RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969
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14

T. C. CHENG

Another advance was made in 1904 when several prominent Chinese, led by Dr. Ho Kai and Mr. Chau Siu-ki (the late father of Sir Tsun-nin Chau), collected the necessary funds, and, also with a land grant from the London Missionary Society, started the Alice Memorial Maternity Hospital, the first maternity hospital in Hong Kong.

In 1907 when the Chinese started another hospital, along the lines of the Tung Wah Hospital, in Kowloon the Kwong Wah Hospital Dr. Ho Kai was the motivating force and he became the Chairman of the first Board of Directors of the new hospital. In this important venture, he had the staunch support of the Honourable Wei Yuk, his Chinese colleague in the Legislative Council, and Lau Chu-pak, both of whom served as directors of the first Board.

Having received a western education himself, Dr. Ho Kai was very keen to spread such education among the Chinese youth. Apart from being an active member of the governing body of Queen's College, he and other Chinese leaders, including Tso Seen-wan, founded St. Stephen's Boys College in 1902. In 1901 a number of leading Chinese, including Dr. Ho Kai and Mr. Tso Seen-wan, had submitted a petition to the Governor setting forth their view that a need had arisen for a Chinese High School run on western lines. The fees were to be sufficient to keep the school without cost to the Colony. In such a school the sons of influential Chinese parents could be trained for public service and be instructed in all that was best in both British and Chinese cultures. The scheme was approved in principle and the Church Missionary Society stepped in to help and established St. Stephen's Boys College on Bonham Road. In 1928 it moved to its present site in Stanley with extensive playing fields. It has catered to Chinese children from wealthy homes and has tried to establish something of the tradition of the English public school. It has since occupied a unique and important place in Hong Kong as an exempted and independent school.

In addition, Dr. Ho Kai was a very far-sighted land developer. Just before he died, he and Au Tak,13 a prominent merchant who was a director of the Tung Wah Hospital in 1908, formed the Kai Tak Land Development Company to plan the development of the area in the neighbourhood of the present Kai Tak Airport,
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H. J. LETHBRIDGE

Management and the Registrar General's Department, the more influence the former would have within the Chinese community. The Committee would be in a far stronger position to moderate government policies - or at least to influence the Registrar General by a flow of opinion and advice about the wishes of the Chinese than any committee which was remote from government. It seems likely that Wei Yuk, a shrewd man of affairs, understood that once the Registrar General brought the Committee within the colonial system of government, the latter would be forced not only to give the members of the Committee much 'face' but would have to engage in an intimate and prolonged dialogue with it: benefits would need to pass in both directions. Each, the Registrar General and the Committee would need to feel it gained from the special relationship25.

Basically, the system created by Lockhart and Wei Yuk remained unchanged - there were a few slight modifications until 1941, the year of the Japanese occupation. The members of the Committee were nominated to their office by the Governor in Council, on the advice of the Registrar General (after 1913 renamed the Secretary for Chinese Affairs); and the Registrar General, before he put forward the name of a Chinese to the Governor, canvassed the opinions of prominent Chinese: nominees needed the support and approbation of both Chinese notables and the Registrar General.

In 1917 the Committee was enlarged from 12 to 14, exclusive of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, the ex officio chairman, by the addition of two members selected from the retiring annual committees of the Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk but holding their appointments for the term of one year only. Usually these special nominees were the retiring chief directors of the two associations26. They were probationers in a sense. But usually such 'short-term' members of the District Watch Committee were made full members at a later date; or, in some cases, after their year of office was up. This special device allowed the Secretary for Chinese Affairs to include on the Committee any promising, emergent leader in these two lesser associations; at the same time, it helped inflate the status of the committees of the Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk by making possible a speedier transition for some to the key advisory board, the
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971
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The District Watch Committee

