Richards & Lickfold

by | Nov 20, 2019

Hi John and Hilary,

John, I’ve mentioned this to you before but at the time could not recall the details: Your mum’s bother Edmund married my 1st cousin 3x removed, Hilda Richards. Hilda is a descendent of my great great Uncle Henry Caldwell. Henry was born in St Helena (south Atlantic) and raised in Singapore where he became Senior Court Clerk. He was much admired for his administrative talents, his linguistic abilities and his affable nature. He built a grand home in what is now downtown Singapore (still there) but ran out of money. To avoid debtors prison, he made a hasty move — he, wife and 4 kids slipped out of Singapore loaded with the court’s trust funds, bent on starting a new life elsewhere. Not surprisingly, they turned up in Hong Kong where they lived with Henry’s brother Daniel (my great great grandfather). Well, the authorities caught up with Henry soon enough but Daniel, an influential member of the HK colonial government, appears to have negotiated a deal to repay the funds over time. Henry stayed on in HK, became a lawyer, made lots of dough, repaid the money and retired comfortably to England.
 
Singapore-born Louisa Caldwell is the connection to Richards (1839-1874). She married William M Richards, probably met him in school in England, No sign of the Richards actually living in Singapore. The Richards base was Devon and Hampshire. A fun tidbit. Love, Peter

Betrothed

by | Nov 16, 2019

 

The Unsuitable Suitor

A man of standing

In the mid 1800s, he was the Postmaster General of Hong Kong and by some accounts, he was bright, accomplished and difficult. His name was Francis William Mitchell and he was my great great grandfather.

Francis was a lawyer by training. He began his articles in London as a young man, then made a fateful decision to immigrate to Hong Kong with his new wife Mary.
There, he found a position with the post office and in time, worked his way up to be Postmaster General. He was exceptionally good at what he did — organizing and managing. So good, in fact, he was lent out to China and the Philippines to reorganize their postal services. King Amadeus of Spain was so grateful he knighted the man.

Yet although he was outstanding at his work, his personal relationships were less than sterling. He seems to have been a ‘my way or the highway’ sort, used to thundering out orders at the office and confused, probably, that friends and family held views that differed from his. Nevertheless, he made a huge contribution in his world of work.

Befitting Francis’s position, the Mitchells live in The Peak district of Hong Kong, among the wealthy and elite. Francis and Mary have two children, Mary and Francis Jr. You’re about to drop in on the family three times to witness life-changing events that occurred in 1874, 1881 and 1887. This post is Part 1: 1874 — The Unsuitable Suitor

The Engagement

It is 9:05 in the morning, August 12, 1874. No need to knock. We are in the drawing room. It’s Sunday and Francis is sleeping in. Downstairs young Mary (25) paces the kitchen floor. Her mother Mary is seated at the table, sipping tea and staring absently at nothing in particular. Quiet now….

“When is he going to come down Mother? I can’t stand much more of this.”
“He won’t be much longer, dear. Be patient.”
Young Mary is frantic. “I’m about to have a conversation with that obstreperous old bear of a father which he is not going to like about the future course of my life and I’m supposed to be patient?”
“Mary, your father is not the easiest man to deal with, I confess, but he does deserve our respect…and our love. Don’t forget that.”
“Oh I’m sorry Mother. I just need to get this over with and get on with my life with Daniel — away from this house! Oh dear, he’s coming down now.”

“Good morning father.”
“Good morning Mary. Good morning dear. Well now. You two look like you swallowed the canary. Dare I ask?”
“Father, I’ve got some exciting news to tell you.”
“Really, what is it Sweetheart?”
“Daniel and I are going to be married. We are betrothed.”

“What? My God girl, you cannot be serious. You hardly know the man. And he certainly has not approached me for your hand.”

“Father, we’ve been seeing each other for eight months, and he had every intention to speak to you, but I told him that I preferred to tell you the news myself. And I am serious father. Very serious. He’s a wonderful man and I love him dearly.”

“He’s a Caldwell, damn it. His father’s a scoundrel; his uncle’s a scoundrel. No Mary. I cannot allow it. It is absolutely out of the question. I will not have my daughter married to a Caldwell. It would discredit our family, tarnish my reputation irreparably and God knows where you would end up. Absolutely not.”
“I’m afraid I am marrying Daniel, father. I hope you will give us your blessing and wish us well. But if you choose not to, that is your loss.” Mary, in tears, runs from the kitchen.

Young Mary’s mother takes up the cause, “Francis, for goodness sake, Mary is a grown woman. She must make her own decisions and yes, live with them.” It’s not up to us to decide whom she should marry and whom not.”

“Mary, I cannot stop our Mary from marrying that man, but I swear to God, he will not step foot in this house. And we will not be attending the marriage.”

“You will not, perhaps, but I will. I will not abandon our daughter because you have a bone to pick with the Caldwells.”

And that was that. Mary Mitchell and Daniel Edmond Caldwell (my great grandparents) married the following year. Francis was ‘unavoidably’ absent in China on business.

Young Mary’s brother, Francis Junior, served as witness. And perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, Francis retired from the Post Office that same year, 1875, and he and Mary left Hong Kong to begin another life in Hobart, Tasmania.

Was Francis so shamed by his unwanted connection to the Caldwells that he could not bear to remain in Hong Kong? Did he fear becoming ostracized by his friends and colleagues? Did Mary and her father speak to each other again? We don’t know.

The Caldwells: Saints or Sinners

Some say Old Man Mitchell wasn’t far off the mark. The Caldwells were indeed a controversial and influential Hong Kong family. My great great grandfather, Daniel R Caldwell smuggled opium into Canton as a young privateer.

Later, his remarkable linguistic skills and his rapport with the Chinese community of Hong Kong made him indispensable to the colonial government. However, Daniel R Caldwell had close connections with the Hong Kong underworld. Information from those informants allowed him, in partnership with the British Navy, to rout and destroy thousands of pirates who had devastated trade in and out of Hong Kong. Those connections and his past life as a smuggler, however, left many in Hong Kong wondering where Daniel’s loyalties really lay — on the right or the wrong side of the law.

Daniel’s brother Henry Caldwell spent most of his career in Singapore where, for 28 years, he was an officer of the court. There, he was much liked and greatly admired as a man of integrity and talent.

One day an audit determined that $100,000 of trust funds were missing. Henry could not provide a satisfactory explanation. Facing a lengthy prison sentence, he, along with his family, slipped away in the night leaving everything they owned behind. They re-appeared in Hong Kong where Henry started again, became a lawyer, and paid back his creditors in full.

Young Mary’s Daniel Edmond Caldwell also became a lawyer. In letters to his wife who, with the children, were visiting in England, he makes reference to mounting family expenses and how much he hated his work. Was he at the end of his tether? Quite possibly, for he took a page from his uncle’s playbook and disappeared with his client’s trust funds. He was never heard from again. Mary lived out her days alone in England.

Visit to Chijmes

by | Nov 14, 2019

A friend of mine, Gill W sent this description of Caldwell House along with a retrospective of Singapore, years past and today.

 The complex [CHIJMES] is big. The whole  building is built on three sides. Whether this was the whole house or whether the convent built onto it I’m not sure. Another part upstairs was a Chinese restaurant and yet another an Italian restaurant. It was the Italian part which I originally thought must have been Caldwell House, as it most resembles a house today. You’ll have to see it to decide for yourself.

Singapore as it is today bears no relation to the Singapore  we lived in. Orchard road still had trees on either side. There was only one high rise hotel in Orchard road. Raffles was rather shabby then. I loved it. The modern complex doesn’t appeal at all. Singapore river stank to high heaven and had shabby godowns on it. There were lots of Malay kampongs, awful slums, death houses for the Chinese ( it was considered unlucky for a Chinese to die at home ). Changi where we lived was a lovely village with lots of little shop houses selling everything. When Peter had the car I used to tahe a ‘pick up’ taxi into town. You’d flag down a taxi and ask for pick up which meant the driver could pick up other passengers. It saved on cost. I have been known to travel with a cage of hens on my lap.The classroom I taught in had an attap ( straw type) roof with flimsy doors and windows,  like the kampong houses.

The old folk hated the kampongs going and being rehoused in high rise flats. One taxi driver we had on a later visit said ‘It’s all f——ed up since you left’. However I don’t think the young Singaporeans see it like that. They are very proud of their modern city. You can also be fined for chewing gum. Looking at the gum smeared streets in our towns, no bad thing. At one time too they would insist on cutting  male  tourists hair before allowing them entry if it was considered too long. Last time we were there despite heavy fines we actually saw litter in the streets.

