Hong Kong and the Europeans
By Dr Howard M. Scott
Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans in the modern era to reach the China coast by sea.
They had, by the early 1500s, established small and scattered communities along the south China
coast. Gradually the Portuguese concentrated their settlement in Macao and with Chinese collusion
developed it into a trade station from 1557. With trading stations also at Goa and Malacca, the
Portuguese were now able to trade regionally from India, through South East Asia, to China and
Japan. And their international reach was to the Americas through The Philippines to Mexico and
Peru, and to the Middle East and Europe through Goa. But by the 1600s the Dutch from The Dutch
East Indies and the Spanish from The Philippines were also exploring trading opportunities in
China and Japan. The Dutch, in particular, were both ambitious and aggressive in their intentions.
They attacked several Portuguese settlements from India to China during the early 1600s, took
Formosa (Taiwan) by force in 1624, holding it until 1661 and took Malacca in 1641. They
unsuccessfully attacked Macao in 1622. From Formosa the Dutch built their trade with Japan and
through Amoy, they built their trade with China. (1) As the Dutch were cutting the Portuguese off
from their source of spices in the Dutch East Indies and isolating Macao from the Portuguese trade
station in Goa, the Japanese, in 1637, expelled foreigners and banned all foreign trade. The
Portuguese, already denied entry to China and with their China re-export trade through Macao in
decline, found that the Dutch had gradually replaced them as the predominant European traders in
China, by the mid 1600s. And by the late 1600s and the early 1700s English clippers were also
commonly seen on the China coast. Although the Dutch East India Company was better funded
and provisioned than the British East India Company, the outcome of the wars in Continental
Europe gradually shifted the balance of advantage in the Pacific to the English traders. The Dutch
were well established at Gulangyu in Amoy but had little access to Peking or Canton. (2) In contrast
to this limited access to the China market, Englishmen began to aggressively enforce trade entry
through military might.
For 100 years or more the British clippers called at Macao for provisions. And as the political
climate changed they alternated their anchorages from Macao, to Canton, Whampoa, and Lintin
Island. Initially the English traders were purchasers of Chinese tea, lacquer-ware, silks and
ceramics. Over time this trade concentrated on the purchase of black tea. But as the British were
required to pay in silver they looked for items to sell back to China to offset their increasingly costly
purchases. By the mid 1700s the English clippers were shipping Indian opium to China and as
these imports rose the Ch’ing authorities decreed that the importation and use of opium was illegal.
Rather than restrict their prohibited imports the English traders turned to selling their opium
cargoes to Chinese smugglers from anchorages at Whampoa and later from floating barges at
Lintin Island. They used Macao for the provision of supplies and continued to call at Canton to
purchase the season’s tea and sell their legal cargo. By the early 1800s the Ch’ing authorities were
pressurising the Portuguese in Macao to restrict the activities of the English clippers, causing the
British traders to seek out anchorages and supply stations beyond the jurisdiction of both Canton
and Macao. Various options were considered including Lintin Island, Lamma Island, Ma Wan
Island, Formosa and the island of Hong Kong. Although Lintin Island was the preferred British
anchorage on the south China coast by the early 1800s the typhoon damage to their ships
gradually drove the traders into the sheltered harbours of Hong Kong Island. In this way, Hong
Kong came to be favoured over Formosa, Ma Wan and Lamma Island as a safe anchorage for
British shipping. And as hostilities preceding the First Opium War began, British traders
increasingly anchored in Hong Kong harbour in preference to Lintin Island and Macao. Following
the First Opium War of 1839-41, Hong Kong was ceded in perpetuity to Britain and under the terms
of settlement of the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, several ports, including Canton, were opened to
British traders with rights of residence. The first of many International Settlements were now in their
infancy. (3)
As British seamen landed on Hong Kong Island they found a small number of local villages
scattered around the coast. The very early history of Hong Kong is uncertain but it is generally
agreed that around 1250 Genghis Khan’s Mongols drove members of the Sung Dynasty south and
that some of them sought refuge around Hong Kong. It is known that two of the oldest settlements
on Hong Kong Island are Chek Pai Wan (Aberdeen) and Shan Kei Wan. (Shau Kei Wan). In 1841
there were approximately 12 scattered settlements along the shores of Hong Kong Island with a
total population of less than 6000. The Tonkas, who are probably related to the aboriginal
population, come closest to being the first inhabitants and it is thought that they originated from
what is now Vietnam. They can still be found living on boats in Aberdeen, Causeway Bay and Shau
Kei Wan and in the New Territories. Historians generally agree that the first Chinese settlers to
come to Hong Kong did so around 1300. And in 1400 the Cantonese moved into Hong Kong. They
were known as the Puntis (local inhabitants) or poon tei in Cantonese. The Hakkas (guests)
followed. And towards the end of the Ming dynasty, the Hoklos, who are immigrants from the
northern coastal regions of China, arrived. The Hoklos were great pirate smugglers as well as
fishermen and their dialect origniates in Fukien. With the arrival of the British, life in tranquil Hong
Kong was about to change dramatically.
