RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983
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From 1860 there is, firstly, a collection of China Medals and related items and eight drawings by a Royal Marines Light Infantry officer who served in the Second China War. There is also a vase and a gilded, seated, Buddha which were taken from the Summer Palace in that year.

The Marines were involved in the fighting occasioned by the Boxer uprising in 1900, and the Museum holds a number of relics of this involvement. A Boxer flag is, for instance, on display. This was captured by Sgt. Preston, Royal Marines Light Infantry, on the walls of Peking on July 14, 1900, an act for which he was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal. The notes explain that Preston kept the Boxers at bay while an American Marine seized the flag.

A Victoria Cross was won at about the same date which is commemorated by the display of a large pike. This was captured by the RMLI detachment during the siege of the Legations. Captain L.S.T. Holliday led a sortie during which he had half a lung shot away. He later became Adjutant General of the Royal Marines and when he died in 1966 at the age of 95 he was the oldest holder of the VC. A squat, gape-mouthed, mortar about two feet high is also on show. This was seized at the capture of the Taku forts in 1900. A large brass shell case used by the Quick Firing guns at the Taku Forts is mounted in the museum as a gong. The case has the name Berndorfer stamped upon it, an Austrian firm.

Next came a quick visit to the National Army Museum, in Chelsea, London. Among the items which I spotted there were the following, and I am sure there must be others which I missed.

There is a large, full-length, portrait of Sir Hugh Gough, by an unknown artist. He is shown with what looks to be an Indian servant buckling on his sword and is impressively bemedalled. A tall, slim, figure, with a white moustache, the General was in his fifties or sixties when the picture was painted. A silver model pagoda commemorating the Treaty of Nanking, August 1860, is on loan from the present Viscount Gough. It was made by Richard Hennell and is hallmarked London 1860-61.

A long rampart gingall, manufactured at South Tientsin Arsenal in 1895 slants diagonally across a case which also features
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v
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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.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794
383

MONUMENT

TO THE WESTMORELAND REGIMENT THE 55TH REGIMENT OF FOOT

IN

DINGHAI CITY ON ZHOUSHAN ISLAND

KEITH STEVENS AND JENNIFER WELCH

In October 1998 the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society organised a visit for members to Ningbo [Ningpo] and Zhoushan Island [Chusan Island] off the East coast of China in the archipelago of the same name. The object of the visit to Dinghai, the county capital of the archipelago, was to try and follow the course of the British military campaign there during the First and Second China Wars, the First being the so-called Opium War of 1840-1842 and the Second, the Arrow War of 1856-1860, and see if any monuments to the British victory and subsequent occupation remained. In particular we were looking for the military cemetery and tombstones.

The Chinese guide who met us in Ningbo and who was to accompany us to Dinghai was most doubtful about our mission. We did not think she was even aware that the British Army had been on Zhoushan 150 years ago. However by the time our ferry docked at Dinghai, maps relating to the campaign, which had been brought along with us, had been studied in detail, together with an account by the Reverend Wright.

In Dinghai our first call was at the local museum where we collected the Curator. We were most fortunate in that he was interested in the China Wars, and not only knew the accounts - albeit from the Chinese point of view - but was able to lead us to the sites of action, and to the one remaining monument to the British.

During the two China Wars Zhoushan had its moments of glory in history after which both conflicts gradually faded from both British national and Chinese local memories. Between the 5th of July 1840 when the city of Dinghai fell before a British attack for the first time, and the 5th of June 1846 when the British restored Zhoushan to the Chinese, the island was ruled twice by the British with its claim to fame as the first Chinese territory ever to be occupied and controlled
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g
201

us and welcomed us, at the same time giving a brief background history of his library. With very limited resources, he has made good use of his previous 20 years experience with the National Museum to bring order and inspiration to his new project. There are a great many books in the Bhutanese language, mainly on Buddhist issues, and an increasing number of books in English and other foreign languages. We increased this number further by presenting the library with a full set of HKBRAS Journals.

Lunch was in the delightfully named Plum's Café, including a slice of their famous apple pie. As shopping never seemed to be far from the thoughts of us Honkies, a visit to Choki Handicrafts and then the National Handicrafts Emporium sated the appetite sufficiently to face the next leg of the journey.