Whereas it was cheap when we lived there, in 2012, after spending two weeks in Vietnam and Cambodia we spent 5 days in Singapore and spent almost as much as the time in V and C. We have stayed in a whole range of hotels  in Singapore. 3* is not good, even if you  go for the best rooms. There is no doubt that Singapore has lost its charm for us. In modernising they have lost nearly all their old buildings. There are a few areas where the buildings look the same, but invariably they have been refurbished, so that is why I cherish the few that are left.

As  you can see I haven’t moved with the times. I like to see evidence of the past. That’s what I like about France. They keep the exteriors of their  old houses looking old and just modernise the interiors for comfortable living.

Chijmes Singapore

by | Nov 14, 2019

CHIJMESFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search

Coordinates: 1°17′42.5″N 103°51′06.5″E

CHIJMES (pronounced “chimes“, Chinese: 赞美广场) is a historic building complex in Singapore, which began life as a Catholic convent known as the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ) (圣婴女修院) and convent quarters known as Caldwell House (古德威尔屋). The complex is located at Victoria Street in the Downtown Core, within the Central Area, Singapore’s central business district.

This complex of convent buildings has a Gothic-style chapel. It was used as a Catholic convent for 132 years, with Caldwell House constructed in 1840–1841 and the chapel in 1904. The chapel, now a multi-purpose hall, is known as CHIJMES Hall (赞美礼堂), and Caldwell House, now an art gallery, have both been gazetted as national monuments. The complex has been restored for commercial purposes as a dining, shopping and entertainment centre with ethnic restaurants, shops and a function hall, providing a backdrop for musicals, recitals, theatrical performances and weddings.Contents

History

The CHIJMES Hall, designed by Father Charles Benedict Nain as a chapel, was completed in 1904.

In October 1852, four French nuns arrived in Penang after having travelled overland from their native country in caravans. Reverend Mother Mathilde Raclot, leader of this group, was to become a key personality in the early history of the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus on Victoria Street.

On 2 February 1854, the nuns sailed to Singapore from Penang on a mission to build a school for girls,[1][2] now known as CHIJ Secondary Toa Payoh. On 5 February 1854, they reached the island’s shores and took up residence at the first convent quarters, the now gazetted Caldwell House.

The nuns began taking in pupils only ten days after moving in, establishing the first CHIJ school in Singapore. Reverend Mother Mathilde staffed her school with sisters from the parent Society, the Institute of the Charitable Schools of the Holy Infant Jesus of Saint Maur. She dedicated 20 years of her life turning the convent into a school, an orphanage and refuge for women. Two classes were conducted, one for fee-paying students and another for orphans and the poor. Slowly, the nuns managed to restore the house into a simple but austere residence.

The Gate of Hope at CHIJMES

The first chapel of the Convent, which had been built around 1850, was in such a bad condition that it was necessary to build a new one. At the end of the 19th century, the Sisters started fund-raising by various means for the new chapel. The old one was becoming so dangerous that the Sisters decided to celebrate mass in Caldwell House.

Father Beurel acquired all the nine lots of land between Victoria Street and North Bridge Road, originally belonging to the Raffles Institution, that would constitute the entire convent complex. He presented them all to Reverend Mother Mathilde.

After being granted land in 1849 for the formation of Saint Joseph’s Institution, Father Charles Benedict Nain, a priest at Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, tried his luck once more for the building of a school for girls. He was refused but, undaunted and after returning re-inspired from his voyage to France in 1852, he was engaged as an architect for the construction of the chapel at the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus and, on behalf of the Roman Catholic community, was in charge at the same time of the construction of the extension of the Saint Joseph Institution. The construction of the chapel started in 1901 and it was completed by 1904. Father Nain was highly involved in the worksite. He is the author of all the fine architectural details found in the chapel.

Much of the knowledge about the daily activities of the convent comes from seven volumes of diaries that were meticulously kept by convent scribes. These diaries cover over a hundred years of convent history, from 1851 to 1971; they are handwritten in French and entitled Annales de Singapour. From their observations, it is known that life within the convent walls was anything but sedate. Apart from daily chores, the nuns also had to organise and attend mass, grade papers, maintain the buildings and the grounds as well as raise money to support their activities.

Intricate floral and bird motifs on the Corinthian columns at CHIJMES Hall

Saint Nicholas Girls’ School was established in 1933. The school first held classes in the four old bungalows which formed the Hotel Van Wijk of the 1890s. It later moved into its new premises at the town convent in 1949 when the school was incorporated in the convent grounds. The school has since relocated to Ang Mo Kio in 1985.

The last religious service was held in the chapel on 3 November 1983, after which the chapel was deconsecrated and the town convent was closed. Careful restoration work has preserved much of the original structure of the convent and the chapel. After almost five and a half years of conservation and construction work, what was once the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus and the seat of education for generations of Singapore girls, has been converted into a plaza of theme retail and food and beverage outlets interspersed with ample outdoor spaces and courtyards, cloistered walls and long, covered walkways. This haven in the city hub of Singapore, now known as CHIJMES, is a S$100 million project unmatched for its location and unique ambiance. It won a Merit Award in the UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation in 2002.

The Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus Chapel and Caldwell House were gazetted as a national monument on 26 October 1990.Caldwell House

Caldwell House was purchased for the convent by Father Jean-Marie Beurel, a French missionary, who also established Saint Joseph’s Institution, the former site of which is now the Singapore Art Museum, and the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, where he was the parish priest.

Caldwell House was designed by George Drumgoole Coleman, and is an example of his Neoclassical style. The bay on the upper floor became the sisters’ lounge.Architecture

The interior of CHIJMES Hall, showing the arched ceiling and stained glass windows

The Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus is distinctive for being an architecturally self-contained city block in Singapore. It contains groups of buildings of different styles and periods in order to maintain a diversity in aesthetics. They are formed around courtyards and other expansive spaces, landscaped and enclosed with walls which scale with its urban surroundings.

George Drumgoole Coleman’s house built in 1840–1841 for H.C. Caldwell, a magistrate’s clerk, is the oldest building in this enclave, which also includes the Gothic chapel and Saint Nicholas Girls’ School buildings. It was in the Caldwell House that the nuns did their sewing, reading and writing for so many years in the semicircular upstairs room whilst the first storey served as a parlour and visitors’ room. The early Gothic style chapel has finely detailed works, such as the plasterwork, the wall frescoes and stained glass panels.

The grand Anglo-French Gothic chapel was established with the support of the Catholic community in Singapore and beyond. Designed by Father Nain, the chapel is one of the most elaborate places of worship ever built in Singapore. The chapel was completed in 1904 and consecrated the following year.

A five-storey spire flanked by flying buttresses marks the entrance to the chapel. The 648 capitals on the columns of the chapel and its corridors each bear a unique impression of tropical flora and birds.

A few of the 648 capitals on the columns of the Chapel and a spiral staircase along a corridor

The various buildings are related by design with the intent to form exterior spaces which would be pleasing for its users, and were used for church school activities until November 1983 when the school vacated the premises. The spaces contained within the whole block have been adapted for public use, and form one of the major buildings in the Central Area.

Caldwell House

by | Nov 14, 2019

Henry Charles Caldwell was partially raised in Singapore and spent the better part of his working career there as an officer of the court. Below is an excerpt from the book “Singapore Street Names: A Study of Toponymics” by Victor R Savage and Brenda Yeoh describing his house and his work.

Part of [Henry Charles] Caldwell’s house forms the major front facade of the left side of the gothic church now known as CHIJMES, an acronym for ‘Church of the Holy Infant Jesus.’ The house was built in 1840 by George Coleman and was commissioned by H C Caldwell, the senior sworn clerk to the Magistrates. It was one of the last buildings that Coleman completed. Caldwell House is one of only two houses dating back to the 1840s/1850s that remain in the colonial district — the other being the old Parliament House that was built for the trader, John Maxwell, by G D Coleman in 1826-1827.

In 1854, a group of Sisters from the Holy Infant Jesus Order (also known as Les Dames de St Maur or CHIJMES) set up home in Caldwell’s house and opened a school within a short span of two weeks. By 1892 the convent had 360 pupils, 200 orphans, 30 poor women, 26 babies and over 40 Sisters. The convent also became an orphanage with babies abandoned at the doorsteps of Foundlings Gate (now preserved as the Gate of Hope). In 1983 the Town Convent (CHIJ) finally closed and shifted to Toa Payoh. Henry Charles Caldwell held several government positions as sworn clerk (1836-1839). senior sworn clerk (1839-1855), and registrar (1855-1856). He left Singapore in 1856 because of financial difficulties.