Three events, more than anything else, shaped the course of Hong Kong’s development. These
were the First and Second Opium Wars of 1840 and 1860 and the Second Convention of Peking of
1898. Before the First Opium War, European trade in China was carried out under what was known
as, ‘The Canton System’. The Canton Trading System evolved during the period from 1759 to 1842
and developed largely as a response from the Chinese to the refusal by Europeans to follow the
established Ketou or Tribute trading system popularly known in the west as the Kow Tow system.
Under the Tribute system foreign ambassadors would call on the Imperial Court every few years,
prostrate themselves before the Emperor, offer tribute and acknowledge China’s primacy in world
trade and diplomacy. The Chinese in return would offer gifts and extend their mutual trade
arrangements for a number of years. With Europeans refusing to acknowledge Chinese superiority
or to bow to the Emperor, the Chinese confined all foreign trade with Europeans coming into China
to Canton. Trade had to be conducted through a Chinese Trade Guild called the Co-hong, which
was responsible for the safety and the good behaviour of the foreign traders. The Co-hong also
had to pay all fees, duties and taxes levied on foreign trade to the Revenue Board in Peking
through the Ho-pu, known to Europeans as the Hoppo. And the European merchants were strictly
regulated: being confined to a small area outside Canton’s city wall where they were subject to
Chinese law and other restrictions including arduous rules of residence.(4) The European traders
had to leave Canton immediately after their purchases had been made and were completely
excluded from Canton outside the trading season. Many traders took up residence in Macao,
making the journey to Canton solely to do their buying. (5) The British merchants in particular,
constantly complained about these restrictions and the effect of the trade monopoly imposed on
them. Ultimately they found cause to abandon the Canton System completely and imposed a ‘free
trade’ regime on China after their victories in the Opium Wars. (6)
The First Opium War ran from 1839 to 1841.The central figure was Lin Tse-hsü. Lin was the
accomplished governor of Hu-Huang Province and at 53 was well known for his Confucian poetry
and personal integrity. His integrity had earned him the nickname, ‘Lin the Clear Sky,’ and his
opinions were well regarded at the court of Emperor Tao-kuang. (7) In October 1838, Lin Tse-hsü
was summoned to the Imperial Palace in Peking. There the Emperor appointed him Commissioner
with the task of eradicating opium addiction in China. Lin knew that opium smoking was one of the
most difficult problems facing China and in fact, the Emperor’s own son had died from opium
addiction. Although the sale of opium had been outlawed in 1800, illegal imports and the blackmarket flourished. Addiction was worst around Canton where European merchants aided and
abetted the smuggling of Indian opium into China. Commissioner Lin moved to Canton, set up his
headquarters there and took command of the local naval forces. And on March 10 1839 he
proclaimed that the opium trade would no longer be tolerated. He began arresting opium dealers
and those who were found guilty of purchasing, possessing or selling opium were sentenced to
public execution by strangulation.