125

Chinese Affairs, spent most of its time in session discussing social and economic problems. In 1913, for example, among subjects discussed at its deliberations were the regulation of Chinese theatres, the prohibition of the circulation of foreign notes and silver, and means for the more effective regulation of Chinese householders; in 1914 the prohibition of all new Chinese restaurants in the Central District, the licensing of singing girls, and the classification of boarding houses (emigration houses and hotels); and in 1915 the restriction on the numbers of clubs and societies, the appointment of midwives, the question of payment of wine and spirit licenses, and the question of new legislation for money loan associations33. It is not surprising, then, that the Secretary for Chinese Affairs was pleased to write in 1918 that 'the loyal advice and assistance of this important Committee (which deals with every kind of question affecting the Chinese community) continues to be of the greatest value to Government'. The stabilising role of the Committee is also made clear by its activity during periods of intense crisis in the Colony. Thus the Committee was extremely active during the period of ebullition following from the 1911 Revolution in China; it also helped to prevent violence during the short time when diplomatic relations between China and Japan were strained in 1915; it played a part in bringing to an end the bitter seamen's strike of 1922 and the strike and boycott of 1925-192634. It was a Committee, as Lockhart probably intuited it would become, that allowed the Chinese to 'regulate' themselves within the fairly broad limits set by government,

The committees of the Tung Wah Hospital, the Po Leung Kuk, the District Watch Force, together with those of some other associations such as the Lok Sin Tong and the Chung Sing Benevolent Society35, formed a system. The system was, in terms, of prestige, influence and power, an hierarchical one. The Tung Wah Board of Directors was usually recruited from ex-committeemen of the Po Leung Kuk; and the District Watch Committee always contained a very large number of former members of the Po Leung Kuk and the Tung Wah Hospital. The District Watch Committee thus formed the apex of a pyramidal and hierarchical structure, at the base of which were local-based associations such as Kaifong, and also district and clansmen associations, and guilds of employers36. But the prestige
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d
MERCHANT ORGANISATIONS IN IMPERIAL CHINA

35

buildings and roads destroyed during the Taiping Rebellion. Collaboration of this sort gave these merchant leaders a greater voice over taxation and other local public affairs.23 The same guild leaders joined charitable organisations because their larger numbers offered them a wider base of support.

As the merchants assumed a leadership role in providing social services and welfare, they gradually took over responsibilities and privileges which went along with their work. Because permanent charitable organisations could cut across guilds and sometimes Landsmannschaften, they claimed that their leadership was based on community-wide support. And since they were merchants, they should be identified as merchant leaders to whom matters affecting the merchants would be referred. Moreover, these merchants were elites in their own communities, and were regularly referred to as "titled merchants” (shen-shang). Even as individuals, they had some political influence with the local officials. But unless they had begun as gentry or officials, such influence rested on no legitimate basis. When they organised themselves in institutions which had a communal purpose, they quickly used them to claim legitimate leadership.

This was what happened by the late nineteenth century. In Hong Kong, the board of directors of the Tung Wah Hospital quickly gained the right to present petitions to the Hong Kong government on all matters related to the Chinese community. Institutionally, the hospital was put under the jurisdiction of the Registrar General, after 1913 styled the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, who also served as its patron. By the early 1880's, the board opened up another channel when the Governor-general's Office in Canton began to correspond with it. There is some indication that the directors acted as a kind of information centre and advisory board for the Governor-general on matters involving the overseas Chinese.24 To this day, a seat on the board of directors of either the Tung Wah Hospital or the Po Leung Kuk still represents the government's recognition of each occupier's leadership status.

In Canton, charitable organisations, too, quickly became a regular channel of communication between the government and the merchants. In early 1886, when news of the San Francisco race riots against Chinese workers reached Canton and Hong Kong, the Chinese government wrote to the directors of the Ai-yü shan-t’ang
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q
NOTES AND QUERIES

VISIT TO TUNG WAH GROUP OF HOSPITALS' MUSEUM,

2ND OCTOBER, 1976

The Tung Wah Group of Hospitals is one of Hong Kong's leading Chinese voluntary bodies. The Hospital was established in 1870. Its services then comprised medical, social and educational work that has been continued and extended to the present day,

The Tung Wah Museum contains an excellent collection of materials and is well worth a visit. It is located in the Old Hall of the Kwong Wah Hospital, Kowloon, established between 1908-11, which itself is an interesting and historic building.