Footnote:  I conveyed this information to my genealogist friend Gill Wallis in England who has been helping (make that guiding) me with the Caldwell family search. She writes back:

“I couldn’t believe it when I clicked on Henry’s Singapore House. I cannot say I can remember the house exactly ( It is now an art gallery ) in Chijmes. But we always go to Chijmes when in Singapore ( last there in 2011 ). I’ve searched through all my old photos hoping I’d taken one but I didn’t. I have a book written by a young Singaporean girl who spent the war behind the convent walls of what is now called Chijmes. It is called A Cloistered War by Maisie Duncan. However I googled ” Photo of Caldwell House in Chijmes ” and you get several images which give you an idea of the architectural style. Chijmes stands for Church of the infant Jesus, I believe. Apart from the art gallery there are several restaurants and craft shops. The church has been turned into a wedding chapel. At least it was when we were there Gill”

Straits Settlements

by | Nov 14, 2019

Straits SettlementsFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediia

The Straits Settlements (Malay: Negeri-negeri Selat; Chinese: 海峡殖民地 Hǎixiá zhímíndì) were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia. Originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Company, the Straits Settlements came under direct British control as a crown colony on 1 April 1867. The colony was dissolved in 1946 as part of the British reorganisation of its south-east Asian dependencies following the end of the Second World War.

The Straits Settlements consisted of the four individual settlements of Malacca, Dinding, Penang (also known as Prince of Wales Island), Singapore (with Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands). The island of Labuan, off the coast of Borneo, was also incorporated into the colony with effect from 1 January 1907, becoming a separate settlement within it in 1912. With the exception of Singapore, Christmas Island, and the Cocos Islands, these territories now form part of Malaysia.Contents

History and government

The establishment of the Straits Settlements followed the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, by which the Malay archipelago was divided into a British zone in the north and a Dutch zone in the south. This resulted in the exchange of the British settlement of Bencoolen (on Sumatra) for the Dutch colony of Malacca and undisputed control of Singapore. The Settlements were largely Chinese in population, with a tiny but important European minority.[1] Their capital was moved from Penang to Singapore in 1832. Their scattered nature proved to be difficult and, after the Company lost its monopoly in the China trade in 1833, expensive to administer.[2]

During their control by the East India Company, the Settlements were used as penal settlements for Indian civilian and military prisoners,[3] earning them the title of the ‘Botany Bays of India’.[4] The years 1852 and 1853 saw minor uprisings by convicts in Singapore and Penang.[5] Upset with East India Company rule, in 1857, the European population of the Settlements sent a petition to the British Parliament[6] asking for direct rule; but the idea was overtaken by events – the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

When a ‘Gagging Act’ was imposed to prevent the uprising in India spreading, the Settlements’ press reacted with anger, classing it as something that subverted ‘every principle of liberty and free discussion’.[7] As there was little or no vernacular press in the Settlements, such an act seemed irrelevant: it was rarely enforced and ended in less than a year.[8]

On 1 April 1867 the Settlements became a British Crown colony, making the Settlements answerable directly to the Colonial Office in London instead of the Indian government based in Calcutta, India. Earlier, on 4 February 1867, Letters Patent had granted the Settlements a colonial constitution. This allocated much power to the Settlements’ Governor, who administered the colony of the Straits Settlements with the aid of an Executive Council, composed wholly of official (i.e. ex-officio) members, and a Legislative Council, composed partly of official and partly of nominated members, of which the former had a narrow permanent majority. The work of administration, both in the colony and in the Federated Malay States, was carried on by means of a civil service whose members were recruited by competitive examination held annually in London.

Penang and Malacca were administered, directly under the governor, by resident councillors.

Dindings and Province Wellesley

The Dindings, consisting of some islands near the mouth of the Perak River and a small piece of territory on the adjoining mainland, were ceded by Perak to the British government under the Pangkor Treaty of 1874. Hopes that its excellent natural harbour would prove to be valuable were doomed to disappointment, and the islands, sparsely inhabited and altogether unimportant both politically and financially, were administered by the government of Perak.

Province Wellesley, on the mainland opposite the island of Penang, was ceded to Great Britain in 1798 by the Sultan of Kedah, on its northern and eastern border; Perak lies to the south. The boundary with Kedah was rectified by treaty with Siam (now Thailand) in 1867. It was administered by a district officer, with some assistants, answering to the resident councillor of Penang. Province Wellesley consisted, for the most part, of fertile plain, thickly populated by Malays, and occupied in some parts by sugar-planters and others engaged in similar agricultural industries and employing Chinese and Tamil labour. About a tenth of the whole area was covered by low hills with thick jungle. Large quantities of rice were grown by the Malay inhabitants, and between October and February there was snipe-shooting in the paddy fields. A railway from Butterworth, opposite Penang, runs into Perak, and thence via Selangor and Negri Sembilan to Malacca, with an extension via Muar under the rule of the sultan of Johor, and through the last-named state to Johor Bharu, opposite the island of Singapore.

The governor’s wider role

The Cocos (Keeling) Islands (which were settled and once owned by a Scottish family named Clunies-Ross) and Christmas Island, formerly attached to Ceylon, were in 1886 transferred to the care of the government of the Straits Settlements in Singapore along with the addition of Labuan in 1906.

The governor of the Straits Settlements was also High Commissioner for the Federated Malay States on the peninsula, for British North Borneo, the sultanate of Brunei and Sarawak in Borneo, and since the administration of the colony of Labuan, which for a period was vested in the British North Borneo Company, was resumed by the British government he was also governor of Labuan. British residents controlled the native states of Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan and Pahang, but on 1 July 1896, when the federation of these states was effected, a resident-general, responsible to the (governor as) high commissioner, was placed in supreme charge of all the British protectorates in the peninsula.

Japanese invasion and dissolution

During World War II, the Japanese invaded Malaya and the Straits Settlements by landing on Kelantan on 8 December 1941, and on 16 December, Penang became the first Straits Settlement to fall to Japanese hands. Malacca fell on 15 January and Singapore fell on 15 February, following the famous Battle of Singapore. The Straits Settlements, along with the rest of the Malay Peninsula, remained under Japanese occupation until August 1945.

After the war, the colony was dissolved with effect from 1 April 1946, with Singapore becoming a separate crown colony (and ultimately an independent republic), while Penang and Malacca joined the new Malayan Union (a predecessor of modern-day Malaysia). Labuan was briefly annexed to Singapore, before being attached to the new colony of British North Borneo.

The Cocos or Keeling Islands and Christmas Island, originally made part of the crown colony of Singapore in 1946, were transferred to Australian administration in 1955 and 1957 respectively.


Population

The following are the area and population, with details of race distribution, of the colony of the Straits Settlements, the figures being those of the census of 1901:

 Area in square milesPopulation in 1891Population in 1901TotalEuropeansEurasiansChineseMalaysIndiansOther nationalitiesSingapore206184,554228,5553,8244,120164,04136,08017,8232,667Penang, Province Wellesley and Dindings381235,618248,2071,1601,94598,424106,00038,0512,627Malacca65992,17095,487741,59819,46872,9781,27693Total1,246512,342572,2495,0587,663281,933215,05857,1505,387

The population, which was 306,775 in 1871 and 423,384 in 1881, had in 1901 reached a total of 572,249. As in former years, the increase was solely due to immigration, more especially of Chinese, though a considerable number of Tamils and other natives of India settled in the Straits Settlements. The total number of births registered in the colony in 1900 was 14,814, and the ratio per 1000 of the population during 1896, 1897 and 1898 respectively was 22–18, 20–82 and 21–57; while the number of registered deaths for the years 1896–1900 gave a ratio per 1000 of 42–21, 36–90, 30–43, 31–66 and 36-25 respectively, the number of deaths registered during 1900 being 23,385. The cause to which the excess of deaths over births is to be attributed is to be found in the fact that the Chinese and Indian population, which numbers 339,083, or over 59% of the whole, is composed of 261,412 males and only 77,671 females, and a comparatively small number of the latter were married women and mothers of families. The male Europeans also outnumbered the females by about two to one; and among the Malays and Eurasians, who alone had a fair proportion of both sexes, the infant mortality was excessive, due to early marriages and other well-known causes. The number of immigrants landing in the various settlements during 1906 was:

Singapore 176,587 Chinese; Penang 56,333 Chinese and 52,041 natives of India; and Malacca 598 Chinese. The total number of immigrants for 1906 was therefore 285,560, as against 39,136 emigrants, mostly Chinese returning to China. In 1867, the date of the transfer of the colony from the East India Company to the Crown, the total population was estimated at 283,384

Straits Settlements 2

by | Nov 14, 2019

The Straits Settlements (Malay: Negeri-negeri Selat; Chinese: 海峡殖民地 Hǎixiá zhímíndì) were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia. Originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Company, the Straits Settlements came under direct British control as a crown colony on 1 April 1867. The colony was dissolved in 1946 as part of the British reorganisation of its south-east Asian dependencies following the end of the Second World War.

The Straits Settlements consisted of the four individual settlements of Malacca, Dinding, Penang (also known as Prince of Wales Island), Singapore (with Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands). The island of Labuan, off the coast of Borneo, was also incorporated into the colony with effect from 1 January 1907, becoming a separate settlement within it in 1912. With the exception of Singapore, Christmas Island, and the Cocos Islands, these territories now form part of Malaysia.

