Thanks to the tremendous efforts of a great number of people, the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Studies Series continues to gain momentum. With this volume, the seventh in our series, we can present to the reading public a unique collection of pieces of individual research and writing. It was not long ago that the concept of Hong Kong Studies was looked down upon as being an empty shell, with little chance of ever being otherwise. Today, however, an increasing number of schools are including the history of our city and its wider surroundings in their curricula. Furthermore, the ‘Local...

Charles Henry Brewitt-Taylor made a very significant contribution to Western knowledge of Chinese culture, for his Romance of the Three Kingdoms was the first of the great Chinese novels to be translated into English. The novel in its Chinese original also played a significant role in the development of British sinology: it was the first of the major Chinese novels to arrive in England in the early seventeenth century. Several fascicles published in 1592 were sold in Amsterdam in about 1604 and survive in Germany, Cambridge, Oxford and the British Library, having been acquired by Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753)...

This book is the result of a long and unexpected journey. I knew that the surname of my wife’s aunt had become ‘Brewitt-Taylor’ on marriage, and I had also been aware that her father-in-law had spent time in China. I recall Aunt Evelyn pointing out to me the two volumes standing in her bookcase of his translation of some kind of Chinese work, and I had seen the three beautiful gowns that he had brought back for her and her two sisters. But it was only after I became more acquainted with the country, initially through working in Hong Kong...

When I started my research, knowledge of Brewitt-Taylor’s social origins was scarce, his hyphenated name suggested a higher status than proved to be the case and it was rumoured his father had possibly held a commission in the forces. His marriage certificate, unseen by his family, gave his surname as Taylor. It also records his father’s occupation as ‘Seaman, Royal Navy’; this was only partially accurate. His father had, in fact, for most of his career until his retirement been an ordinary ‘boatman’ in the Coastguard Service. While it was the case that coastguards were frequently recruited from the navy,...

Trying to discover more about the life of Charles Henry Brewitt-Taylor before he went to China has been one of the many time-consuming aspects of this study. Not being aware of his social circumstances, but knowing that he might have taught mathematics in China, his family held the idea that he might have studied the subject at the University of London, at University College or Imperial College. Records at the university’s Senate House do in fact show that he took his matriculation for the University of London as a mature student in June 1879. His matriculation suggests that he did...

The China that Charles Henry entered with his young bride was at a fascinating stage in its history. This chapter sketches some of the background of this world; it is intended to acquaint those readers less familiar with nineteenth-century China with its circumstances and also serves to remind others of events relevant to the foreigners’ situation. To widen interest, I have used less well-known sources in addition to more familiar scholarly discourse. A framework of analysis is also proferred which may be helpful in providing a partial understanding of the period.

The Ch’ing dynasty underwent a series of shocks during...

B-T’s appointment to Foochow lasted eleven years, a period which saw him establish his teaching career, family life, early mastery of Chinese and a reputation through his publications as a translator, but it also witnessed the destruction of his home and ended with the devastating loss of his wife.

The dockyard school B-T taught in was part of the Foochow Naval Dockyard established around a dozen years before he arrived. We saw in the last chapter that among those aware of the need for change in China was Tso Tsung-t’ang, the governor-general¹ of Fukien and Chekiang 1863-66. Tso urged in...

The death of B-T’s wife may have triggered him to make the change that he was probably already contemplating. In the following year, B-T decided to leave teaching and embark on a new career, one which offered potentially far better prospects. On 1 November 1891, he joined the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs. B-T was to spend the next thirty of his forty years in China working for the Service, the same body which had helped finance his Foochow appointment. This chapter outlines this unique Chinese institution run by Westerners — its origins and the scope of its work — and portrays the...

It is highly likely that B-T was already known in the Customs Service when he joined in 1891. Staff would have had some contact with him in Foochow where the Service had helped finance the Naval Yard school and (as was noted earlier) had provided staff for the Naval Dockyard project. In addition, there would also have been informal social contact between B-T and members of the Customs Service in the small expatriate community in the Foochow area. Further, though seemingly reserved, B-T was becoming known through his writings and participation in the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic...

Following a short spell in Foochow, B-T took up a position in Peking in July 1898 as a Second Assistant A, another promotion, at the headquarters of the Customs Inspectorate. There, he was Assistant Chinese Secretary in charge of the Chinese Department, involved in drafting Chinese official and semi-official correspondence and documents.

Around this time, he produced a little booklet in Chinese on economic policy, a guide to Chinese traders to the kinds of goods foreign traders wanted and how they valued them. Mentioned are such commodities as leopard skin, musk, sesame seeds, lanolin, beeswax, straw braid for hats and...