The visit to the Museum was made by courtesy of the Chairman of the Board of Directors 1976-77, to whom the Society is indebted. For Members' guidance, the exhibits in the Museum may be listed as: --

(a) Presentation and Commemorative Boards (horizontal)
(b) Presentation and Commemorative Boards (vertical)
(c) Furniture

(d) Books and Other Records pertaining to the Hospital
(e) Photographs of past Tung Wah events

(A) Other presentation items.

Item (a), of which there are many examples, are all donated; some by previous directors or by senior officials and associations in China in appreciation of charitable work carried out by Tung Wah e.g. raising money for flood and famine relief.

Item (b), also well-represented, usually includes presentations by directors or leading citizens of Hong Kong at the time of the establishment of, or major repairs to, the various Tung Wah buildings. They include presentations by other community organizations, like the Kaifongs of Hung Hom and Yaumati, also in Kowloon.

Items (a) and (b) are always dated.

Item (c) comprises furniture presented at times of building or major renovation, which again carry names and dates.

Item (d) includes the early reports of the Hospital in English/Chinese over the past 100 years, and there are other valuable
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NOTES AND QUERIES

263

Chinese reports on e.g. the work and accounts of the Man Mo Temple in Hollywood Road which has long been associated with the Tung Wah Group. Also Chinese medical works and journals. Item (c) comprises photographs of Tung Wah occasions over the past seventy years and more; but mostly modern.

Item (f) includes presentation items from directors and others, including pieces of stoneware and porcelain.

All told, though still not, in my view, fully representative of all Tung Wah activities over the past hundred years, the Museum contains an impressive and interesting collection of exhibits and reflects great credit on the Hospital.

Carl T. Smith's notes of the history and work of the Hospital follow this brief introduction to the Museum and its contents.

Hong Kong, 1976,

JAMES HAYES

NOTES ON TUNG WAH HOSPITAL, HONG KONG

These notes are not a comprehensive history of the Tung Wah Hospital group. For this the reader is referred to the following books issued by the Directors: Development of the Tung Wah Hospitals 1870-1960; One Hundred Years of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals 1870-1970 and The History of Education of Tung Wah (1963). Of particular interest is Henry James Lethbridge's article, "A Chinese Association in Hong Kong: The Tung Wah", Contributions to Asian Studies, 10, 1973, pp. 144-158. In it he views the Hospital as an important social organization of the Chinese community and draws attention to the efforts of Government to relate to that community through the Hospital Committee. The present notes underline the thesis developed by Mr. Lethbridge.

Every community has certain institutions of particular significance in such areas as education, religion, culture, business, politics and society. Seldom perhaps has one institution overlapped so many of these areas as Tung Wah Hospital. It has been some 107 years since the first Chinese Hospital Committee was formed—during these years the Hospital has played varying roles. This means that it can be looked at in different ways. A past, present or expectant member of the Board of Directors might give one story of
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NOTES AND QUERIES

community. They resisted being sent to the temporary plague hospitals set up under the direction of European doctors. They feared that the bodies of dead relatives and friends would not be treated according to Chinese custom. The mood of the Chinese population became so hostile, almost breaking into open rebellion, that the Government finally permitted the Directors of Tung Wah Hospital to open a plague hospital in a recently built and as yet unoccupied pig and sheep depot in Kennedy Town. The attempt to force western medical treatment upon a Chinese population already aroused by the natural fear of the plague, further alienated the general population from any suggestion that western methods should be introduced into Tung Wah. The President of the Directors in that year was in the unenviable position of being also a member of the Sanitary Board whose duties it was to initiate and enforce measures to control the plague. His position with a foot in two camps provoked an attack upon his business premises while he was chairing a meeting at Tung Wah called to consider the protests of the Chinese community against the measures of the Government. Upon receiving the news of the attack, he hurriedly left the meeting, but his chair was no more outside the gates of the hospital than the hostile crowd which had gathered began stoning the chair bearers and rushed the chair turning it upside down with the unfortunate Chairman inside. He managed to crawl out and rush back within the safety of the Tung Wah gates. An Indian constable blew his whistle and a group of watchmen of the Hospital rushed out and the crowd dispersed. The incident reflects the strong feeling surging in the Chinese community against the measures taken by the Government in the plague crisis.