History and government

The establishment of the Straits Settlements followed the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, by which the Malay archipelago was divided into a British zone in the north and a Dutch zone in the south. This resulted in the exchange of the British settlement of Bencoolen (on Sumatra) for the Dutch colony of Malacca and undisputed control of Singapore. The Settlements were largely Chinese in population, with a tiny but important European minority.[1] Their capital was moved from Penang to Singapore in 1832. Their scattered nature proved to be difficult and, after the Company lost its monopoly in the China trade in 1833, expensive to administer.[2]

During their control by the East India Company, the Settlements were used as penal settlements for Indian civilian and military prisoners,[3] earning them the title of the ‘Botany Bays of India’.[4] The years 1852 and 1853 saw minor uprisings by convicts in Singapore and Penang.[5] Upset with East India Company rule, in 1857, the European population of the Settlements sent a petition to the British Parliament[6] asking for direct rule; but the idea was overtaken by events – the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

When a ‘Gagging Act’ was imposed to prevent the uprising in India spreading, the Settlements’ press reacted with anger, classing it as something that subverted ‘every principle of liberty and free discussion’.[7] As there was little or no vernacular press in the Settlements, such an act seemed irrelevant: it was rarely enforced and ended in less than a year.[8]

On 1 April 1867 the Settlements became a British Crown colony, making the Settlements answerable directly to the Colonial Office in London instead of the Indian government based in Calcutta, India. Earlier, on 4 February 1867, Letters Patent had granted the Settlements a colonial constitution. This allocated much power to the Settlements’ Governor, who administered the colony of the Straits Settlements with the aid of an Executive Council, composed wholly of official (i.e. ex-officio) members, and a Legislative Council, composed partly of official and partly of nominated members, of which the former had a narrow permanent majority. The work of administration, both in the colony and in the Federated Malay States, was carried on by means of a civil service whose members were recruited by competitive examination held annually in London.

Penang and Malacca were administered, directly under the governor, by resident councillors.Dindings and Province Wellesley

The Dindings, consisting of some islands near the mouth of the Perak River and a small piece of territory on the adjoining mainland, were ceded by Perak to the British government under the Pangkor Treaty of 1874. Hopes that its excellent natural harbour would prove to be valuable were doomed to disappointment, and the islands, sparsely inhabited and altogether unimportant both politically and financially, were administered by the government of Perak.

Province Wellesley, on the mainland opposite the island of Penang, was ceded to Great Britain in 1798 by the Sultan of Kedah, on its northern and eastern border; Perak lies to the south. The boundary with Kedah was rectified by treaty with Siam (now Thailand) in 1867. It was administered by a district officer, with some assistants, answering to the resident councillor of Penang. Province Wellesley consisted, for the most part, of fertile plain, thickly populated by Malays, and occupied in some parts by sugar-planters and others engaged in similar agricultural industries and employing Chinese and Tamil labour. About a tenth of the whole area was covered by low hills with thick jungle. Large quantities of rice were grown by the Malay inhabitants, and between October and February there was snipe-shooting in the paddy fields. A railway from Butterworth, opposite Penang, runs into Perak, and thence via Selangor and Negri Sembilan to Malacca, with an extension via Muar under the rule of the sultan of Johor, and through the last-named state to Johor Bharu, opposite the island of Singapore.The governor’s wider role

The Cocos (Keeling) Islands (which were settled and once owned by a Scottish family named Clunies-Ross) and Christmas Island, formerly attached to Ceylon, were in 1886 transferred to the care of the government of the Straits Settlements in Singapore along with the addition of Labuan in 1906.

The governor of the Straits Settlements was also High Commissioner for the Federated Malay States on the peninsula, for British North Borneo, the sultanate of Brunei and Sarawak in Borneo, and since the administration of the colony of Labuan, which for a period was vested in the British North Borneo Company, was resumed by the British government he was also governor of Labuan. British residents controlled the native states of Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan and Pahang, but on 1 July 1896, when the federation of these states was effected, a resident-general, responsible to the (governor as) high commissioner, was placed in supreme charge of all the British protectorates in the peninsula.Japanese invasion and dissolution

During World War II, the Japanese invaded Malaya and the Straits Settlements by landing on Kelantan on 8 December 1941, and on 16 December, Penang became the first Straits Settlement to fall to Japanese hands. Malacca fell on 15 January and Singapore fell on 15 February, following the famous Battle of Singapore. The Straits Settlements, along with the rest of the Malay Peninsula, remained under Japanese occupation until August 1945.

After the war, the colony was dissolved with effect from 1 April 1946, with Singapore becoming a separate crown colony (and ultimately an independent republic), while Penang and Malacca joined the new Malayan Union (a predecessor of modern-day Malaysia). Labuan was briefly annexed to Singapore, before being attached to the new colony of British North Borneo.

The Cocos or Keeling Islands and Christmas Island, originally made part of the crown colony of Singapore in 1946, were transferred to Australian administration in 1955 and 1957 respectively.

Shap Ng Tsai

by | Nov 14, 2019

Daniel Caldwell leads a squadron of British Navy gunboats to the den of the infamous pirate Shap ng tsai. Shap ng tsai and his pirates are killed and their fleet of junks destroyed.

China Extracts

Destruction of the Piratical Squadron of Shap-ng-tsai

From the China Mail, November 1.Diplomatic Department.Government Notification.

His Excellency her Majesty’s Plenipotentiary, &c., &c., has much satisfaction in publishing for general information the accompanying official communication, dated, ” Cho-keum. Cochin-China. 23rd October, 1849, ; from Commander John C. Dalrymple Hay, to the address of His Excellency Rear Admiral Sir Francis A. Collier, C.B., K.C.H, Commander-in-Chief, reporting the success which has attended the operations of the Columbine, Fury, and Phlegethon, aided by a party of officers and men of Her Majesty’s ship Hastings, at the entrance of the Tonquin River, against the piratical squadron under the command of the notorious Shap-ing-tsai.

The following translation of an official communication, addressed by the Chinese Naval Commander-in-Chief, chief on the Hai-nan Station, to his Excellency her Majesty’s Plenipotentiary is likewise published for the information of the public.

By order,A. R. Johnston.Victoria, Hongkong, 1st November, 1849.

Her Majesty’s sloop Columbine, Cho-keum,

Cochin-China, 23rd October, 1849.

Sir,I have the satisfaction to report to your Excellency the great success of the expedition you did me the honour to place under my command. Fifty-eight piratical vessels, mounting about 1200 guns, and with crews of 3000 men, have been totally destroyed by fire, and by the blessing of God, without the loss of one life of the officers and men under my orders.

 After leaving Hongkong, on the 8th October, I searched the harbours of Concock, Sattei, St. John’s. Mong, Mamee, Sungyne, and Tienpak, and proceeded to Nowchon. From information received there, I determined to proceed to Holbow in Hainan, inside the shoals, and through the Junk passage, for I found good pilots, and junks with 14 feet draught going through, and we drew little more than fifteen feet ; moreover Shap-ng-tsai had boasted be would go where English ships dared not follow him. This vaunt I determined to belie.

We reached Hoi-how on the 13th, and found the Governor-General (Ho), whom I visited at the capital, in great fear of the pirates, and with a most friendly feeling to the English nation. He immediately ordered a Mandarin named Wong, to proceed with me, taking with him eight war junks, and I gave him a passage, to prevent delay, on board the Fury. On the 16th, we reached Chookshan, which the pirate fleet had left five days before, and we found the same sad story of towns destroyed, men murdered, and women taken away, that mark his track along the coast.

On Thursday, the 18th, we fell in with one of his look out vessels, which, having got into shallow water was overtaken by the Phlegethon, and destroyed by her boats under the command of Mr. Simpson, first officer. On the 19th. we reached Hoonong his reported haunt, and found he had gone about twelve miles farther, and I feared we had lost him, but that invaluable officer, Mr. Daniel R. Caldwell, impressed me so strongly with the correctness of his information, that I decided on a reconnaissance in the Phlegethon in spite of our shortness of fuel ; and proceeding into Chokeum for that purpose, on Saturday morning, the 24th, saw thirty-seven of the fleet underweigh.

From seven until four o’clock p.m , like terriers at a rat hole, we hunted for the channel. Then a pilot managed to escape from the shore, I proceeded in the Phlegethon, with Fury astern, Columbine in tow, over the bar fourteen feet (mud), and at forty minutes past four, had the pleasure of finding all the ships warmly engaged. At five minutes past five, Shap-ng-tsai’s junk blew up with a tremendous crash, and at forty minutes past five they had ceased firing.

