RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h NOTES AND QUERIES The following letter appeared in the South China Morning Post, 10th April, 1972. — Ed. WHO HOISTED THE UNION JACK? In today's (April 7) issue on page 20 you publish an article headed "The Hongkong Club decides to go back to Victorian Era”. In the article you state "The Club was founded in 1846, five years after the Union Jack was hoisted on Possession Point by Captain Charles Elliot". The statement is not correct. It is true that Sir Charles Elliot issued a formal declaration of British sovereignty over Hongkong in January 1841 after the treaty of Chuenpi, but the Union Jack was hoisted on Possession Point by Captain Belcher commanding H.M. survey ship, Sulphur, on January 26, 1841. The account is given in Captain Belcher's book "Voyage round the World" published 1843, Volume II page 157. The following is an extract: "The only important point to which we became officially partners was the cession of the island of Hongkong, situated off the peninsula of Cow Loon within the island of Lama, "On the return of the commodore on the 24th we were directed to proceed to Hongkong and commence its survey. We landed on Monday the 26th January at fifteen minutes past eight, and being 'bona fide' first possessors, her majesty's health was drank with three cheers on Possession Mount. "On the 26th the squadron arrived; the marines were landed, the union hoisted on our post, and formal possession taken of the island by Commodore Sir J. G. Bremer, accompanied by the other officers of the squadron, under a feu de joie from the marines, and a royal salute from ships of war”. There may be some uncertainty about the exact date. It is probable that the landing was on Monday, January 25 and that the more serious formalities took place on Tuesday, January 26. Captain Belcher's history is preserved in the Colony in the names Belcher's Gardens, Belcher's Fort (and formerly Belcher's Creek) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h recounts that the crew of the Sulphur landed on Hong Kong island on Monday 25 January” and as 'the bona fide first possessors' drank the health of Queen Victoria on Possession Mount. Then 'On the 26th the squadron arrived; the marines were landed, the union hoisted on our post, and formal possession taken of the island, by Commodore Sir J. G. Bremer, accompanied by the other officers of the squadron, under a feu-de-joie from the marines, and a royal salute from the ships of war'." Bremer himself was no more expansive. In his official despatch to R. More O'Ferrall M.P. at the Admiralty, written on 24 February but received only on 8 June 1841, Bremer reported that on 26 January he proceeded to Hong Kong ‘and took formal possession of the island, and hoisted the colours on it, with the usual salutes and ceremonies'. 12 News of the acquisition of the island of Hong Kong became public knowledge in England on the morning of Friday 9 April 1841, but yet again there was no description of the ceremony of possession. On this day Elliot's circular of 20 January was printed in The Times, and it was discussed in an optimistic editorial: it was considered good news because Hong Kong was much more convenient for trade than Macao and a settlement there would be able to maintain itself independently of the Chinese." By the following day the tone of the editorial had changed. Its author wrote that 'the nominal cession of the island of Hong Kong to the British crown, though apparently promising considerable advantages to our mercantile interests, has been clogged with conditions which in practice may substantially defeat them', and then referred to the island as an 'insulated and unfrequented locality'. One factor which may have been decisive in settling on Hong Kong in the negotiations was, as the merchant James Matheson noted, the Chinese language, for such, he felt, is its ambiguity that it is difficult to fix in it a definite meaning." Matheson believed that, when Ch'i-shan remarked in one of his communications ‘as we have granted you territory you do not now require another port', Elliot in consequence gave up thoughts of British access to a port in northern China in the hope that he could hold Ch'i-shan to an interpretation of the Chinese characters which meant that the British had been granted the territory of Hong Kong rather than merely being given a trading factory there.'5 Two letters to The Times published in the same week expressed dissatisfaction with the new British acquisition. The first was dated Macao, 22 January and was presumably written by a merchant: 'Regarding the terms of Captain Elliot's treaty with the Chinese, I have ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 15 has not materialized is a testimony to the fact that the present and the future in Hong Kong have always been more important than the past, with the result that the recovery of information on Hong Kong's history is now very difficult. CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE NOTES See C. Blake, Charles Elliot R. N., 1801-1875 (London, 1960). 2. W. D. Bernard, Narrative of the Voyages and Services of the Nemesis from 1840 to 1843, I (London, 1844), p. 304. 3. When the British flag was hoisted on Chusan on 5 July 1840, the name of the person responsible for hoisting the flag also went unrecorded as it was considered unimportant. See G. Graham, The China Station (Oxford, 1978), pp. 127-8. I am grateful to Alan Reid for this reference. 4. Captain Sir Edward Belcher, RN, Narrative of a Voyage round the world performed in HM's Ship Sulphur, during the years 1836-1842 (London, 1843). 6. J. Elliot Bingham, Narrative of the Expedition to China (London, 1842). Bernard, Narrative, op. cit. Bernard wrote the book from the notes of W. H. Hall who had commanded the Nemesis, and included his own observations. 7. Bernard, Narrative, op. cit. I, p. 291. 8. Elliot Bingham, Narrative, op. cit. II, p. 120. In the text 26 January is misprinted for 25 January. 19. Belcher, Narrative, op. cit. p. 148. This account is the one usually quoted in an account of the cession of Hong Kong. See for example G. R. Sayer, Hong Kong: Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age (London, 1937), p. 93 and J. R. Jones, “Who Hoisted the Union Jack?“, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 12 (1972), p. 196. || Supplement to The Times of 12 June 1841. This expression appears to be formulaic as Bremer uses identical words in a letter to the Earl of Auckland who was Governor General of India of 10 March 1841. See Duncan McPherson, Two years in China (London, 1842), p. 274. 12. The Times of 9 April 1841. The editorial went on to say: 'the recognition of a territorial right in the British crown, as well as the terror of the British name, will give our countrymen advantages which were never possessed by the Portuguese in China'. 13. The Times of 10 April 1841. E. Jardine Matheson Archives, Cambridge University Library (hereinafter JMA), C5/6, James Matheson's private letter book, 54. 15. Ibid., C5/6, 60, 22 January 1841. The Times of 15 April 1841. 17. JMA, C5/6, 69. 18. The Times of 13 April 1841. McPherson, Two Years in China, p. 76 and W. W. Mundy, Canton and the Bogue: ================================================================================