CO129 and Hong Kong’s History

John M. Carroll
Professor of History,Department of History, the University of Hong Kong
Offices: Home, India, Medical Adviser, Board of Trade, Treasury, War and Miscellaneous: 1921. 1921. TS War and Colonial
Department and Colonial Office: Hong Kong, Original Correspondence CO 129/472. The National Archives (Kew, UnitedKingdom).

CO129 and Hong Kong’s History

character of greater permanency.” To the consternation
iiof the Qing authorities in Guangzhou, collaboration from
Chinese people of all walks of life was instrumental inNo collection of official documents is more useful than
CO129 for understanding Hong Kong’s history fromJanuary 1841, when Britain acquired the so-called“barren island” of Hong Kong Island during the Opium
War, to 1951, not long after the establishment of thePeople’s Republic of China in October 1949. Comprising
mainly correspondence between the governor of Hong
Kong and the Colonial Office in London, these
documents cover more than a century of Hong Kong’shistory. They can be divided into four main periods, eachcrucial to the development of Britain’s only Chinese

the building of the young colony. In April 1846, Governor
John Francis Davis explained to Colonial Secretary
William Gladstone that the construction of private andpublic works in Hong Kong “could not have taken place
except for the ready command of the cheap and efficientlabour of the Chinese.” Collaboration also assumediii

other forms, not always to the pleasure of the colonial
government. The leaders of the Chinese and European
communities learned to join forces occasionally, as they
did in February 1848 to petition the government about
the payment of ground rents.

iv

colony, and of the evolving relationship between Britainand China: foundations (early 1840s-late 1800s); Hong
Kong’s role in the Chinese reform and revolutionary

The two pillars of Hong Kong’s economy during thismovements (late 1800s-early 1900s); the interwar years

period were the opium and “coolie” trades. We learn how(1920s-late 1930s); and the Japanese occupation (1941-

monopolies for opium and other commodities were1945) and the post-war era that began with the British

acquired and how land lots were allocated, at public

recovery of Hong Kong in the summer of 1945. Thisauctions and sometimes as rewards to Chinese who had

overview focuses on the first three of these four periods.

collaborated with the British during the Opium War andin building the infant colony. One such beneficiary was a
man named Loo Aqui, who rose to prominence throughFoundations

piracy and provisioning foreign vessels and was later
rewarded with a large plot of valuable land in the Lower

These were uncertain times, and many CO129 files
reveal how early-colonial Hong Kong worked – and justas often did not. Despite its fine harbour and abundanti

supply of cheap Chinese labour, Hong Kong was slow tobecome the great “mart” or “emporium” envisioned byits colonial founders. Disease and crime were rampant.
Governor Samuel George Bonham complained in June
1853 that piracy had become so widespread that hisgovernment could not suppress it alone, though he also
noted that the colony’s commercial prospects were“slowly but certainly extending and assuming aBazaar, where much of the Chinese population would
eventually settle. These files contain important detailsv

about governance and the administration of justice,including Governor Davis’s short-lived “native Chinese
Peace Officers” scheme from the mid-1840s to the early1860s, Governor Richard MacDonnell’s draconian “greatexperiment” in the mid-1860s to lower the crime rate
and reduce the number of prisoners, and his successor
John Pope Hennessy’s efforts to modernize Hong Kong’s
penal system and to reduce racial discrimination andsegregation – including the appointment in 1880 of thefirst Chinese to the Legislative Council, Ng Choy (WuTingfang).

1: Governor Davis to Lord Stanley, 1 June 1844. CO129/6.

2: Petition to Colonial Secretary Stewart Lockhart, 2 March 1901.

These documents also help us understand the rise of alocal

Chineseelite,

whoestablished

CO129/306.

voluntary

associations such as the Man Mo Temple, District Watch
Force, Tung Wah Hospital, and Po Leung Kuk, and social

Wealth and power did not, however, bring equality, andorganizations such as the Chinese Club and the Chinese

theRecreation Club. They increasingly saw themselves asdiscrimination and segregation in Hong Kong, including“an important and influential section” of Hong Kong’s

the residential ordinances of the late 1800s and early

Chinese community. In March 1901, for example, they1900s. In May 1904, European property owners on theasked Governor Henry Blake to establish a special

exclusive hill district called the Peak petitioned theschool exclusively for their own children. Many of thesegovernment to preserve the area for “the exclusive

wealthy Chinese came to consider Hong Kong as theirresidence of non-Chinese inhabitants.” Their petition

permanent home, which became evident in December

resulted in a new ordinance stipulating that no owner or1911 when they petitioned Governor Frederick Lugard

tenant could lease a property or building “to any but non-for a cemetery for Chinese “permanently residing” inChinese or permit any but Non-Chinese to reside on orHong Kong. Lugard’s successor, Henry May, was happyin such land or building.” But in September 1917

to approve the request: “it would tend to create aGovernor Francis Henry May explained to Colonialcolonial feeling and to specialize a class who desire to

Secretary Walter Long that the ordinance had failed to

identify themselves with the Colony.”

define “Chinese,” thus enabling wealthy Eurasians suchviviiviii

CO129

correspondence

revealstheracialix

as the comprador Robert Ho Tung to slip through. A newx

bill was passed in 1918, and the Peak was again reservedfor Europeans, a restriction that lasted until after WorldWar Two.

xi

Revolution and Reform in China

Colonial Hong Kong played an important role in China’s
nationalist movement that began in the late 1800s.

xii

Hong Kong helped facilitate the activities of Sun Yatsen and other revolutionaries and reformers in the last
decades of the Qing dynasty, when China was still ruled

