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I was in Ningpo when the announcement of the closing of the Burma road was received. It was a severe blow for the Chinese, but I think they appreciated the difficulties of Britain's position and that she had only been compelled by the force of circumstances to accede to the Japanese demand. Nothing could have exceeded the kindness and courtesy shown to me by the merchants and officials whom I met.

Ningpo was one of the first five treaty ports, opened to trade in 1842. Early promises had not been fulfilled, and the port, overshadowed by Shanghai, had remained small. Off the mouth of the Ningpo river on the largest island of the Chusan archipelago lay the walled city of Tinghai, occupied by British troops twice for a space of several years between 1840 and 1860. Tinghai at one time was designated, instead of Hongkong, as the place to be ceded to Britain for the repair of vessels. It looks a healthy enough place, built up the slopes of a high hill, yet the troops suffered much from sickness and the stones in the graveyard bear witness to the numbers buried there. The garrison imported some turkeys, to provide variety for the larder. The British troops have long since left, but the climate was favourable to turkeys, and now large flocks descended from the original birds are bred to supply the Christmas market in Shanghai.

In Ningpo, the graveyard contains the stone monument, first erected outside the East gate of the city, to commemorate the assistance given by Captain Roderick Dew, R.N., and Lieutenant Kenny of the French Navy and their respective ships' companies, in 1862, to the Imperial Chinese troops in expelling the Taiping rebels from the town. It was nearby that the American General Ward, Gordon's predecessor in command of the Ever Victorious army, was killed. But times change. To Dr. Sun Yat Sen and the Kuo Min Tang the Taiping rebels are the glorious forerunners of their own revolution, and it is doubtful whether General Gordon, or the British, are given any credit for having assisted the Imperial Government to quell the rebellion.

The country round the little Ningpo plain is very beautiful. In previous winters I used to shoot on the shallow lakes which lay amongst the hills to the west. Most sportsmen waited to go after the early morning and evening flights of duck, but I preferred to work along the edge of the hills with my dog for the occasional pheasant. They were not so numerous here as amongst the reedbeds of the Yangtze. Beyond the lakes, the deep waters of Nimrod Sound were
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Keith Stevens - Another Dilemma for Today's Youth in China ... 

369

Keith Stevens - An Irish Fantasy.. 

372

Penny Robbins, Meredith Tong-Draper and Geoffrey Roper - Backstreets of Beijing: Notes on the RAS HK Easter, 1998 Visit to Beijing 

375

Keith Stevens and Jennifer Welch - Monument to the Westmoreland Regiment The 55th Regiment of Foot in Dinghai City on Zhoushan Island...................... 

383

Dan Waters - Tracing Graves in Hong Kong: Research Methodology 

395

Keith Stevens - An Unusual and Extraordinary Ancestral Image 

399

Photographs of the Function to Mark the Award of the Bronze Bauhinia Star to Dan Waters contributed by Phillip Bruce............. 

403

Paul Bolding - Visit to the Aurel Stein Collection of the British Museum by the Friends of the RAS 

BOOK REVIEWS 

404

Gerald Choa - The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai, a Prominent Figure in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong....... 

407

Gillian Bickley - The Golden Needle: The Biography of Frederick Stewart 

411

ix
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smaller pieces did exist firing shot of a few ounces. Similar weapons were used in the West, but were generally referred to as wall-pieces or swivel guns, the latter term being used particularly with reference to those mounted on the gunwales of ships.

In describing the fortifications at Tinghai Lord Jocelyn reports: "on the walls were mounted gingalls and cannon of various calibres, but none exceeding a nine-pounder; and wall-pieces with shifting breeches, each having eight or nine spare breeches attached to it, ready loaded."23 This reference to wall-pieces with shifting breeches is of interest as they represent an early form of breech-loading. The idea dates back many years and King Henry VIII had weapons of this form; however, it fell from favour and in the mid-nineteenth century must have seemed very strange to western eyes.

Finally there was the Chinese rocket. This had probably been in use for centuries, but it had not improved with time. Mackenzie notes that these were "the merest child's weapon being not above six inches long, fastened on a slender bamboo shaft and armed with a barb inserted at one end."24 Clearly it was not a mass killer, but it did claim at least one life,25 and it had a use as an incendiary device.