After the distressing events in Peking, the Brewitt-Taylors must have been relieved to travel to Swatow, despite its relative isolation from the centre of Customs activity. B-T took up his first appointment at commissioner level as Acting Commissioner. Swatow had been opened as a Treaty Port in 1861, following the 1860 Convention of Peking. In the early days, the city had been regarded as extremely dangerous, but already by the 1870s the area had a reputation as being very safe, having been pacified by the provincial authorities. Office hours in the Customs, from ten to four, were sufficiently relaxed to...

Mengtze was to provide a most contrasting experience to Shanghai. It was also to prove a critical testing point in the lives of B-T and his wife. In terms of work, it helped to establish his reputation, but for domestic harmony and his marital relationship, his time in this peaceful place was to prove catastrophic.

Around the time that B-T went to Mengtze in 1906, wider changes were taking place in the aftermath of the Boxer collapse and the subsequent settlements with foreigners. This was a period of considerable administrative change in China, and the Customs Service was not unaffected....

B-T’s leave situation in 1908 is somewhat hazy, as he does not appear to have taken the normal quinquennial one-year leave. He returned to Britain in March, and soon after he arranged for his wife to be taken from Bethlem Hospital; on 1 April 1908 she was discharged ‘well’. By May of that year, B-T was still in London, as he undertook some Customs work in the ICMC London office. He and his wife must have returned to China by the summer, for his younger son, Raymond, now a medical student in London, came to Peking to be with him...

On returning from a short leave accompanied by Ann, B-T took up his position as full Commissioner at the ICMC Headquarters, Peking. From the quiet backwater of Mengtze, he and his wife were now launched into the public eye of the capital in his new, prestigious role. They must have hoped that Ann had now entered a calmer phase. There is no record of her behaviour there, except her own later reference to oddnesses when in Peking.¹

The ICMC was now under the leadership of Hart’s brother-in-law, the Acting Inspector General, Sir Robert Bredon. Bredon was to be replaced by...

On returning from leave B-T spent nearly two years in Foochow, and then in Mukden, in the far north-east of China. Reports from both areas reveal more about his work, but Mukden also proved highly significant for his personal relationships. It was while researching his posting I discovered much more about his wife, her mental illness and their marital relationship.

B-T’s leave had been a mixture of strain at coping with his wife, pleasure at being with his sons again and meeting his future daughter-in-law, Evelyn, and the Ellis family. On returning to China, B-T was posted in May 1914...

The war in Europe, though distant, was to have a personal and sad impact on B-T. His son Leonard returned to Siam from leave just about the time war was declared, and he stayed there with the Bombay-Burmah Trading Corporation throughout its duration.¹ According to Leonard’s daughter, Joan, he was in some kind of local volunteer militia, but it is possible that his poor eyesight would have precluded him from joining the war in Europe.² B-T’s younger son, Ray, however, was caught up in the exhilarating patriotic fervour experienced by many young men. As early as 14 August 1914, immediately...

B-T was now entering the final stage of his life in China, and his leave of 1919 proved to be his last. He arrived back in Britain at the end of June 1919, going directly to Scotland to see his wife and take her home from hospital, despite there being no improvement in her condition. He went south during the summer and included Lyme Regis in his travels, where he probably stayed with or visited Peg’s husband, Henry Ellis, known as ‘Pope’. Pope and his wife lived amicably apart in their latter years. There are no comments on how he...

At the end of December 1920, at the age of sixty-three, B-T returned to Britain to join his wife in her house in Earlsferry, Elie, Fifeshire, Scotland;¹ there he lived throughout his retirement, though according to his will never really regarding it the place he would have chosen to live. He made frequent trips south, about four times a year according to his wife, to see friends and relatives. He went mainly to London, Bournemouth, as well as Portsmouth, and usually on his own.² Peg Ellis’s letters reveal his movements and the close contact he was pleased to maintain with...

The Customs Service experience had a powerful effect on its members. Many, including B-T, retained a strong identification and interest in the Service well into retirement and old age. In response to a letter from B-T, Maze, a former commissioner colleague who had become Inspector General, wrote a long letter castigating Aglen, whom he eventually replaced, for his policies of trying to act independently rather than serving the Chinese government. Maze encloses confidential material about the affair which Maze had written, asking B-T for his comments and to share the contents with another former colleague, William MacDonald, who had retired...

What kind of conclusions may now be drawn about B-T? So-called facts often wrought from faulty memory are hazardous enough in contributing to biography; understanding and interpreting individual personality, as well as trying to summarize the life of someone not directly known, compound the problem. It may also be more difficult to depict a ‘good’ man, unless clearly a saint, than one whose negative characteristics lend colour to his personality, making it easier to capture. The sketch in this chapter may be firmer in tone than the material warrants, but though perhaps not entirely accurate in the detail, the broad...