The Governor was not only recipient of hostility from the Chinese community but was also strongly criticised in the English press for the slowness with which Government undertook plague measures and for making concessions to the feelings of the Chinese regarding the treatment and care of plague victims. He may have been stung by these criticisms, for after the passing of the plague he took a very strong stand in demands made on Tung Wah to change its former policy of exclusive employment of doctors trained in traditional Chinese medicine.

In 1895 a Commission was appointed to inquire into whether the Hospital should be closed, or, if continued, what changes should be made. There was no question in official minds that it could
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NOTES AND QUERIES 

275 

(Lethbridge, 1971, p. 147). It was only when a "respectable" class of rich Chinese merchants and compradores emerged that a group existed which the colonial authorities could properly recognize as speaking for the Chinese community. The Chinese account states that the two patrons of the Temple "judge the people (there) in public assembly". In 1851 a proper Temple Committee was elected. It met at the Kung Soh (Public Meeting Hall), attached to the Temple, where all cases of public interest were decided. This judicial function by a self-organized Chinese institution is confirmed by the British Magistrates sending complainants to the Temple authorities for their arbitration of the disputes. For instance, in 1870 a case is mentioned in which the Kai-fong had imposed a fine upon a coolie for breaking a pane of glass.

A year after the opening of Tung Wah Hospital the judicial proceedings formerly held at the Kung Soh of the Temple were moved to the Hall of the Hospital. This is reported in an editorial comment in the Daily Press (Jan. 2, 1873):

The old Joss House Court the Kung Soh in the Hollywood Road has, we hear, been given up in favour of another building not far off, and it seems that there a vast number of disputes are settled, and that it is an understood rule that matters should be brought to the cognizance of the proper authorities only if they cannot be arranged in this manner. We understand the committee of the Chinese Hospital is the same body of men who head the Kaifong, and that they discuss municipal and semi-political matters in the hall of the Hospital.

Inasmuch as the two committees apparently overlapped and as the Hall of the new Hospital was more spacious and imposing than the Kung Soh, the transfer in Chinese eyes would seem appropriate. On a visit of the Governor to the Hall he remarked that it was a much better meeting place than the Council Chambers of the Hong Kong Government. Isabella Bird (Mrs. Bishop) the famous Victorian lady traveller who visited Hong Kong in 1879, describes the building:

The hall where the directors meet (has) one side open to the garden. It has a superb ebony table in the middle with a handsome chair for the chairman and six carved ebony chairs on each side -- a most stately "board room".*

* Photocopy of original manuscript letter in possession of John Murray, publishers, London.
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NOTES AND QUERIES

Work of the Association in its early years

217

Soon after the port of Hong Kong was opened [again] in the last year of the reign of Hsien Feng in the Ch'ing dynasty (1860-61), there used to be a Nam Pak Hong Street (later renamed Bonham Strand West). At this favourable location our predecessors set up firms dealing in native products from south and north China. The following firms were among those then established one after another: the Kwong Mau Tai Hong and the Woo Kee Hong of Mr. Chiu Yue-tin, a celebrity of Kwangtung origin, the Hau Fung Hong of Mr. Lo Chor-san, the Hop Hing Hong of Mr. Lau Lo-tak, the Siu Fung Hong of Messrs. Fung Ping-shan and Kwong Tsz-ming, the Kwan Mau Hong (in Wing Lok Street West) of Mr. Li Sau-hin, the Wah On Hong of Mr. Chan Yue-fan, the Yue Wo Loong of Mr. Chan Sik-nin, the Yuen Fat Hong of Messrs. Ko Mun-wah and Chan Chun-chuen, celebrities of Chiu Chau origin, the Yuen Sing Fat Hong, the Kam Yue Fung Hong and the Kam Sing Lee Hong of Mr. Choi Si-kit, the Yue Tak Sing Hong and the Kwong Tak Fat Hong of Mr. Chan Tin-san, the Kin Tye Lung of Messrs. Chan Wun-wing and Chan Tsz-tan, the Ng Yuen Hing Hong of Mr. Ng Lei-hing, a celebrity of Fukien origin, the Chui Tak Loong Hong of Messrs. Wu Ting-sam and Wong Ting-ming, the Hau Tak Hong of Mr. Kwok Yim-sing and his brother(s), the Yi Tai Hong and the Lee Yuen Cheung Hong of a business group of Shantung origin. With the exception of Messrs. Chan Yue-fan, Chan Sik-nin and Kwok Yin-sing, all the aforesaid gentlemen have now deceased.