As would be expected, the Chinese did learn from their experiences in the first war and by the second they had made considerable progress. It is recorded that when the forts at the entrance to the Pei Ho river were attacked in May 1858, that:

"The guns were much better cast, and not so unwieldy as those in the Canton River, and were better equipped in every respect. They had good canister shot, and the hollow 8-inch shot appeared an imitation of our own. There were several English guns in the batteries."26

Hand-Held Arms

The next class of weapons are the hand-held arms. On the European side the main projectile arm was the musket, a smooth-bored arm about 55 inches long, and firing a spherical lead ball of just over an ounce (14.5 No. to the pound). The flintlock musket used black powder (gunpowder) and ignition of the charge was achieved from the sparks
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BITS OF BROKEN CHINA: 

THE RAS VISIT TO NORTH-EAST CHINA IN SEARCH OF COLONIAL REMNANTS 15TH TO 21ST OCTOBER 1999 

ROBERT NIELD 

That I led a group of 25 people to the Shantung Peninsula and successfully brought 18 of them back to Hong Kong was, I have to say, a major achievement - and one of which I am very proud. 

My part in this trip dates from an earlier RAS China visit, that to Ningpo, Chusan and Dinghai in 1998. Even as long ago as that, the ever-resourceful Geoffrey Roper had already largely planned a visit that would take in an inspection of the remains of German influence in Tsingtao, and of the British presence in Chefoo and Weihaiwei. During the boat trip back to Ningpo from Dinghai I discussed Geoffrey's plans with him, and innocently suggested that it would rather complete the set if the trip also took in the former Russian and Japanese possessions over the water in Dalian and Port Arthur. And there the matter rested. 

Many months later, by which time I had totally forgotten my “helpful" suggestion that torpedoed Geoffrey's careful planning, it came about that he, unfortunately, could not lead the trip himself - and he asked me if I would volunteer for the job. Never having organised anything like this before, and having no idea of what was involved, in my blissful ignorance I said that I would be happy to oblige. 

:: 

My job as a professional accountant (a partner in a very large firm, no less!) involves me sitting at the top of an enormous pyramid of very capable and industrious people, such that more often than not completed pieces of work are presented to me for my review. It came as a major shock, therefore, to find out how much work is involved in putting together what, for the people who accompanied me, was hopefully six pleasant and relaxing days exploring interesting places. 

I was sure that everything "would be alright on the night" - and sure enough, more or less it was. But only with the significant help of 

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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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by the British. By the turn of the century folk memory in Zhoushan itself of the battles and occupation by the British had disappeared much as it has today in Weihai in Shandong province, which had been a British naval base, with a colonial governor, leased at the same time as the New Territories of Hong Kong in 1898 and held until handed back to China in 1931,

The British captured and occupied Zhoushan on two separate occasions during the First Opium War. The first occupation was short and brutal, ending with an agreement ceding Hong Kong to the British, the reopening of Guangzhou (Canton) to foreigners for trade and an indemnity in exchange for the restoration to the Chinese of Zhoushan. Both sides promptly repudiated the agreement but not before Zhoushan had been handed back. The Chinese commissioner, Qi Shan was recalled to Beijing (Peking) in chains and charged with treason having surrendered Chinese soil.

The War restarted some six months after the first retrocession by the British and the city of Dinghai was once more taken. The second occupation of nearly four years was longer but much more amicable on both the British and Chinese sides. The British appear to have failed, intentionally or otherwise, to extend their control far beyond the city of Dinghai and were at the mercy of the local Chinese tradesmen who controlled the victuals required to maintain the British occupation forces. This, however, does not appear to have led to trouble as doubtless the local Chinese were comparatively well paid for their provisions.

Once the third and final British occupation ended, that is after the Second China War in 1860, there would appear to have been neither routine British consular presence on Zhoushan nor representatives of the foreign-run Chinese Maritime Customs on Zhoushan. These were stationed in Ningbo, the city on the mainland a mere couple of hours sailing away. However, there was a lighthouse on Zhoushan run by westerners of the Chinese Maritime Customs though this would seem again to have been directed from Ningbo, and at one stage there was a small American Christian missionary presence contrary to official agreements between the Chinese and Western nations, as well as a Lazarus Mission of Roman Catholics; in practice no Christian missionary presence on the archipelago had been authorised by official agreements.
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Rev. Wright provided the text for Allom's China and wrote a short piece entitled The Fortress of Terror, Dinghai. He claimed that 'during the British descent upon the coast of China, nowhere was the destruction of life and property greater than at Dinghai. Every hill on the coast in the vicinity of Dinghai was crowned with a battery of apparent strength; some of them too elevated to be effective. At the entrance of a defile, watered by a rivulet flowing from the valley of Chae-hu [sic], and on an eminence about two hundred feet above the level of the bay, stood one of those deceptive structures, misnamed "The Fortress of Terror," in which the Chinese so lucklessly reposed entire confidence, when the British fleet cast anchor in the roads beneath. No troops, however armed or disciplined, could have acted with more eminent personal gallantry, than the Tatar garrison of the fort of Terror, yet none ever encountered a more signal overthrow.