Lin also encouraged addicts to throw off their habit. Then he began a crackdown on foreign
suppliers and Chinese smugglers. Opium shipments were brought to China in British clippers that
also carried legal cargoes. The opium was sold to Chinese smugglers at Lintin Island in Canton
Bay before the clippers continuing up the Pearl River to Whampoa from where the captains would
travel to Canton to buy tea, silk and porcelain. They also sold their legal cargoes of European
merchandise to the co-hongs in Canton. Commissioner Lin demanded that the clippers anchored at
Whampoa surrender any opium they had on board as well as any supplies stored at Lintin. He also
demanded signed guarantees that each captain would never carry opium to China again. Breaches
of these guarantees carried the death penalty. Lin gave the foreign traders three days to comply
with his decree. But the traders did nothing. They didn’t turn any opium over to him nor did they
sign his guarantee. As it was well known that many Cantonese officials, including the viceroy and
other high ranking naval commanders were accepting ‘squeeze’ from the western merchants to
allow opium smuggling to take place and as Imperial navy vessels were used to carry opium
ashore, the traders thought that Lin had insufficient authority to enforce his ban.
On March 25th 1839 Commissioner Lin made his intentions ‘crystal clear’ by suspending all trade
with western merchants. The foreign traders lived in three storied waterfront godowns, which were
combined warehouses, offices and homes along the Pearl River in central Canton. Lin’s troops
surrounded the foreign godowns, barricaded the neighbouring streets to prevent entry and
departure from the docks and stood several rows of armed patrols in the river opposite the trading
houses. He announced that the foreign traders were to be held in detention until the opium trade
was suppressed. There was a stand off. Captain Charles Elliot, who was the highest-ranking British
naval officer in Canton at the time, protested and asserted that the foreign traders stood outside
Chinese law. Commissioner Lin’s response was to repeat his terms and stipulated that until these
requirements were met he would not permit any purchases of tea, rice or silk. On March 27th the
China traders agreed to surrender their opium to Commissioner Lin. (8)
The European trading community handed more than two and a half million pounds of processed
opium from their clippers to Commissioner Lin. And on June 3rd 1839 the destruction of the ‘foreign
mud’ began. With military discipline Lin proceeded to burn the opium and the first coolie that he
caught stealing from the stockpile was beheaded. For the next two weeks Commissioner Lin
supervised the destruction of the ‘foreign mud.’ But even after witnessing these actions most British
merchants were sceptical of Lin’s intentions and few were willing to abide by the decrees he laid
down. Many moved from Canton to Macao from where they intended to resume opium smuggling.
And other British ships began to anchor at Lintin Island at the mouth of the Pearl River to unload
their illicit opium cargoes. The trade would continue but from the safety of operating beyond
Imperial jurisdiction.
Then events took an unforeseen turn. On July 12th a Chinese villager was killed by a group of
drunken British seamen in Kowloon. This came to be known as ‘The Kowloon Incident’.
Commissioner Lin demanded that the men responsible for the murder be turned over to him for
trial. But Captain Elliot refused, stating that the seamen could only be tried under British
jurisdiction. Elliot then tried the sailors himself. Commissioner Lin was infuriated. Neither was he
satisfied with Elliot’s judgement. as one seaman was acquitted of the murder for lack of evidence
and the other five were only convicted of participating in a riot. Lin repeated his demand that the
men be sent to Canton. Captain Elliot responded by asserting that the men would be suitably
punished when they returned to England. In an effort to force Elliot to give the men up
Commissioner Lin cut the supplies of rice, tea, meat and fresh vegetables for the ships anchored at
Macao. And the freshwater springs were made undrinkable. Lin also put pressure on the
Macanese, demanding that they evict the British from Macao, or he would place trade restrictions
on Macao itself. These developments caused the British traders to set sail from Macao and by
August they had gathered in the sheltered anchorages of Hong Kong.