In 1868, with the concerted initiative and efforts of the said Messrs. Chiu Yue-tin, Chan Chun-chuen, Fung Ping-shan, Choi Kit-si, Chan Tin-sau and Wu Ting-sam, the Nam Pak Hong Association was founded in Bonham Strand West near its junctions with Wing Lok Street and Queen's Road. Then the objectives of the Association were to promote members' welfare and market prosperity, to assist the police in the maintenance of law and order in the neighbourhood and to formulate plans for the prevention of fires and alleviation of disasters. On the first floor of the Association building was the office, where regulations and business rules of the Association were decided, Directors and Managers of the Association mutually elected, and monthly meetings held. For the first term, the Chairman of the Board of Directors was Mr. Chiu Yue-tin and the Manager was Mr. Lau Lo-tak. The latter mana-
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44

JULIAN PAS

6. Hou-wang ling-ch'ien 14, published by Tsui-ching tang f**, Canton, n.d. (block print edition; 64 oracles).

7. Pei-ti ling-chien w, published by Wu-kui t'ang in Canton, n.d. (block print; 50 oracles, identical with above Shang-ti ling-ch'ien).

(iv) Oracles reproduced in the Tao-tsang

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

✯ (−TT), 1977 Taipei reprint. Szu-sheng chen-chin ling-ch'ien 145, vol. 54, pp. 44056-44080, TT. 1298 (1 scroll; 49 oracles).

Hsian-chen ling-ying pao-ch'ien KERAK, vol. 54, pp. 44081-44137, TT. 1299 (3 scrolls; 365 oracles, divided over 12 daily hours each of which has 30 slips, i.e. 360 plus one slip for each of the five agents).

Ta-tz'u hao sheng chiu-t'ien wei-fang Sheng-mu yilan-chun ling-ying pao-ch'ien KkP;AMP@!#MEW, vol. 54, pp. 44138-44150, TT. 1300 (1 scroll; 99 oracles).

Hung-en ling-chi chen-chân ling chien light hi. Vol. 54, pp. 44150-44154, TT. 1301 (1 scroll; 53 oracles).

Ling-chi chen-chün chu-sheng ling ch’ien OBZIRAR, vol. 54, pp. 44155-44159, TT. 1302 (1 scroll; 64 oracles).

Fu-t'ien kuang-sheng ru-i ling-ch'ien KQE✯, vol. 54, pp. 44160-44190, TT. 1303 (1 scroll; 120 oracles).

7. B-2 Hu-kuo chia-chi chiang-tung-wang ling-ch'ien ARMORIA, vol. 54, pp. 44193-44213, TT. 1305 (1 scroll; 100 oracles).

8. Hsuan-t'ien Shang-ti kan-ying ling-ch'ien K, vol. 60, pp. 48479-48506 (49 oracles).

(v) 1. Sham Francis, Trans., Kwun Yum Fortune Slip Predictions. Hong Kong: Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, Board of Directors, 1983. (This set corresponds with the Kuan Yin set found in Lukang; B-11 and -12).

2. Sham Francis, Trans., Predictions of Wong Tai Sin. Hong Kong: Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, Board of Directors, 1984. Chai, Tung-yeh # !f, "Ling-chien malo-chii” NUE.

3. Heaven-Earth-man Journal Ke (published in Taichung, Taiwan), no. 1 (1968), 117-147.

B. Studies

1. BAUER, Wolfgang, China and the Search for Happiness. Recurring Themes in Four Thousand Years of Chinese Cultural History. (Translated from the German by Michael Shaw.) New York: The Seabury Press, 1976 (German Ed.: 1971)

2. EBERHARD, Wolfram, "Oracle and Theater in China", pp. 191-199, Studies in Chinese Folklore and Related Essays, The Hague: Mouton, 1970.
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The new hall was a more impressive and comfortable meeting place for community leaders than the old Kung Soh which was not only rather small but was also beginning to show the marks of age.

