigned to each legation a special guard of their own braves who were encamped along Legation Street. In 1900 the marines were to lend a more than homely touch to the scene inside the Legation. By mid-May of that year the anti-foreign massacres inspired by the Boxers had alarmed the Europeans, who were coming into Peking for protection. 20 Ibid., 266-7. 21 Clive Bingham, A Year in China 1899-1900 (London, 1901), 47-8. 22 Valentine Chirol, The Far Eastern Question (London, 1896), 42-3. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 82 J. L. CRANMER-BYNG expansion. Thus a new student-interpreters' mess was built and also a new house for the Counsellor in a pleasant garden. A barrack was also built for the Legation guard on the site of the former Chinese Board of Works, Board of War, and Court of State Ceremonies, an area with historic associations. The barracks were large enough to house 500 men though normally not more than 100 were stationed there at any one time. As a result of this enlargement the British Legation now covered about thirty-five acres, and was the largest foreign Legation in Peking. While this reconstruction was going forward the opportunity was taken to make the Legation more self-contained so that if ever it were again besieged it would be in a better state to resist. With this object in view the Ministry of Works built a thoroughly ugly electricity power-plant and a water tower. A large coal dump was also formed so that now the Legation had its own supply of water, coal and electricity. Gradually memories of the siege became less vivid and life settled down into a routine which was much the same as before the siege. Perhaps the only difference was that by 1908 there were signs of some modernization in Peking itself such as macadam roads, handsome cabs and electric light. Meanwhile visitors to Peking continued to enjoy the hospitality of those living in the British Legation, and no clear change can be seen until 1928 when the Kuomintang was victorious over the Northern warlords and the capital was established at Nanking. As a result the British Ambassador moved south of the Yangtze and resided mainly at the British Consulate in Shanghai while the majority of his staff moved to Nanking, though the student-interpreters continued to study at the Legation in Peking which now became a Consulate. When war broke out between England and Japan in December 1941 some British nationals and American nationals, who were sick or elderly, were interned in the Legation. The Swiss Consul looked after the buildings, aided by Chinese employed by Her Majesty's Ministry of Works. The buildings were reoccupied as a Consulate at the end of the war, but in 1948 the Chinese Communists captured Peking, and at first the government of the Chinese Peoples' Republic refused to recognize the status of the British Consulate there. However, in January ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 399 in whose compound His Majesty's Legation and the United States Embassy are situated. An American guard of honour fired a salute and the Last Post was sounded. Members of the press corps acted as pall-bearers.'113 Mr. Morrison's last report for the paper was published on the same day as his death on 12 August 1950.2 He was 37 when he was killed. Firing the salute The Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial lists Mr. Morrison thus:13 IAN MORRISON News Organization: THE TIMES Killed 1950 Location: South Korea Bio: Killed Aug. 12 when a land mine blew up under his jeep. He was his newspaper's chief correspondent for southwest Asia. During World War II he covered the Pacific, surviving two plane crashes. At various times he suffered from dengue fever, tropical ulcers, amoebic dysentery and malaria. He was also wounded twice covering combat action, in 1943 and 1945. Morrison was 37. ================================================================================