On August 31st a twenty eight-gun frigate joined the clippers anchored off Hong Kong Island. In
Canton, Commissioner Lin had a fleet of war junks under his command. On September 4th two
British merchant ships and a navy launch attacked three Chinese junks to prevent them sourcing
water from Kowloon. Unfortunately, the junk captains told Commissioner Lin that they had sunk a
British ship and Lin forwarded this false report to the Emperor. He also exaggerated his
preparedness and told the Emperor that he would drive the foreign traders from Hong Kong. By
September 22nd he had assembled a fleet of eighty junks and fire-ships at the mouth of the Pearl
River. Meanwhile Captain Elliot demanded that British merchants be allowed to buy the season’s
tea harvest. Lin ignored this demand. He repeated that British traders would continue to be denied
trade access until they agreed to submit to Chinese law and accept that importing opium was
prohibited. If the British traders couldn’t meet these terms they were to leave China. Captain Elliot
refused the terms and the demand to leave.
In early November a second British warship, an eighteen-gun frigate, joined the merchant fleet in
Hong Kong and on November 3rd the two British warships delivered a sealed letter to the Chinese
war junks demanding supplies and the immediate resumption of trade. The letter was returned
unopened and the frigates attacked the Chinese fleet at anchor. Five of the largest war junks were
sunk and many more were damaged. Commissioner Lin failed to advise the Emperor of this defeat
and claimed in a brief report that the battle was short and that the barbarians were on the
defensive. But Emperor Tao-kuang, who had confidants scattered throughout the empire, had
heard from other reports that opium smuggling was continuing along the coast of South China. He
reminded Lin that his brief was to eliminate opium from China and not from just around Canton
only. Lin, struggling with the scale of the problem, continued to reinforce the defences of Canton.
But by June 1840 a large British expeditionary force under Rear Admiral George Elliot, the cousin
of Charles Elliot, arrived off the China coast from Singapore. This force, which included steampowered gunboats and thousands of British marines, immediately began a blockade of Canton.
Then it set sail to occupy or blockade a number of coastal ports and cities along the Yangtse River.
Admiral Elliot also threatened Peking and a message was sent to Emperor Tao-kuang demanding
redress for Commissioner Lin’s actions at Canton. On August 21st 1840 Commissioner Lin Tsehsü was dismissed as Imperial Commissioner and exiled to the northern frontier province of Ili,
where he was left to supervise irrigation and flood control. The Emperor’s representative entered
difficult negotiations with the Elliots and the British were finally persuaded to withdraw from
northern China. In return the Emperor’s representative unofficially agreed to cede Hong Kong
Island to Britain. But, as it turned out, neither London nor Peking recognized this agreement. (9)
Meanwhile Commodore Gordon Brenner led a contingent of naval men ashore and claimed Hong
Kong Island for Britain on 26 January 1841. In late February, Captain Charles Elliot successfully
attacked the Bogue forts at Humen in the Pearl River Delta. He took control of the Pearl River, laid
siege to Canton and only withdrew in May 1841 after extracting Y6m and other concessions from
the Chinese merchants of Canton. By August 1841, an even larger British force sailed north and
seized Amoy, Ningpo, Shanghai and other ports. With Nanking under immediate threat the Chinese
sued for peace and accepted the Treaty of Nanking in 1842.(10) This Treaty along with the British
Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue of 1843 ceded the island of Hong Kong to Britain, abolished
the licensed monopoly system of trade under the hoppo and the co-hongs; opened 5 ports to
British residence and foreign trade; limited the tariff on trade to 5 percent ad valorem, granted
British nationals extraterritoriality and exemption from Chinese laws and paid a large indemnity to
Britain. In addition, Britain was granted ‘most-favoured-nation treatment’, under which Britain would
automatically receive any trading concessions that the Chinese granted to other powers in the
future. And so it was that ‘The Barren Rock’ of Hong Kong became a British Crown Colony. (11)
The second formative event to shape Hong Kong’s character was the Arrow War, or Second
Opium War as it is sometimes called. The Arrow War ran from 1856 to 1860. Historians still debate
whether Britain and France manufactured an excuse for the Arrow War and whether their rationale
for the conflict was justified or not. However, the events leading into the second war began with the
Arrow Incident when, in 1856, Ch’ing officials boarded a Hong Kong registered vessel in Canton
when they suspected the crew were involved in smuggling. They arrested the Chinese crew. British
officials in Canton demanded that the sailors be released but the Ch’ing officials refused. In 1857
the British seized an undefended fort near Canton and then attacked Canton from the Pearl River.
