RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 100 J. W. HAYES NOTES The notes are intended to amplify the text. The subjects of the longer notes are chosen rather arbitrarily and represent my particular interests, J. W. H. 1 A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories. (Hong Kong Government Printer, 1960) p. 88. 2 Crown Rent Rolls, District Office Islands, New Territories Administration. * Under the Convention of Peking signed on 9th June, 1898, *Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, hereafter styled Sessional Papers. (Hong Kong, Noronha & Co., 1911) p. 103 (22) and (26). This article is mainly concerned with the land population, but for a good short description of the life, work and general background of the boat people, see G. N. Orme "Report on the New Territories 1899-1912" in Sessional Papers 1912, pp. 53-55. 5 The help of the Chairman, Vice-Chairmen and members of the Cheung Chau Rural Committee in tracing and gaining access to these tablets is gratefully acknowledged, and the great assistance given with transcription and translation by Messrs. LO Chi-chung, LEUNG Kun-siu and LEW Pang-fei, my former colleagues in the District Office. * I have translated shue-shat as study, rather than school, since it was intended for the private use of members and their children and not for outsiders. The association became known as the Tung Kwun Wui So on 16th September, 1926 (see Land Registers), previous to which it had been registered as the Po On Shue Shat. I have presumed that with such a name, a school was operated as well as the office and ancestral temple. (See note 26 and text to which it refers.) For the distinction between the names Po On and San On see Notes and Queries, p. 146 below. The character inscribed on this tablet is a simplified form of the character. Local trades included shipbuilding: see Orme's report in Sessional Papers 1912, p. 55. — * The number of Cheung Chau shops subscribing to the various schemes recorded on the tablets is as follows: Po On study (1866) 38; Defence Office (1863-70) 66; Fong Pin hospital (1878) 98, and Tin Hau temple (1879) 125, from the 200 odd mentioned in the Fong Pin preamble. * Many shops are mentioned on the tablets, but they are all listed by their business names and not by the names of the owners, in which custom the Chinese does not follow the English. 10 The Tong has a substantial genealogical record, last produced between eighty and a hundred years ago and printed from stone blocks on hand-made bamboo paper. I am indebted to Mr. WONG Shing Yip of Cheung Chau who very kindly let me see his copy. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 162 DAVID FAURE including the New Territories, was part of San On county. The magistrate governed from the county seat at Nam T'au, across what is now Deep Bay. There were also sub-county offices, at Tai P'ang on the northern shore of Mirs Bay, and at Koon Foo, later renamed Kowloon City. These, with Nam T'au, were responsible for the southern part of San On county, that is, the area which includes the present-day Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories. The officials hardly ever visited the villages. By default, these villages were for the most part left to conduct their own affairs. Taxes were often collected with the co-operation of the rich and influential families in Yuen Long and Sheung Shui. Litigation could be conducted at Nam T'au, but lawsuits were rare. The principal markets on the mainland in this area were Tai Po, Sheung Shui, Yuen Long, and Sham Chun, and understandably, the main trade routes in the eastern New Territories went north-south, linking Kowloon City, Sha Tin, Tai Po, Sheung Shui, and Sham Chun, from where there were ferries to Nam T'au. Cut off from these trade routes by Ma On Shan, the Sai Kung villages were very much in the backwaters of the county. The history of the development of these villages is the story of a backward area slowly pulling itself up by its bootstraps.1 Development came in two stages. From the early eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth, population increased steadily. In the late seventeenth century, only three villages in the entire district merited entry in the San On Gazetteer, i.e., the Punti-speaking villages of Ho Chung, Pak Kong, and Sha Kok Mei. Not surprisingly, all three were located in well-watered valleys that were close to the footpaths leading to Sha Tin and Kowloon. By 1819, the next edition of the gazetteer recorded, in addition to these three, the Punti villages of Wong Chuk Yeung, Tai Long, Chek Keng, Ko Tong, Pak Tam, and Cheung Sheung, as well as the Hakka villages of Mang Kung Uk, Tseng Lan Shue, Sha Kok Mei (sic), Pan Long Wan, and Lan Nei Wan (later Man Yee Wan). The listing is not complete, but it accords with the general pattern of Hakka immigration into the Hong Kong region throughout the eighteenth century. There must have been a substantial boat population in the eighteenth century. There was, in fact, a larger boat population ================================================================================