A famous Victorian lady traveller, Isabella Bird, has left an account of the Tung Wah hall which she visited in 1879;

"The building where the directors meet... (has) one side open to the garden. It has a superb ebony table in the middle with a handsome chair for the chairman and six carved ebony chairs on each side—a most stately 'board room'.”

The furniture was once owned by the wealthy Canton Co-Hong family of Poon. They had encountered financial difficulties and the Chinese Government had seized their property for debt and sold it at a public auction. In this manner it found its way to Hongkong.

The activities of the hospital committee in affairs affecting the Chinese community were viewed with suspicion by Europeans in Hongkong.

Even before the hospital was opened, the committee came under attack for interfering in a scheme to recruit Chinese labour for the southern states of the United States.

The Daily Advertiser said that members of the board of the hospital "appear to have constituted themselves the governing body in the Colony in all Chinese matters. This we predicted in reference to the hospital almost from the time it was founded; and on this point there will be much to say at some time in the future.” As indeed there was.

The committee which oversaw the affairs of Tung Wah Hospital was elected annually from the most prominent members of the community.

Ostensibly their duties were to manage the hospital. Its members, however, also served as temple and kaifong directors. The jurisdiction of these bodies was not sharply defined.
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and in his public utterances, and during the course of his much lauded conciliatory and considerate policy towards the Chinese, the Governor has unduly accentuated the political power assumed by this eleemosynary institution.”

The paper had time and again drawn the attention of the public to the dangers the activities of Tung Wah posed to the legitimate authority of the Government.

Once again it warned of the "dangerous mischief calculated to result from the action of a native corporation possessing no guide or check” and urged the “necessity for either prohibiting the directors from acting as extra judges or jurymen, or for recognising certain powers in them limited by clearly defined rules.”

Their acting as "a sort of Small Cause Court, Chamber of Commerce, Tribunal of Arbitration, (and) Hongkong Association" was the natural result of the composition of the directorship of the hospital,

It was made up of elected representatives from the major commercial guilds. There was usually a member from the pawnbrokers, the compradores, the rice merchants, the nam-pak hongs (trading firms dealing in goods between the northern ports of China and Southeast Asia), the California-Australia importers and exporters, the piece-goods merchants, the cotton yarn merchants and the opium dealers.

The directors were quite aware of the tenuous position they were in, due to their being charged with the management of a hospital and at the same time undertaking to act as a board of arbitration over disputes that could not be settled within a guild.

They also could not escape the fact that the Chinese in Hong Kong looked to them as their natural leaders and entrusted them with the general overseeing of the welfare of the community.

As long as the hospital was used for the management of general community affairs, the directors realised they would be criticised. For this reason they requested a grant of land from the Govern-
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was to promote the responsibility of District Committees, by requiring their 'joint charge and control over the whole range of the labours carried on by their individual members.' The medical mission work in China was already distinguished by local financial support and greater reliance was being placed on the local committee for hospital management and administration. Given these factors, the reply of the LMS Board of Directors is understandable.

The Chinese subscribers, 21 of the richest men in Hong Kong, therefore guaranteed a sum of $2,000 per annum for the lady doctor's salary, but added a condition: that she be available to treat the women of the subscribers' families in their own homes. As well, she would be required to spend her first year learning Cantonese in Hong Kong (rather than in Canton, where LMS language training was established), so that she could mix socially with the Chinese ladies and introduce to them Western hygiene and health care. Negotiations took several months, agreement reached in February, 1903, the delays attributed by the LMS Hong Kong Secretary, Mr. Pearce, to the inability of Dr. Ho to arrange a meeting of the subscribers. More likely, since the subscribers' money was essential, the delay was tactical, Dr. Ho certainly having been able to arrange their support very quickly initially.

For Dr. Gibson, pursuit of the project was important, because he feared that the Tung Wah Hospital, having introduced some Western medicine and by now handling obstetric cases, would threaten the viability of the Alice Hospital and thereby, the mission enterprise in Hong Kong, saying:

·

+

I feel confident that the Directors of the LMS do not wish that our Missionary Institution should be behind a purely heathen Institution in making provision for the relief of suffering.