Surprisingly, the British forces were assisted by American warships, including the Levant, in the
shelling of Canton from the river. However, the Chinese resistance was sufficiently strong to force
the Western navies to retreat from Humen. The response from the British Parliament was to seek
French support for an expeditionary force to be sent to China. At about this time Chinese officials
had executed Father August Chapdelaine, a French missionary in Guangxi and the French used
this to justify their joint action with Britain. Admiral Sir Michael Seymour led the joint British-French
naval force and Lord Elgin led the British army. Gros led the French army. The joint expeditionary
force took Canton by force and held it for four years. After taking Canton they sailed north and
captured the Taku Forts near Tientsin in May 1858.
The first salvo of the Second Opium War ended in June 1858 with France, Russia and America
joining Britain in the Treaty of Tientsin which opened ten more Chinese ports to trade and provided:
•
•
•
•
•
That Britain, France, Russia, and the United States would have the right to establish
diplomatic legations in the closed city of Peking
The right of all foreign vessels, including commercial ships, to navigate freely on the
Yangtze River
The right of foreigners to travel throughout China
That China was to pay an indemnity to Britain and France of 2m taels of silver each
That China was to pay compensation to British merchants in 2m taels of silver for
destruction of their property.
In 1858 the Chinese government also reluctantly agreed to legalize the importation of opium. (12)
Then on May 28 1858 a separate treaty, the Treaty of Aigun, was signed with Russia. This revised
the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk and moved the Chinese-Russian border to the Amur River enabling
Russia to found the coastal city of Vladivostok in 1860.
But in 1859 the Chinese refused to allow the establishment of embassies in Peking as the Treaty of
Tientsin stipulated and consequently a naval force under Admiral Sir James Hope shelled the Taku
Forts guarding the Peiho River 60 kilometres southeast of Tientsin. The British fleet was mauled
and had to withdraw under cover from an American naval squadron commanded by Commodore
Josiah Tattnall. The British regrouped and in August 1860 the Anglo-French force landed at Pei
Tang-Ho with 200 British and 200 French troops and took the Taku Forts. By early October 1860
they reached Peking. Emperor Xianfeng fled to the Summer Palace in Chengde and the BritishFrench troops set both the Summer Palace and the Old Summer Palace ablaze after extensive
looting. With the Emperor gone the June 1858 Treaty of Tientsin was finally ratified by Prince Gong
on October 18, 1860 under the Convention of Peking. This brought the Second Opium War to an
end.
The Convention of Peking established:
•
•
•
China's recognition of the validity of the Treaty of Tientsin
The opening of Tianjin as a trade port
The cession of Kowloon south of Boundary Street and Stonecutters Island to Britain
•
•
•
•
The freedom of religion in China
That British ships could carry indentured Chinese to the Americas
That the Indemnity to Britain and France be increased to 8 million taels of silver
That the Opium Trade was legal
The United States and Russia gained the same privileges as Britain and France in separate
treaties.
The third formative event in Hong Kong’s development was the Second Convention of Peking. In
June 1898, under this convention, Peking granted Britain a 99-year lease for the New Territories
and 236 offshore islands. The New Territories ran to the north of Boundary Street on the Kowloon
Peninsular to the current day Sha Tau Kok south of the Shenzhen River, to Lu Wo on the Chinese
border and to Lok Ma Chau in the northeast. The New Territories lease began on 1st July 1898 and
ended on 1st July 1997.