Before eight o’clock, twenty-seven were in flames, and the squadron in position to blockade the river. On the 21st October, the steamers and boats destroyed twenty-four more ; and nine of them gave Lieutenant George Hancock, in a paddle box boat of the Fury, assisted by Captain Moore. R.M., and Mr. Close, Acting Mate, with Mr. Lean, an opportunity of distinguishing himself. Two large junks turned to bay to defend the retreat of the rest, but Mr. Hancock so handled his boat and her gun, that after an hour and twenty minutes he had beaten them from their guns, and carried them by boarding without loss, and then pursued and destroyed the other seven. Mr. Hancock’s boldness in attacking, and correct judgment in managing this affair, are worthy of the highest praise ; and Captain Moore, R.M., Mr. N. N. C. Leao, a Brazilian Lieutenant, and Mr. F. A. Close, Acting Mate, gave him the greatest assistance.

On Monday, the 22nd I proceeded in the Phlegethon and boats to destroy all that were left. We found that the mandarins had destroyed four, and we finished two others. The low flat islands at the mouth of the river were at times covered with men deserted from the junks, yet afraid of the Cochin Chinese, who had assembled in great numbers to attack them. The ships’ boats and small arm men harrassed and destroyed many by constant fire of shell and grape, whilst the Cochin Chinese destroyed and captured the rest. From the best information it appears that the fleet consisted of sixty-four vessels of war, which may be classed as follows :

[the author lists the specifics of the destroyed fleet]

Of these, two small of the 3rd class, and four of the 4th class have escaped with Shap-ng-tsai, but without much ammunition ; and the mandarin assures me he will shortly destroy him – now an easy prey. He took with him about 400 men – so that 1700 having been killed, about 1000 more remain to be finished by the Cochin Chinese, who have already sent some prisoners to the mandarins.

 
I shall now proceed to Hongkong with all despatch. I have the pleasure of mentioning the exceeding good conduct of the officers and men during these laborious and hazardous operations. Their unanimity, willingness and cheerfulness, have made it a most pleasant service, and no plunder, rapine or misconduct, has tarnished their honour. Major-General Wong, the mandarin, proved himself a gallant, active, and efficient ally, and I trust his own Government may reward him for his good services.

To have Commander Wilcox with me, is, I feel, to have success. As a friend and an officer he is unequalled, and his ship is in such good order that I believe there is nothing be could not do. His judgement and gallantry are on an equal footing. Mr. Niblett, of the Phlegethon, has handled his ship in a bold and determined manner, and has given me every assistance. As I was frequently obliged to be in the steamer, the command of this sloop has devolved upon Lieutenant J. H. I Bridges, senior Lieutenant, and he conducted her in action on the 20th with much ability. Lieutenant Darnell, senior of the Fury, in command of her boats. has also rendered good service. Captain Moose, of the Hastings, marines, has assisted me most materially in command of that body. Lieutenant Hancock and Mr. Chambers, Acting Mate, in command of the respective detachments of Hasting’s men, have given me much satisfaction: and Mr. Rathbone, Midshipman of the Fury, has brought himself into notice for his zeal. I have also to notice the name of Mr. Algernon Wootton, Midshipman, a most promising young officer, who has acted as my Aide-de-Camp, and been very useful on every occasion.


I have the honour to enclose a list of the officers employed in the boats, who I have no doubt, would equally have distinguished themselves if they had had the opportunity.
I enclose a journal of my proceedings since leaving Hongkong, together with some hydrographical remarks, compiled by Mr. Thomas Kerr, acting master of the sloop, which will, I trust, be of service to commerce and navigation in the Gulf of Tonquin, hitherto so little known. Mr. Kerr, during all this very hazardous navigation, has proved himself a careful and judicious officer.

Mr. D. R. Caldwell, of the police force, has again proved his talent as a linguist, his intimate knowledge of the Chinese character, and the thorough correctness of his information. To him, in a great measure, our success is to be attributed.

Mr. Soames, master of the Hongkong Company’s steam vessel Canton, did his work well as pilot, as far as he was acquainted with the coast.

I have the honour to be. Sir,


Your most obedient humble servant,


John C. Dalrymple Hay,
Commander.

 His Excellency Rear AdmiralSir Francis A. Collier C.B.. K.C.H.,Commander-in. Chief, &c., &c, &c.
SG & SGTL 16 Feb 1850 ; p 50-1.

From:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pbtyc/Gazette/Campaigns_etc/Pirates_Of_Shap-ng-tsai.html

Hong Kong: History

by | Nov 14, 2019

Hong Kong

Hong Kong held 3,000 Chinese scattered in small fishing villages until the mid 19th century. The city itself is a small island in the mouth of the Pearl River, 76 miles southeast of Canton. Its waterfall at Aberdeen had initially attracted British attention because it provided a convenient fresh water supply, but Hong Kong’s superb harbor was its main asset. The British traveler Robert Fortune captured this promise early on:

After their victory in the first Opium War, the British acquired the island under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, and named the island’s capital city Victoria. Soon the Chinese population more than doubled, to fifteen- to twenty-thousand people, and Hong Kong along with Shanghai surpassed Canton as the main centers of China’s foreign trade. Piracy and disease afflicted the colony in the early years, but many Chinese fled to Hong Kong to escape the rebellions and disorder that struck the Chinese interior in the 1850s. By 1859 Hong Kong had over 85,000 residents, and had become the center of a wide-ranging overseas Chinese trading network, dominated by the prosperous Hong Kong business elite under British colonial protection. The founding of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in 1864, based on Chinese capital, showed that Hong Kong had become the leading financial center on the Chinese coast for international trade.

  Perry himself observed that there was “every sign of commercial prosperity, although the place is not very attractive to visitors.”

“View of Hong Kong From East Market, April 7, 1853”
by William Heine”

Commodore Matthew Perry’s Japan Expedition [cwHK_1853_Heine_bx]

Victoria peak dominates most pictures of the city in the early years. The small but growing settlement gradually climbed up the peak as the city grew. The waves of new immigrants clustered around the port while Western-style residences higher up the peak became the most prestigious in the colony.

“View of Victoria Town, Island of Hong Kong, 1850”
by B. Clayton

Hong Kong Museum of Art [cwHK_1850_AH64251]

 

  Unlike Canton, the British faced no restrictions from Chinese officials on where they could live or walk, and men and women could associate freely. The British tried to recreate a small version of English life at home on the distant shores of Asia. Although they were still a minority in the midst of a growing Chinese population, the colonial government protected Westerners from the local population and gave them privileges. Chinese merchants and workers, who could do business without facing the hong merchant monopoly or supervision from the hoppo, found that they could prosper in Hong Kong if they cooperated with the British. They helped to defend the colony against attack in the second Opium War and used their access to the British global empire to gain wealth and prestige. In the face of rebellions in China and threats from the Qing imperial government, the British carefully kept order in Hong Kong while encouraging trade by both Chinese and Western merchants.

In this idealized view of early Hong Kong, Western men and women gather in the gardens while a Chinese man bows respectfully to them. Hong Kong was a single woman’s paradise, according to the naval officer Lt. Edward Cree, with “forty ladies and four times as many men.” Even though thousands of Chinese had come to the city, artists chose to focus mainly on the foreign occupants.

“View of Spring Gardens, Hong Kong, 20th August, 1846”
painting by Murdoch Bruce, lithograph by A. Maclure

Hong Kong Museum of Art [cwHK_1846_AH643890]

 

Flagstaff House, built in 1846 for the first military governor of the colony, still survives as the oldest residential colonial structure in Hong Kong. It continued to be the British military headquarters until 1932, and is currently the Museum of Tea Ware.

“Flagstaff House, Hong Kong,” 1846
drawn by Murdoch Bruce, lithograph by A. Maclure

Hong Kong Museum of Art [cwHK_1846_AH643898]

 

  The urban architecture of Hong Kong reflected the British determination to remold Chinese territory on the European model. Causeway Bay, for example, became the celebrated site of both a mint (with a formal garden) and the powerful Scottish trading firm of Jardine and Matheson. William Jardine and James Matheson founded their company in 1832 in Canton and they grew rapidly by exporting tea and silk to England and smuggling opium from India to China. As soon as Britain acquired Hong Kong, they purchased land in the Causeway area. In contrast to many initially skeptical merchants, Jardine and Matheson believed that Hong Kong had a prosperous future. Later they expanded to the other major treaty-port cities on the Chinese coast, but they kept their headquarters in Hong Kong and played a dominant role in the political and economic development of the city. Jardine Matheson is still the largest private employer in Hong Kong and one of the largest shipping companies in the world.

Causeway Bay became the site of British financial institutions like the Mint, depicted here in the 1860s.