18

His vision was at all times expansionary, having set up a clinic in Kowloon in 1901, in order to bring Western medicine to a wider public. In the event, he was obliged to accept a lady doctor on terms other than he would have wished. The repercussions of this were to affect the development of the service offered by the new AMMH and lead to the resignation of the lady doctor in 1909. From that point, supervision was fragmented until 1925, when Dr. Annie Sydenham took over the maternity hospital.
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importance of an unexampled calamity. However in spite of difficulties in balancing the budget, many public works projects were completed during his term. He governed with a liberal-mind for he increased the number of unofficial seats in both the Legislative and the Executive Councils in response to a demand for reforming the government. He also agreed to have an unofficial majority on the Sanitary Board. Generally regarded as an able administrator he stayed for fully six years as Governor, the longest tenure held by any governor thus far. In the history of modern China, he would be remembered as the Governor of Hong Kong who imposed a five-year ban on Dr. Sun Yat Sen, who then went to London and was kidnapped but rescued by Sir James Cantlie but that is another story.

Sir James Stewart Lockhart, the main target of Lowson's attack, was Registrar General and acting Colonial Secretary in 1894. There is a biography of him written by Shiona Airlie entitled 'The Thistle and the Bamboo.' He emerged from it as a capable but ambitious man who was eager to seek promotion ahead of his time, and in spite of what Lowson said of him, he got on well with the Chinese. The function of a Registrar General in the early years was to deal with Chinese affairs, not legal matters as at present, in fact, the initial title was Protector of the Chinese. In this office, Lockhart maintained good relations with the directors of Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk and the District Watch Committee, the three main representative bodies of the Chinese community. As to his character, he was said to possess 'humoured geniality which endeared him to his contemporaries' but 'occasionally his patience snapped and from a man considered in the main to be warm-hearted and genial, he became angry and stubborn.' He made at least one important contribution in connection with the Epidemic. After the Resumption of Tai Ping Shan Ordinance was passed, action had to be taken to demolish the old houses. Both landlords and tenants put up a spirited resistance as they both had to suffer financial loss, no rent to be collected by the landlords for sometime and no cheap lodgings for the tenants who were mostly coolies. The coolies threatened to go on strike which would paralyse the city in already very difficult circumstances. Lockhart, who was fluent in Chinese, having been a cadet in the Hong Kong Civil Service, was instrumental in solving the dispute which ended amicably. In 1895, at the age of thirty seven, he became Colonial Secretary when his acting appointment was substantiated. In addition, he was appointed as Special Commissioner for the New Territories in 1897 after the lease was settled. In 1902, he went to Weihaiwei as its first Civil Commissioner. On his departure the
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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
It's no doubt advisable to have every plague patient properly isolated but I fail to see how this can be done in practice as the Chinese do not like to part with our sick until there is no hope of saving them, and it is only in extreme cases, especially in the case of husband and wife and mother and child that they should do so. It has been amply known from experience that the Chinese rather conceal their sick until the last moment and dump their dead in cases where their fellow lodgers would be involved in trouble in order to avoid detection than to submit to forcible removal. Would it not therefore be better to give them the option of treating their sick in their own houses or in some places where the relatives can tend their sick or soothe the mind of the sick by being present oftener, thus ensuring the disinfection of every infected building and placing every plague patient under proper surveillance. The bye-law as to isolation has proved to be a failure; it is time that some new scheme should be tried.

In an early step towards resolving the problem, it was decreed that infant corpses could be brought to dispensaries, no questions asked, and a $1 reward given. Street Committees were appointed and coordination and funding entrusted to the Directors of the Tung Wah Hospital.

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Founder and Chief President in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in 1913. Official Member of the Legislative Council (18) and Director of the Po Leung Kuk.

An indication of what the Chinese community wanted is provided by the report of letters from Mr. Lau Chu Pak (a member of the deputation at Government House) read at a meeting of the Sanitary Board on Tuesday, 24 December 1907.

The dumping of dead bodies in the streets or the harbour had been a life-threatening issue and all efforts to put a stop to it had been ineffective. Suspicions that the practice was the result of infanticide were disproved and the main reason it continued was fear of disinfection of households by the foreign authorities.
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