It was within the framework of the Treaty of Nanking, the Treaty of Tientsin and the Second
Convention of Peking that the free port of Hong Kong made its way in the world. And although
Hong Kong suffered several major setbacks such as prolonged outbreaks of the plague, cholera,
malaria, and dengue fever, destruction by typhoons, and an overwhelming influx of refugees from
China, the Colony of Hong Kong flourished under British rule. Opium was a legal commodity and
freely traded under Hong Kong law until well into the 20th century. And this unimpeded freedom to
trade enabled the people of Hong Kong to rapidly develop a range of skills that facilitated the wider
China trade. The new settlement of Victoria quickly grew as Chinese and Europeans alike were
drawn to the opportunities created by stevedoring, transhipment, banking, finance, tea trading and
opium smuggling. And as the ‘flower boats’ of Canton ran their brisk trade for gamblers, opium
smokers and comfort ladies the staff quarters of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank grew in size
and opened in new locations. (13) China’s tumultuous century from 1840 to 1949 witnessed famine,
foreign settlements, civil war, Japanese occupation and revolution and as each successive wave of
trauma unfolded, Hong Kong miraculously prospered, building itself into a world centre of trade,
finance, insurance, banking, air services, shipping and shopping. (14) More recently Hong Kong
has become the strategic hub for the Greater Pearl River Delta and the driving force linking
Canton, Macao and Hong Kong into a network of inter-dependent centres of production,
entertainment and international trade services.
There is little architectural evidence now of early Hong Kong and nostalgia is not a Hong Kong
trait.(15) While a number of the early Colonial buildings have been preserved and a few more
restored the tradition in Hong Kong is to look forward, not back. Authoritative academics in Hong
Kong tell me that it can be argued that the era of Colonial architecture stretches through to the
completion of HSBC’s headquarters at 1 Queen’s Road – Central, around 1984. But for practical
purposes the Colonial era architecture ended well before WWII. There is however an interesting
feature of Hong Kong’s Colonial architecture that hasn’t received much attention to date and that is
the Art Deco style buildings constructed between 1920 and 1960. I have photographed a number of
them during the last two years as an acknowledgment of their importance within the genre of
Colonial style buildings in Hong Kong.(16) But I must thank Dr Lynne DiStafano, Dr Hoyin Lee and
Ngai Sum Yee for bringing this to my attention.(17)
Recommended Readings –
1. Bonner-Smith, D., and Lumby, E., ‘The Second China War: 1856-1860,’ New York: State
Mutual Book and Periodical Service Ltd., 1987.
2. Garrett, V., ‘Heaven is High and the Emperor Far Away: Mandarins and Merchants in Old
Canton,’ New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
3. Graham, S., ‘The China Station: War and Diplomacy 1830-1860,’ New York: Oxford
University Press, 1979.
4. Janin, H., ‘The India-China Opium Trade in the 19th Century,’ Jefferson: McFarland and Co.,
1999.
5. Wong, J., ‘Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China,’
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
References –
^ 1:
^ 2:
^ 3:
^ 4:
^ 5:
^ 6:
^ 7:
^ 8:
Scott, H., ‘Gulangyu: A Colonial Heritage,’ Auckland: Black Apple, 2006.
Hong Bu Ren (Editor) ‘Old Photos of Xiamen’, Xiamen: People’s Art Publishing Company,
2000.
Scott, H., ‘Sha Mian: A Colonial Heritage,’ Auckland: Black Apple, 2006.
The Regulations Governing Foreign Trade up to 1840
No foreign warships may sail inside the Bogue - the harbour approach to Canton city
Neither foreign women nor firearms may be brought into the factories - the warehouse
complex reserved for foreign traders within the harbour but outside Canton city walls
… foreign ships must not enter into direct communication with the Chinese people and
merchants without the immediate supervision of a native Chinese
Each factory - each trading nation had its own 'factory' - is restricted for its service to 8
Chinese irrespective of the number of its occupants …
Foreigners may not communicate with Chinese officials except through the proper
channel of the Co-hong - appointees from among the native Chinese merchants at
Canton
Foreigners are not allowed to row boats freely in the river . . . On the 8th, 18th, and 28th
days of the moon 'they may take the air. … All ships' boats passing the Custom-houses
on the river must be detained and examined, to guard against guns, swords, or firearms
being furtively carried in them. On the 8th, 18th, and 28th days of the moon these foreign
barbarians may visit the Flower Gardens and the Honam Joss-house, but not in droves of
over ten at one time. … If the ten should presume to enter villages, public places, or
bazaars, punishment will be inflicted upon the interpreter who accompanies them
… Further …
Foreign trade must be conducted through the hong merchants. Foreigners living in the
factories must not move in and out too frequently, although they may walk freely within a
hundred yards of their factories. …
Foreign traders must not remain in Canton after the trading season - which lasted from
October to May each year - they should return home or go to Macao - the Portuguese
enclave at the mouth of the harbour.