“The Mint and its Garden, Hong Kong,” 1860’s, unknown artist

Hong Kong Museum of Art [cwHK_1860s_AH8813]

 

  American businessmen, however, soon entered the trade to compete with the British. The Massachusetts traders Augustine Heard, Joseph Coolidge, and John Murray Forbes broke away from the firm of Russell and Company to create their own business in 1840, and in 1856 moved their headquarters from Canton to Hong Kong. They built their residence on a hill overlooking the harbor. The Heards introduced steamboats to China, and after the legalization of the opium trade made great profits from shipping opium along China’s inland rivers. The Heard company collapsed in bankruptcy in 1875.
In 1856 the head office of major American trading firm Augustine Heard and Company, with operations in Shanghai and Fuzhou, was moved to Hong Kong from Canton.

“Residence of Augustine Heard and Company, Hong Kong”
ca. 1860, unknown artist

Peabody Essex Museum
[cwHK_1860c_M17297]

 

 

 

 

 

 
  Google Books: see full quote in A Narrative of an Exploratory Visit to Each of the Consular Cities of China, and to the Islands of Hong Kong and Chusan: In Behalf of the Church Missionary Society, in the Years 1844, 1845, 1846 by George Smith (Harper & brothers, New York, 1857), p. 448  
 

As in Canton, British and Americans commissioned Chinese painters to depict their new outposts in the Pacific. Western artists likewise focused on the new Western buildings, ships clustered in the harbor, and the dramatic mountain scenery. Unlike Canton, however, Hong Kong was a colonial possession completely under the domination of a foreign power, and many foreigners viewed the native Chinese population with fear and contempt. The visiting missionary George Smith, for example, wrote this in 1846:

His attitude reflected the increasingly negative views of the Chinese that grew among missionaries and merchants after the Opium War.

  In this “View of Hong Kong Harbor,” done by a Western artist some time between 1860 and 1870, Western architecture and foreign ships dominate the scene and there is no evidence of a Chinese presence.

“View of Hong Kong Harbor,” 1860–1870
Watercolor by Marciano Antonio Baptista

Peabody Essex Museum [cwHK_1860-70_M10874]

 

  In Canton, the foreigners lived in a well-established urban center whose population was governed by a systematic bureaucracy. Hong Kong was more like a frontier boomtown, where both foreigners and migrant Chinese went to escape the constraints of life at home or to get rich in a new place. Much of the population was unruly, but the British created an environment of security that could guarantee profits to most people. Refuting early skepticism about its future, during the late 19th century Hong Kong grew to become the primary port of trade with China, rivaled only by Shanghai. The British control of the island, its status as a free port, and its convenient coastal location made it the ideal place to gain access to the large Chinese market. Hong Kong was a freer place than Canton, but a much more colonial one.

Here again, Western buildings and vessels dominate the scene, with little sense of a human presence and no indication that this was part of China. This was typical of much of the colonial artwork centering on Hong Kong.

“City of Victoria, Hong Kong,” 1860–1865
Gouache on paper, unknown Chinese artist

Peabody Essex Museum [cwHK_1860-65_E81235]

 

 

Coda: Macau, Canton, & Hong Kong

 

This fan combines views of Hong Kong (left), Macau (center), and Canton (right), 1845–65.

Peabody Essex Museum [cwOF_1845-65_E81311]

 

  The three Pearl River delta cities represented three distinct phases of Western commercial contact with China, and each city developed a special style. All three reflected the shift from strict Chinese control over foreign trade from the 16th through 18th centuries to the free trade era dominated by British colonialism in the mid 19th century. Portuguese Macau, the oldest Western settlement, retained a modest, charming, relaxed atmosphere dominated by its stunning beach, the fishing trade, the forts and churches. Canton, already a giant city before the Westerners arrived, placed the new foreigners in a segregated quarter but actively mingled native Chinese and foreign cultures in the interest of profit. Hong Kong, the most Western dominated, became a prize British colonial possession, where Chinese flocked to take advantage of the opportunities offered by contact with a wider world.

Architecture and street life in the three cities reflected their particular origins and populations. In Macau, the Portuguese churches and forts provided the backdrop for scenes of the many different religions and cultures of the local population. In Canton, Westerners in the factories peered out at the population of a giant empire, tantalizingly close, but mainly inaccessible. In Hong Kong, the colonial settlers and officials made themselves into a distinct class tightly closed off from the Chinese around them, and often ignored or feared the local population.

All three cities attracted visitors and temporary residents from around the world, while simultaneously serving as funnels for Chinese products entering the global market. For most Westerners, they became windows on a far-away and alien world—albeit windows that were always narrow and usually all but closed to any real appreciation or understanding of life in the interior and among the Chinese people as a whole. Foreigners by and large celebrated their own lives in sequestered enclaves on the China coast. They revealed their fine taste by collecting elegant Chinese artworks, all the while remaining largely silent about the fact that the funds that supported their exotic connoisseurship often rested on illicit trade in opium. Even while extolling the superior morality and civilization of the West and berating the Chinese for their shortcomings in “moral, honorable” conduct, they waged not one but two wars to force the Chinese to legalize opium imports, open additional ports to receive them, and agree to a low fixed tariff on all items in this great exercise in “free trade.”

The Opium Wars signaled the end of the old Canton trade system under which the great Qing dynasty held the upper hand and dictated who and how and under what restrictions trade could be carried out. China was indeed the “central kingdom” during this long span of time—powerful, self-sufficient, capable of warding off foreign threats and dictating the terms of its relations with other nations and peoples. Defeat in the Opium Wars, and the ensuing collapse of the old Canton-system regimen of controlled trade, signaled the emergence of the European and American powers as the new imperial arbiters of wealth and power—and the consequences for China were dire. England’s colonialization of Hong Kong was, in its way, a perfect symbol of this new impotence—and the modern history of China for a century and a half thereafter reflected this catastrophe. Once the commanding great civilization of Asia, China abruptly became an object to be acted upon—besieged for decades to come by both external threats and internal upheaval.

When Chinese in the 20th and even early 21st century spoke of their country’s “humiliation,” it was generally understood that this is when the great decline began.

 

The Opium Wars

by | Nov 14, 2019

Opium Wars

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Opium Wars is a term referring to two wars that Britain fought against imperial China in the middle of the nineteenth century, presumably over the attempts of the Chinese authorities to stop the growing influx of foreign-produced opium. The real cause of the first Opium War (1839–1842), also called the “Anglo-Chinese War,” was Chinese resistance to Britain’s free-trade demands and practices, of which the unrestricted trade in opium was only the most controversial example. Seeking to end high Chinese import duties and other restrictions on foreign trading, the British found a pretext for war when China prohibited the importation of the drug and then confiscated a British shipment of opium.

Opium had long been used in China to treat some ailments, but in the seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth centuries millions of Chinese from all social classes began to use it recreationally. Britain’s East India Company was shipping large quantities of Indian-grown opium to China, which it traded for Chinese tea and other local products. The imperial government was so concerned at the growing number of Chinese opium addicts that in 1799 it forbade its import trade and even decreed the death penalty for illicit trafficking in opium. Despite this legal prohibition, the opium trade continued to thrive, as private traders from Britain and other Western countries, including the United States, made huge profits from selling the extract to Chinese “opium eaters.” By the late 1830s foreign merchants were importing into China an estimated 5 million pounds of the illegal drug annually. Opium smuggling had so upset China’s balance of trade that its backward economy seemed to be on the verge of collapse. The alarmed imperial authorities made opium possession illegal in 1836 and began to close down the numerous opium parlors.

In 1839 Chinese customs officials seized a shipment of opium that British merchants were planning to market in the seaport city of Canton. In response, Britain rejected the legitimacy of China’s opium ban and threatened to use military force if the confiscated opium was not returned to its British owners. When China refused, the British navy shelled Canton and occupied the coastal areas around it, including Hong Kong. The war continued until China was forced to accept the humiliating terms of the 1842 Treaty of Nanking and compensate British merchants for their lost opium. The opium trade continued and even expanded under the generous import-license privileges that the Treaty of Nanking had granted to British merchants. This first of the so-called “unequal treaties” with China also ceded Hong Kong to Britain, opened five coastal cities, including Canton, to British rights of residence and trade, and imposed a very low tariff on British imports under the “most-favored-nation” principle. In 1844 the French and the Americans pressured China into granting them the same trading rights as the British.

The second Opium War (1856–1860) is sometimes called the “Arrow War” because the British, incensed by what they felt were clear treaty violations, used as a pretext to renew hostilities the boarding and seizure of the British ship Arrow and the arrest of its twelve crew members for opium smuggling and piracy. This time France joined the British in launching a punitive expedition inland after an initial British attack had been repelled by the Chinese. A combined Anglo-French military raid into China’s hinterland led to the signing of the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin. The Chinese imperial court refused to accept the onerous terms of this second “unequal treaty” until another joint Anglo-French expedition captured the capital Peking in 1860 and forced China’s total surrender. The Treaty of Tientsin allowed foreign embassies in Peking, a closed city at that time, opened eleven more coastal cities to foreign trading, and completely legitimized the opium trade. It also allowed westerners to travel in the Chinese interior, gave Christian missionaries the right to proselytize and hold property throughout China, and lowered even further import duties on British goods. In 1860 similarly imposed treaties were signed with France, the United States, and Russia.

