RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063
183

Tong A-chick continued his studies at the Church of England Anglo-Chinese School under the supervision of the Colonial Chaplain of Hongkong, the Rev. Mr. Vincent Stanton.

Upon the arrival of the first Bishop of Victoria in March 1850, the school was placed under his charge and was renamed St Paul's College. The bishop took a special interest in Tong A-chick as he was one of his first converts.

A-CHICK: IN AND OUT OF TROUBLE

When the first Bishop of Victoria, the Right Rev. George Smith, arrived in Hongkong in March 1850, the Church of England Anglo-Chinese School was reorganised as St. Paul's College.

Among its senior pupils was Tong A-chick, known in later life as Tong Mow-chee, who only attended part time as he was also interpreter in the Chief Magistrate's office.

In the autumn of 1847 the Hongkong Government faced a crisis over the post of interpreter. Daniel Richard Caldwell, who had held the office for several years, found himself in financial difficulties and was declared bankrupt. In consequence he resigned his office with the Government.

An appeal was made to the Morrison Education Society School for a replacement. A-chick took over Caldwell's position at a salary of £125, a handsome one for so young a man. This sudden rise to affluence may account for some of his later troubles.

Not everyone was pleased with the appointment. In reporting a court case, the China Mail noted that the foreman of the jury objected to having A-chick serve as interpreter. He refused, however, to state the grounds of his objection and the judge compromised by ordering someone to check on A-chick's interpretation.

The suspicions of the jury foreman appear to have had some foundation, for in the summer of 1851 A-chick was charged with being in league with pirates.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641
JOHN FRYER'S EARLY YEARS IN CHINA: III. ACCOUNT OF THREE DAYS EXCURSION ON THE MAINLAND OF CHINA

FRED DAGENAIS*

129

This is the third in a series of letters by John Fryer (1838-1928) to appear in this Journal. In the first letter Fryer described the tedious and sometimes difficult voyage from London to Hong Kong in 1861 on a sailing ship via the Cape of Good Hope with a brief stop at Batavia. In the first letter Fryer presented himself as a very young man just out of Highbury Training College coming into contact with the larger world, homesick, critical of the master of the ship and of the passengers, confirmed in his personal faith, bent on self-improvement, and interacting for the first time with missionaries in the colonial world of Batavia and Hong Kong.

The second letter, written shortly after his arrival, described Hong Kong and its environs and the European and Chinese people encountered; in it he provided us with a detailed tour of the building housing St. Paul's College, where he had been assigned to superintend by the Church Missionary Society, and of its operations. St Paul's College had its origins in a school founded in the mid-1840s by then Colonial Chaplain Rev. Vincent Stanton; the College was given a boost by the arrival in 1850 of the Rev George Smith, Bishop of Victoria (1849-64). In that letter Fryer seemed in awe of his new authority and responsibility and quite proud of the commodious school building and its library; he began to socialize with the Colonial Chaplain and his family, and revealed an appreciation of the wider perspective offered by the interaction with the Chinese population of the island and its culture.

The first and second letters were clearly identified as letters written for home consumption, for family and friends in Hythe and Chudleigh. The letters were extracted from his diary and designed to describe his adventures in an exotic land. The first letter had a salutation and a signature; the second letter had a salutation, but ended abruptly, the last page or pages with conclusion and signature having perhaps been lost or purposely destroyed.
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