Foreigners may neither buy Chinese books, nor learn Chinese
The hong merchants shall not go into debt to foreigners
Hsu, I., ‘The Rise of Modern China’, Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1999, p.201.
The Canton Trade Fair continues to this day.
Some commentators call the conflict The First Opium War; others call it The Tea War. A
few scholars, such as Gelber, even deny that opium played any significant part in the
conflict. My own view is that the conflict is more accurately described as a trade war
about open market access and free trade on an equal footing. I think Gelber’s view is too
extreme; after all the main items of trade were salt and opium smuggling, the
transportation of Chinese labour to South East Asia and the Americas and tea purchases.
Gelber, H., ‘China as Victim? The Opium War that Wasn’t’. Visiting Scholar, Centre for
European Studies, Harvard University.
See: Chang Hsin-pao, ‘Commissioner Lin and the Opium War’, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1964.
See: Waley, A., ‘The Opium War through Chinese Eyes’, London: George Allen and
Unwin, 1958.
^ 9:
^ 10:
^ 11:
^ 12:
^ 13:
^ 14:
^ 15
^ 16:
^ 17:
Unwin, 1958.
On January 20th 1841 under the Convention of Chuanbi the island of Hong Kong is
ceded to Britain and the British superintendent of trade, Captain Charles Elliott, declares
Hong Kong a British Colony. He does this under his own responsibility. Then in June
1841 Elliott begins to sell land to settlers. But there is dissatisfaction with this in both
China and Britain. The Chuanbi Agreement is rejected by both Britain and China and
Captain Elliott is replaced by Sir.
In August 1841 Pottinger successively occupied Amoy, Ningpo and Shanghai and in early
1842 he threatens to attack Nanking. To avoid this the Emperor accepted Pottinger’s
conditions for the termination of hostilities. With the signing of the Treaty of Nanking on
August 29th 1842 Hong Kong was formally ceded to Britain “in perpetuity” and Canton,
Amoy, Ningpo, Foochow and Shang–hai were opened to British trade and settlement. On
June 16th 1843, with the ratification of the Treaty of Nanking Hong Kong officially became
a British Crown Colony with Sir Henry Pottinger as the first Governor. The Supplementary
Agreement of Humen in October 1843 enabled the Chinese to enter Hong Kong to trade.
Fay, P., ‘The Opium War, 1840–1842,’ Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1975.
See: Greenberg, M., ‘British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800-1842,’ Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1951.
See: Ricarlton, J., ‘China through the Steroscope. A Journey through the Dragon Empire
at the Time of the Boxer Uprising,’ New York: Underwood and Underwood, 1901.
Scott, H., ‘Images of Hong Kong,’ Auckland: Black Apple, 2005.
Most buildings in Hong Kong can be sourced from the Hong Kong Street Directory
website at: http://www.centamap.com but the building information is only available when
the map is at level 1 magnification.
Lee, Hoyin and DiStefano, L., ‘Wan Chai Market: An Identity Crisis’, Hong Kong:
Architectural Conservation Office, 2004._See also: Lee, Hoyin, ‘The Singapore
Shophouse: An Anglo-Chinese Urban Vernacular’, in Knapp, R., (editor), ‘Asia’s Old
Dwellings: Tradition, Resilience and Change’, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2003,
pp115-134.
Dr Lynne DiStefano works part time in the Department of Architecture at the University of
Hong Kong and explained the importance of art deco in Hong Kong to me over a seminar
dinner in the Hong Kong Club in early 2006. Dr Hoyin Lee is the Director of the
Architectural Conservation Programme in the Department of Architecture at the University
of Hong Kong. Dr Lee took the time to explain the nuances of Art Deco, Streamlined
Moderne and Bauhaus to me. And Ngai Sum Yee is a Masters graduate from the
University of Hong Kong whose thesis included an extensive list of art deco buildings
around Hong Kong. I thank them all for their insights and assistance.