The Opium Wars marked the beginning of China’s century-long subjugation and servitude to foreign powers. The defeated Chinese were forced to legalize the importation of opium, accept unfair and unbalanced terms of foreign trade, open up China’s seaports and the Yangtze River to foreign commercial penetration under the so-called “treaty port” system, and exempt westerners from China’s local laws and national jurisdiction. So severely curtailed was China’s independence in that period that the Chinese still view the Opium Wars as a national disgrace.

SEE ALSO Colonialism; Drugs of Abuse; Imperialism; Protected Markets; Protectionism; Sovereignty; TradeBIBLIOGRAPHY

Beeching, Jack. 1977. The Chinese Opium Wars. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Fay, Peter W. 1975. The Opium War, 1840–1842: Barbarians in the Celestial Empire in the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century and the War by Which They Forced Her Gates Ajar. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Hu, Sheng. 1991. From the Opium War to the May Fourth Movement. Trans. Dun J. Li. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

Inglis, Brian. 1976. The Opium War. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Rossen Vassilev

Source: “Opium Wars.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 7 Aug. 2014 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Second Opium War

by | Nov 14, 2019

Second Opium War – Causes:

In the mid-1850s, the European powers and the United States sought to renegotiate their commercial treaties with China. This effort was led by the British who sought the opening of all of China to their merchants, an ambassador in Beijing, legalization of the opium trade, and the exemption of imports from tariffs. Unwilling to make further concessions to the West, the Qing government of Emperor Xianfeng refused these requests. Tensions were further heightened on October 8, 1856, when Chinese officials boarded the Hong Kong (then British) registered ship Arrow and removed 12 Chinese crewmen.

In response to the Arrow Incident, British diplomats in Canton demanded the release of the prisoners and sought redress. The Chinese refused, stating that Arrow was involved in smuggling and piracy. To aid in dealing with the Chinese, the British contacted France, Russia, and the United States about forming an alliance. The French, angered by the recent execution of missionary August Chapdelaine by the Chinese, joined while the Americans and Russians sent envoys. In Hong Kong, the situation worsened following a failed attempt by the city’s Chinese bakers to poison the city’s European population.Second Opium War – Early Actions:

In 1857, after dealing with the Indian Mutiny, British forces arrived at Hong Kong. Led by Admiral Sir Michael Seymour and Lord Elgin, they joined with the French under Marshall Gros and then attacked the forts on the Pearl River south of Canton. The governor of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, Ye Mingchen, ordered his soldiers not to resist and the British easily took control of the forts. Pressing north, the British and French seized Canton after a brief fight and captured Ye Mingchen. Leaving an occupying force at Canton, they sailed north and took the Taku Forts outside Tianjin in May 1858.Second Opium War – Treaty of Tianjin:

With his military already dealing with the Taiping Rebellion, Xianfeng was unable to resist the advancing British and French. Seeking peace, the Chinese negotiated the Treaties of Tianjin. As part of the treaties, the British, French, Americans, and Russians were permitted to install legations in Beijing, ten additional ports would be opened to foreign trade, foreigners would be permitted to travel through the interior, and reparations would be paid to Britain and France. In addition, the Russians signed the separate Treaty of Aigun which gave them coastal land in northern China.Second Opium War – Fighting Resumes:

While the treaties ended the fighting, they were immensely unpopular within Xianfeng’s government. Shortly after agreeing to the terms, he was persuaded to renege and dispatched Mongolian General Sengge Rinchen to defend the newly returned Taku Forts. The following June hostilities recommenced following Rinchen’s refusal to allow Admiral Sir James Hope to land troops to escort the new ambassadors to Beijing. While Richen was willing to allow the ambassador’s to land elsewhere, he prohibited armed troops to accompany them.

On the night of June 24, 1859, British forces cleared the Baihe River of obstacles and the next day Hope’s squadron sailed in to bombard the Taku Forts. Meeting heavy resistance from the fort’s batteries, Hope was ultimately forced to withdrawal with the aid of Commodore Josiah Tattnall, whose ships violated US neutrality to assist the British. When asked why he intervened, Tattnall replied that “blood is thicker than water.” Stunned by this reversal, the British and French began assembling a large force at Hong Kong. By the summer of 1860, the army numbered 17,700 men (11,000 British, 6,700 French).

Sailing with 173 ships, Lord Elgin and General Charles Cousin-Montauban returned to the Tianjin and landed on August 3 near Bei Tang, two miles from the Taku Forts. The forts fell on August 21. Having occupied Tianjin, the Anglo-French army began moving inland towards Beijing. As the enemy host approached, Xianfeng called for peace talks. These stalled following the arrest and torture of British envoy Harry Parkes and his party. On September 18, Rinchen attacked the invaders near Zhangjiawan but was repelled. As the British and French entered the Beijing suburbs, Rinchen made his final stand at Baliqiao.

Mustering over 30,000 men, Rinchen launched several frontal assaults on the Anglo-French positions and was repulsed, destroying his army in the process. The way now open, Lord Elgin and Cousin-Montauban entered Beijing on October 6. With the army gone, Xianfeng fled the capital, leaving Prince Gong to negotiate peace. While in the city, British and French troops looted the Old Summer Palace and freed Western prisoners. Lord Elgin considered burning the Forbidden City as punishment for Chinese use of kidnapping and torture, but was talked into burning the Old Summer Palace instead by other diplomats.Second Opium War – Aftermath:

In the following days, Prince Gong met with the Western diplomats and accepted the Convention of Peking. By the terms of the convention, the Chinese were forced to accept the validity of the Treaties of Tianjin, cede part of Kowloon to Britain, open Tianjin as a trade port, allow religious freedom, legalize the opium trade, and pay reparations to Britain and France. Though not a belligerent, Russia took advantage of China’s weakness and concluded the Supplementary Treaty of Peking which ceded approximately 400,000 square miles of territory to St. Petersburg.

The defeat of its military by a much smaller Western army showed the weakness of the Qing Dynasty and began a new age of imperialism in China. Domestically, this, coupled with the flight of the emperor and the burning of the Old Summer Palace, greatly damaged the Qing’s prestige leading many within China to begin questioning the government’s effectiveness.

Selected Sources

Source: http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/battleswars1800s/p/secondopiumwar.htm

First Opium War

by | Nov 14, 2019

THE OPIUM TRADE
Introduction

The Opium Wars of 1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860 marked a new stage in China’s relations with the West. China’s military defeats in these wars forced its rulers to sign treaties opening many ports to foreign trade. The restrictions imposed under the Canton system were abolished. Opium, despite imperial prohibitions, now became a regular item of trade. As opium flooded into China, its price dropped, local consumption increased rapidly, and the drug penetrated all levels of society. In the new treaty ports, foreign traders collaborated with a greater variety of Chinese merchants than under the Canton system, and they ventured deeply into the Chinese interior. Missionaries brought Christian teachings to villagers, protected by the diplomatic rights obtained under the treaties. Popular hostility to the new foreigners began to rise.

Not surprisingly, Chinese historians have regarded the two Opium Wars as unjust impositions of foreign power on the weakened Qing empire. In the 20th century, the Republic of China made strenuous efforts to abolish what it called “unequal treaties.” It succeeded in removing most of them in World War II, but this phase of foreign imperialism only ended completely with the reversion of Hong Kong to China in 1997. Conventional textbooks even date the beginning of modern Chinese history from the end of the first Opium War in 1842.

Although the wars, opium trade, and treaties did reflect superior Western military force, focusing only on Western impositions on China gives us too narrow a picture of this period. This was not only a time of Western and Chinese conflict over trade, but a time of great global transformation in which China played one important role. The traders in opium included Britain, the U.S., Turkey, India, and Southeast Asia as well as domestic Chinese merchants. The origins of opium consumption in China are very old, and its first real boom as an item of consumption began after tobacco was introduced from the New World in the 16th century and Chinese smokers took a fancy to mixing it with the drug.

The Qing court was not in principle hostile to useful trade. In 1689 and 1727, the court had negotiated treaties with Russia to exchange furs from Siberia for tea, and allowed the Russians to live in a foreigners’ guest house in Beijing. Qing merchants and officials also traded extensively with Central Eurasian merchants from Bukhara and the Kazakh nomads for vital supplies of wool, horses, and meat. The court knew well the value of the southern coastal trade as well, since revenues from the Canton trade went directly into the Imperial Household department.

