RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r
CONTENTS

PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1972 -

HON. TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1972 -

THE LIBRARY, 1972 -

ARTICLES:

  
    Page
    
  
  
    1
    Transactions of the China Medico-Chirurgical Society, 1845-46 — H. A. RYDINGS
  
  
    11
    The Yaumatei Typhoon Shelter, Hong Kong, 1900-1915 A. J. S. LACK
  
  
    13
    The Kam Tin Gates PETER WESLEY-SMITH
  
  
    28
    Early Steamships in China-A. D. BLUE
  
  
    41
    
  
  
    45
    Persians, Arabs and Other Nationals In T’ang China CHIU LING-YEONG
  
  
    58
    Swatow (Ch'auchow) Horizontal Stick Puppets - HELGA WERLE
  
  
    73
    Five 19th Century Kwangtung Art Catalogues CHUANG SHEN
  
  
    85
    
  

REPRINTED ARTICLES

  
    Legends and Stories of the New Territories: Kam T'in SUNG HOK-P'ANG (with a memoir of the author by Lo Hsiang-lin)
    111
  

NOTES AND QUERIES

  
    Notes on Chinese Temples in Hong Kong — CARL T. SMITH
    133
  
  
    'Ling Chih' at Canton, 27th May 1886 Hai Ju; Ming Patriot, Spark for Revolution and God
    139
  
  
    KEITH STEPHENS
    144
  
  
    Another Volontieri Map? -
    
  
  
    William Thomas Mercer (1822-1879) Hong Kong's Poet Laureate? HENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE
    146
  
  
    Old Bills of Lading (McMullen Collection) — H. A. RYDINGS
    151
  
  
    Visit to the Sukhothai Sites in Thailand — MICHAEL SMITHIES
    154
  
  
    Deep Bay Marshes
    163
  
  
    
    168
  

BOOK REVIEWS

  
    
    169
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r
NOTES AND QUERIES

WILLIAM THOMAS MERCER (1822-1879):

HONG KONG'S POET LAUREATE?

151

Hong Kong, a city dedicated principally to the acquisition of wealth, has produced few, if any, English writers of quality. But it did provide a home for over twenty years for a poetaster deserving of a niche in D.B. Wyndham Lewis's anthology of bad verse, The Stuffed Owl? This colonial versifier was William Thomas Mercer, who arrived in Hong Kong in 1844 as Private Secretary to his uncle, Sir John Davis, Governor of Hong Kong, became Colonial Secretary in 1854 and remained thereafter the chief executive officer of the Colony until retirement on pension in 1867, being then only forty-five years of age.3

4

In 1869 Mercer appeared on the London literary scene as the author of Under the Peak; or, Jottings in Verse, written during a lengthened residence in the Colony of Hong Kong. This book, an octavo volume of 305 pages, was published in London by John Camden Hotten of 15lb Piccadilly. That Hotten published Mercer's innocuous poems is surprising. That Mercer should have entrusted his precious verses to such a man is even more startling. Hotten, a speculative and disreputable publisher, in 1866 took over the publication of Swinburne's Poems and Ballads after the original publisher, Moxon, had withdrawn, frightened by the clamour that arose over Swinburne's 'fleshly' poems. Hotten, who died in 1873 of 'a surfeit of pork chops', was in his day a notorious publisher of erotica and facetiae. His list included not only Swinburne and, in 1869, the 'unfleshly' Mercer, but such works as Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs and A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus. Mercer, who was described by Sir Richard Macdonnell as 'a gentlemanly, scholarly person', was in Hotten's list keeping decidedly curious company.

5

It seems likely, however, that Mercer paid for the cost of publication of Under the Peak, for Hotten was a shrewd businessman and not likely to invest his own money in such a humdrum and tame book. Mercer had, in fact, done this before. In 1867, soon after his return from Hong Kong, he had put out at his own expense Addresses presented to W.T.M., recently Acting Governor of Hong Kong; with services, testimonials, etc., a eulogistic volume prompted by pique at failure to obtain a colonial governorship.
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