This was to be an enormous climb up to the Dochu-la pass (10,140 feet), being the gateway to the Wangdiphodrang Valley. The weather had been fine on the trip so far, but coming to the top of the pass the clouds descended, and with them came snow. However, as luck would have it, just as the army of RAS photographers took up their positions the clouds lifted, a rainbow appeared and we were offered enormous vistas of Himalayan peaks stretching off to the west. Thereafter the weather became (and stayed) clear as a bell.

That bell rings a name

Did I say bell? Was that a yak approaching? No. In one of the handicraft shops in Thimpu, Brian had bought himself a brass bell. We were to hear that bell a lot in the coming days. It was to become his method of signalling to his unruly brood that it was time to board the buses and move on. So effective was it that when a “real” bell sounded in one of the temples, it had the effect of causing a stampede to the transport by all of us - except, of course, Brian.

From the heights of the pass it was a very long and bouncy ride down to the hotel in Punakha at 4,300 feet. Thankfully, it was an early dinner and early to bed. Orders had already been issued for a 6:15 a.m. wake-up the following day. Even though the guide told us that we were in a sub-tropical climate zone, I had to break open my Chinese Emporium silk long johns before climbing in to bed. (Any man thinking
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390
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Africa in 1917. Apparently, in October 1993, a squad of Queen's Gurkha Engineers went up to the Peak one night with a truck and a crane and purloined the Middlesex Boulder.

Not everyone used the word outrage, as did Booth. Nevertheless, the general reaction among Hong Kong citizens who take an interest in local history was that this fascinating and moving colonial memorial belonged to Hong Kong and to take it away was 'naughty' to say the least. There were others, however, who felt it would be better cared for by the Middlesex Regiment in England.

In 2001, the Boulder was spotted by Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch members outside the National Army Museum in Chelsea. This is 'formally and legally the Museum of the Middlesex Regiment and stands within the county of Middlesex.' I wrote to the Director of the Museum, the late Ian G. Robertson MA FMA, who was helpful. He pointed out that he did not have a hand in moving the Stone and did not know the underlying circumstances. I, in turn, pointed out that the plaque on the Boulder was difficult to read and needed cleaning. Mr. Robertson responded by saying care needed to be taken not to use destructive techniques. He did, however, say the intention was to move the Boulder inside the Museum at a later date.

In 2003, I was informed by RAS members that the Boulder had indeed been moved inside and placed in a permanent gallery. It is said to have been donated to the National Army Museum by the Middlesex Regimental Association. I was able to visit the Museum on 3 June 2004. The original plaque, which is still on the Boulder, reads:

This stone memorial was erected by Lieutenant John Ward, Commanding Officer, in memory of those men of the 25th Battalion The Middlesex Regiment who died when the troopship TYNDAREUS struck a German mine off Cape Agulhas, South Africa, on 6th February 1917. The Battalion had embarked in England and were en route to Hong Kong to carry out garrison duties. There is no doubt that the exemplary conduct of all ranks after the accident contributed in considerable measure to the Master's ability to prevent the ship from sinking with further loss of life.

I am pleased to be able to report that the Stone is now well lit and
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390
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With the impending British withdrawal from Hong Kong the stone was brought to England in 1994 and from 1999 to 2003 stood at the entrance to the National Army Museum.

As can be seen above, information has come to light which surprisingly contradicts what was said on the original plaque. The new information panel states that in fact there was no loss of life when the troopship struck a German mine.

The Middlesex Boulder is a loss to Hong Kong but it has to be admitted it was rather neglected as are, sadly, some other military relics. We have been promised a World War Two heritage Trail for some years but at the time of writing it has yet to materialise. Conversely, the Tyndareus Stone in the British National Army Museum is without doubt now being well looked after. More research has been done and, with the new information panel, it now provides an interesting, well documented exhibit.

I am grateful to Dr Alan J Guy MA, DPhil, FRHistS, FRAS, FSA, the present Director of the National Army Museum, for providing information to help me write this article.
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