Wright described Zhoushan as an agreeable scene, with every hill cultivated to its summit, every valley, from the mountain's foot to the river's margin with industry and fertility, producing a large surplus for the enrichment of the labourers. These productions, including rice, cotton, seed potatoes, coarse tea and candles made from the seeds of the tallow tree, were conveyed along canals in barges. The roads of Zhoushan were not constructed for the convenience of visitors, the gratification of travellers, or the mere objects of pleasure.

In describing the city of Dinghai, Wright noted that it did not stand upon the marshy ground but on the sloping side of the Yongdong Valley. It was surrounded by a brick wall twenty-six feet in height, sixteen in thickness, and six miles in circuit, with four entrance gates corresponding exactly with the four cardinal points. The city was intersected by open sewer canals, the streets were narrow and paved, and intersected by canals along the middle.

Between 1841 and 1844 the Westmoreland Regiment served with the British force during the campaign to capture and hold the Island of Zhoushan. The assault on and occupation of Zhoushan during the First China War was one of many along the coast of Southern and Eastern China. It culminated in the Treaty of Nanjing [Nanking] in August 1842 under terms by which occupation forces held on to several places until the treaty was fully implemented, Zhoushan being one. There was a school of British opinion at the time which strongly believed that we
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should have taken Zhoushan Island rather than, to quote Palmerston's scathing words, 'the barren rock' of Hong Kong which would have undoubtedly altered the course of history and British relations with China in the 20th century.

The Westmoreland Regiment," part of a larger British expeditionary force, therefore returned to Zhoushan Island after the Treaty had been signed and remained on until 1844. A monument was raised in Dinghai dedicated to the few from the ranks who had been killed in action and the many who during the occupation had died of diseases so prevalent there. An annex to a report written probably in the 1880s provides us with the wording on the monument as well as a second annex describes the wording on a separate monument dedicated to Captain Colin Campbell of the Westmoreland Regiment who died at Zhoushan on the 29th May 1842 of a wound received in action at Zhapu [Chapu].vii

The wording on the main monument read:

Sacred

to The Memory of

11 Sergeants, 13 Corporals, 4 Drummers,

and 403 Privates

of H.M. 55th Regt

who were killed in action

or died from disease

while serving in China

from the 14th July 1841

to the 22nd February 1844
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I append a copy of the inscriptions on the two monuments in question with a list of the other headstones in the same locality which may possibly prove useful for future reference.

Appended to the report was a copy of a list of gravestones within the British cemetery in Dinghai also recorded during the visit of the individual who wrote the report. It came as somewhat of a surprise to us to note the number of graves of wives and children of British soldiers as we had assumed that during the two short assaults on Zhoushan in 1842 and 1857, and the several years of occupation British soldiers were without their dependants, because of the remoteness of China from the more permanent British bases.

List of Monuments in British Graveyard

at Chusan

1. Monument to 55th Regt.

2. Captain Colin Campbell

3. Commander Harmer, H.M.S. Driver

4. Eliza Woods and infant son wife of Sergeant Woods.

5. Captain Hopton Steward of

ix Regt. Madras Native Infantry.

6. Wife of Quarter Master Perl Royal Irish Regiment.

7. Corporal M. Gleeson 98th Regt.

8. Sergt. Blake, 98th Regt.

9. Infant daughter of Sergt. Cobden

10. Mrs. Gregory, wife of Lieut Colonel Gregory 98th Regt.

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Whilst we have no idea what has happened to the Monument dedicated to the Westmoreland Regiment in Zhoushan we were taken by the curator to the site of a Chinese horseshoe-shaped grave bearing the inscription in Chinese carved into a lengthy granite slab in pre-simplified characters [that is pre-1950s], stating that it to be 

The Tomb of Officers and Men of the Army and Navy of Great Britain

大英水陸將士墓

It had been refurbished as recently as 1993 by the Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army, [PLA Navy], apparently unsolicited and without any ceremony.xi

The monument was situated on the north facing slope of a low hill overlooking the town of Dinghai. There was little to see. A modern concrete edifice some three feet high holds an original granite block. Above it on the slope, some ten feet away, is another monument which bears neither inscription nor clues to its original purpose. It is rectangular standing some six feet high, two foot six inches wide and about ten inches deep. It has three indented faces, central, left and right on which, presumably, the erstwhile inscribed tablets had been inserted. These two monuments are situated overlooking Dinghai Town but facing away from the sea and at the rear of a radio station with one tall mast and several radio dishes, possibly a PLA [Navy] unit on the Island.