The Opium Wars are rightly named: it was not trade per se but rather unrestricted drug trade by the Western powers, particularly Britain, that precipitated them. As the wars unfolded, however, it became clear that far more than opium was ultimately involved. The very nature of China’s hitherto aloof relationship with the world was profoundly challenged, and long decades of internal upheaval lay ahead.

Tensions Under the Canton Trade System

Under the system established by the Qing dynasty to regulate trade in the 18th century, Western traders were restricted to conducting trade through the southern port of Canton (Guangzhou). They could only reside in the city in a limited space, including their warehouses; they could not bring their families; and they could not stay there more a few months of the year. Qing officials closely supervised trading relations, allowing only licensed merchants from Western countries to trade through a monopoly guild of Chinese merchants called the Cohong. Western merchants could not contact Qing officials directly, and there were no formal diplomatic relations between China and Western countries. The Qing emperor regarded trade as a form of tribute, or gifts given to him personally by envoys who expressed gratitude for his benevolent rule.   

Canton, where the business of trade was primarily conducted during this period, is depicted on this fan created for the foreign market. Seven national flags fly from the Western headquarters that line the shore.

Western traders, for their part, mainly conducted trade through licensed monopoly companies, like Britain’s East India Company and the Dutch VOC. Despite these restrictions, both sides learned how to make profits by cooperating with each other. The Chinese hong merchants, the key intermediaries between the foreign traders and the officials, developed close relations with their Western counterparts, instructing them on how to conduct their business without antagonizing the Chinese bureaucracy.

As the volume of trade grew, however, the British demanded greater access to China’s markets. Tea exports from China grew from 92,000 pounds in 1700 to 2.7 million pounds in 1751. By 1800 the East India Company was buying 23 million pounds of tea per year at a cost of 3.6 million pounds of silver. Concerned that the China trade was draining silver out of England, the British searched for a counterpart commodity to trade for tea and porcelain. They found it in opium, which they planted in large quantities after they had taken Bengal, in India, in 1757.

British merchants blamed the restrictions of the Canton trade for the failure to export enough goods to China to balance their imports of tea and porcelain. Thus, Lord George Macartney’s mission to the court in Beijing in 1793 aimed to promote British trade by creating direct ties between the British government and the emperor. Macartney, however, portrayed his embassy as a tribute mission to celebrate the emperor’s birthday. He had only one man with him who could speak Chinese.

When he tried to raise the trade question, after following the tribute rituals, Macartney’s demands were rejected. His gifts of astronomical instruments, intended to impress the Qing emperor with British technological skills, in fact did not look very impressive: the emperor had already received similar items from Jesuits in earlier decades. Macartney’s failure, and the failure of a later mission (the Amherst embassy) in 1816, helped to convince the British that only force would induce the Qing government to open China’s ports.

Opium Clippers & the Expanding Drug Trade

Opium routes between British-controlled India and China

New fast sailing vessels called clipper ships, built with narrow decks, large sail areas, and multiple masts, first appeared in the Pacific in the 1830s and greatly stimulated the tea trade. They carried less cargo than the bulky East Indiamen, but could bring fresh teas to Western markets much faster. Clipper ships also proved very convenient for smuggling opium, and were openly and popularly identified as “opium clippers.” Ships like the Red Rover could bring opium quickly from Calcutta to Canton, doubling their owners’ profits by making two voyages a year.

At Canton, Qing prohibitions had forced the merchants to withdraw from Macao (Macau) and Whampoa and retreat to Lintin island, at the entrance of the Pearl River, beyond the jurisdiction of local officials. There the merchants received opium shipments from India and handed the chests over to small Chinese junks and rowboats called “fast crabs” and “scrambling dragons,” to be distributed at small harbors along the coast. The latter local smuggling boats were sometimes propelled by as many as twenty or more oars on each side.   

The Pearl River Delta

The major India source of British opium bound for China was Patna in Bengal, where the drug was processed and packed into chests holding about 140 pounds. The annual flow to China was around 4,000 chests by 1790, and a little more than double this by the early 1820s. Imports began to increase rapidly in the 1830s, however, as “free trade” agitation gained strength in Britain and the East India Company’s monopoly over the China trade approached its termination date (in 1834). The Company became more dependent than ever on opium revenue, while private merchants hastened to increase their stake in the lucrative trade. On the eve of the first Opium War, the British were shipping some 40,000 chests to China annually. By this date, it was estimated that there were probably around ten million opium smokers in China, two million of them addicts. (American merchants shipped around 10,000 chests between 1800 to 1839.)

 

In 1831, it was estimated that between 100 and 200 “fast crab” smuggling boats were operating in the waters around Lintin Island, the rendezvous point for opium imports. Ranging from 30 to 70 feet in length, with crews of upwards of 50 or 60 men, these swift rowboats could put on sail for additional speed. They were critical in Navigating China’s often shallow rivers and delivering opium to the interior.

A quarter century after revolutionizing the drug trade, the celebrated “opium clippers” had begun to undergo a further revolution with the addition of coal-fueled, steam-driven paddle wheels. This illustration appeared in the Illustrated London News in 1859, two decades after the first Opium War began.
Mandarins, Merchants & Missionaries

The opium trade was so vast and profitable that all kinds of people, Chinese and foreigners, wanted to participate in it. Wealthy literati and merchants were joined by people of lower classes who could now afford cheaper versions of the drug. Hong merchants cooperated with foreign traders to smuggle opium when they could get away with it, bribing local officials to look the other way. Smugglers, peddlers, secret societies, and even banks in certain areas all became complicit in the drug trade.

Opium, as an illegal commodity, brought in no customs revenue, so local officials exacted fees from merchants. Even missionaries who deplored the opium trade on moral grounds commonly found themselves drawn into it, or dependent on it, in one form or another. They relied on the opium clippers for transportation and communication, for example, and used merchants dealing in opium as their bankers and money changers. Karl Gützlaff (1803–1851), a Protestant missionary from Pomerania who was an exceptionally gifted linguist, gained a modicum of both fame and notoriety by becoming closely associated with the opium trade and then serving the British in the Opium War—not just as an interpreter, but also as an administrator in areas occupied by the foreign forces.

The missionary Karl Gützlaff (often anglicized as Carl or Charles Gutzlaff), who served as an interpreter for the British in the first Opium War, was well known for frequently pursuing his religious calling while dressed in native garb.

The Daoguang Emperor & Commissioner Lin

By the 1830s, up to 20 percent of central government officials, 30 percent of local officials, and 30 percent of low-level officials regularly consumed opium. The Daoguang emperor (r. 1821–50) himself was an addict, as were most of his court.

As opium infected the Qing military forces, however, the court grew alarmed at its insidious effects on national defense. Opium imports also appeared to be the cause of massive outflows of silver, which destabilized the currency. While the court repeatedly issued edicts demanding punishment of opium dealers, local officials accepted heavy bribes to ignore them. In 1838, one opium dealer was strangled at Macao, and eight chests of opium were seized in Canton. Still the emperor had not yet resolved to take truly decisive measures. As opium flooded the country despite imperial prohibitions, the court debated its response. On one side, officials concerned about the economic costs of the silver drain and the social costs of addiction argued for stricter prohibitions, aimed not only at Chinese consumers and dealers but also at the foreign importers. On the other side, a mercantile interest including southern coastal officials allied with local traders promoted legalization and taxation of the drug. Debate raged within court circles in the early 1800s as factions lined up patrons and pushed their favorite policies.
Ultimately, the Daoguang emperor decided to support hardliners who called for complete prohibition, sending the influential official Lin Zexu to Canton in 1839. Lin was a morally upright, energetic official, who detested the corruption and decadence created by the opium trade. He had served in many important provincial posts around the empire and gained a reputation for impartiality and dedication to the welfare of the people he governed. In July 1838 he sent a memorial to the emperor supporting drastic measures to suppress opium use. He outlined a systematic policy to destroy the sources and equipment supporting drug use, and began putting this policy into effect in the provinces of Hubei and Hunan. After 19 audiences with the emperor, he was appointed Imperial Commissioner with full powers to end the opium trade in Canton. He arrived in Canton in March, 1839.

Although Lin’s vigorous attempt to suppress the opium trade ultimately ended in disastrous war and personal disgrace, he is remembered a great and incorruptible patriot eminently deserving of the nickname he had enjoyed before his appointment as an Imperial Commissioner in Canton: “Lin the Blue Sky.” Portraits of him by Chinese artists at the time vary in style, but all convey the impression of a man of wisdom and integrity. Today, statues in and even outside China pay homage to the redoubtable commissioner. 

Statues of Commissioner Lin can be found today in many places around the world, including Canton, Fuzhou, Hong Kong, Macao, and, pictured here, Chatham Square in New York City’s Chinatown.

For more, go to the
Visualizing Cultures units:

Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System l: China in the World

Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System ll: Macao & Whampoa Anchorage

Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System lll: Canton & Hong Kong