...

It would be interesting to obtain the current Chinese official version of the provenance of the two monuments.

As an interesting side note - at the foot of the hill on which the two monuments stand, a Chinese lady, a member of our party from Hong Kong, recognised her family ‘ancestral' home from the descriptions she had heard of its European design with Chinese touches. It is now the residence of the Admiral of the Chinese PLA [Navy] responsible
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for that area. Our local guide quite unabashed, led us straight into the main courtyard, where we took photographs before a polite message from the Admiral, relayed to us by a staff officer, advised us that he was shortly expecting visitors.

i

NOTES

Zhoushan Island, as with many other cities and areas in China, is now rapidly undergoing industrialisation with plans for an airport, factories and container terminals. There has even been talk of building a bridge across to the mainland. Zhoushan is romanised using the current Chinese pinyin system. Formerly it was known as Chusan using the western system devised by British scholars during the late 19th century.

i China was published in 1844, illustrated by Allom and referred to in general as Allom's China; however, a former missionary, the Reverend Wright, wrote the text.

iii

Folk memory can be short, especially when it suits the authorities, and in 1998 people in Wei-hai under the age of seventy either looked blank and disbelieving when we told them of the British lease, or corrected us saying that we were mistaken. They explained that it was the colony of Hong Kong which had been handed back in 1997 and that the British had never been near Weihai.

iv Other pedants may wish to note that the word Tatar tends to be 'misspelled' as Tartar. The original word in Chinese is Dada'er in pinyin and Ta-ta-erh in Wade-Giles. My history professor used to bark that tartar is on teeth!

A Chinese historian writing during the late 1950s described the progression of the British forces up the South-east coast of China in a very abbreviated history and mentioned in a few words that "the local people in Amoy [Xiamen] had dislodged the British occupationists and forced them to evacuate the port city. The Chinese defenders made a gallant stand at Tinghai [Dinghai]. Fierce fighting continued for six days and nights. The British suffered heavy casualties. Although General Ko Yun-fei [Ke Yunfei] was covered with more than forty wounds, he fought till he breathed his last. Hei Shui Tang [Black Waters], a people's armed unit, also inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy". [Tung Chi-ming: An Outline History of China: Foreign Languages Press: Peking: 1959; P 215].
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99

Monument to the fallen British officers and men at Dinghai on Zhoushan Island - China Wars 1840-42, 1857-60 [Photo: Jennifer Welch]

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Parker might pitch it into the nearest ditch as far as he cared, but it was as much as his place was worth for him to touch it. The Municipal Council issued notices and offered compensation, and meanwhile every day during their walks and rides they had to go round the obstructive eyesore. The Daotai had second thoughts and issued a proclamation saying that he had expostulated with Parker and in his reverent affection for human bones told him that he would have to wait for the agnatic descendants to come forward. This put Parker in a very uncomfortable position and he determined to go the Daotai one better. He therefore issued a proclamation explaining that no one had greater affection for human bones than he but pointed out that the coffin ran the risk of desecration, and that even distant members of the family were authorised to take it away at once. He then gave a broad hint to the Municipal Council that if distant members of the family turned up at dead of night with pick and shovel, no questions would be asked. It blew hard that evening and the air was filled with sleet. When he went out for his early walk the coffin had disappeared. The dealers in donkey-skins had taken four municipal policemen, dug a hole in the next field and then, after transferring the coffin, had slunk away. Nothing happened!

Parker explained how Chinese and Tartar soldiers made a nuisance of themselves not only trouble making but also simply by strolling through the foreign settlement in order to steal a look at foreign devils. When he was Consul there, certain Europeans used to connive at gaming-houses, and take shares in native theatres; not to mention pawnshops, drinking houses and other places ever less orthodox, all flourishing under the sacred nose of Her Majesty's Consul. He found Zhenjiang a very rowdy place both from a foreign and native point of view. Consequently the municipal police had plenty of work. One strolling warrior was arrested for "committing a nuisance" and promptly punched the policeman's head. He was at last overpowered by others, and temporarily lodged in the consular gaol, the keeper of which was a one-eyed old soldier named Joshua Nunn, who boasted several medals, and had served his country bravely and well in the wars. Some more Chinese soldiers soon gathered round, and began to threaten a rescue, and even burn down the Consulate. Parker gave orders to plucky old Nunn to lock the man up in his strongest cell whilst he sent a pencil message round by the tingchai to each of three sturdy Britishers: "Please step round with your gun: I expect a row". In less than five minutes they were there, and with Parker sat before the entrance with their guns.
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