3: William Robinson to Joseph Chamberlain, 11 March 1896.
CO129/271.

by the Manchus. This correspondence reveals theconcerns of the Hong Kong and British governmentsthat the colony not become a base for subversion, evenwhile some local authorities supported themovement are particularly evident in the life of Ho Kai, abarrister, financier, physician, legislative councillor, andrevolutionary movement. Here we find, for example,Governor William Robinson’s order of March 1896
banishing Sun from Hong Kong for five years, on thegrounds that his presence in Hong Kong was “veryundesirable” and would jeopardize relations with thegovernment of China. When Kang Youwei, whoxiii

preferred reform over revolution, and constitutionalmonarchy over republicanism, fled to Hong Kong after
the aborted Hundred Days of Reform in the summer of1898, he was protected by the colonial government. But
even his case made some officials worry that it mightprovoke trouble with the Chinese government.

The local dimensions of the Chinese nationalist

xiv

leader of the Hong Kong Chinese community. Part of axv

group of reformers who lived in Hong Kong and theChinese treaty ports such as Shanghai at the turn of thecentury, Ho is often credited with shaping the politicalideas of Sun Yat-sen. But unlike Sun, Ho believed thatChina should be a constitutional monarchy like Britain
rather than a republic and that Hong Kong could be apolitical and commercial model for China. As a longtime friend and fellow legislative councillor once
explained, “in all his life,” Ho was “in favour ofReformation and not Revolution.” His involvement withxvi

the revolutionary movement declined after a failed
uprising in 1900, though he remained committed to thewelfare of China for the rest of his life.
The Interwar YearsInterwar Hong Kong is sometimes characterized as acolonial backwater. But the CO129 files show how duringthis period the colony was drawn ever-more tightly into

matter of common knowledge” that “the Chinese as a

British imperial history and Chinese history. For

race are remarkably fond of and kind to children.”example, the mui tsai (female bondservant) controversy

Milner concluded that many colonial officials felt it wasof the 1920s and 1930s became one of the most intense

neither possible “nor indeed desirable” to “enforceand protracted disputes in British colonial policy. The

Western ideas upon the family life of the Chinese.”question of whether the mui tsai system constituted

Stubbs even worried that abolishing or reforming theslavery had been raised in 1879, when Chief Justice Johnmui tsai system might weaken support for colonial rule

Smale demanded the creation of a commission toby alienating “one of the most loyal and law-abiding

investigate the practice of buying and selling children as

communities in the British Empire.”

xvii

servants.

xviii

xxiv

xxv

xxvi

However, “China experts” such as themissionary and civil servant Ernest J. Eitel refutedSmale’s allegation that such servants were slaves.

xix

Although some critics considered the system a form ofslavery that encouraged sexual abuse, leaders of theChinese community argued that it saved girls fromprostitution and that they were treated as family
members. Governor Hennessy eventually agreed, andxx

this view became the official one, both in Hong Kong andin London. In August 1918, Governor May insisted thatbond servitude was “governed by a different vocabulary”
than slavery.

xxi

A new view of the mui tsai emerged in the 1920s,
however, thanks partly to the efforts of LieutenantCommander Hugh Haslewood of the Royal Navy and hiswife Clara. After learning about the practice in a churchsermon, the Haslewoods wrote a barrage of letters tolocal newspapers criticizing colonial authorities fortolerating “child slavery” in a British colony. We learnxxii

how the Hong Kong government tried to discredit bothClara (“well-known to be a person of unbalanced mind,”
Stubbs claimed) and Chinese critics of the mui tsai.

4: “Child Slavery: Under British Rule,” Hong Kong Daily News, 11 May
1921, CO 129/473xxiii

Governor Edward Reginald Stubbs explained to Colonial
Secretary Alfred Milner in July 1920 that there was no

The Haslewoods pursued their anti-mui-tsai campaign

proof that mui tsai were mistreated and that it was “aeven more actively and effectively in Britain after theHong Kong government asked the Admiralty to transfer

against the privileged status of Europeans in Hong Kong.

Commander Haslewood. Although local Chinese elites
such as the legislative councillors Lau Chu Pak and Ho
Fook tried to preserve the mui tsai, they faced opposition
from the Anti-Mui Tsai Society, supported mainly byChinese Christian groups and by labour unions.

xxvii

Under

pressure from members of Parliament in Britain,
religious leaders there and in Hong Kong, international
women’s and workers’ groups, and even the League ofNations, Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill (who hadpreviously defended the system) declared in February
1922 that he was “not prepared to go on defending thisthing” and that “I do not care a rap what the local
consequences are.”xxviii

The Legislative Council eventually

passed several ordinances to control the mui tsai, though
the practice lasted well after World War Two.

5: Memorandum by Robert Kotewall on the Hong Kong Strike andThe interwar years were characterized by Britain’sBoycott, 24 October 1925. CO129/489.

commitment to expanding public works, including not
only road works and reservoirs but hospitals andteacher-training colleges. This was all part of the newimperial ideal of building “trusteeship,” but it was also
aimed at preventing the growth of Chinese nationalism
and labour consciousness in the wake of the Russian
Revolution of 1917 and the May Fourth Movement of1919. These were powerful forces that could not beeasily suppressed, however, and they helped cause
several strikes in the 1920s. The CO129 files include
invaluable information on these strikes, especially thegeneral strike-boycott of 1925-26. They also reveal thatxxix

although Hong Kong officials were adamant from thebeginning that the strike-boycott was directed by radical
agitators in Guangzhou and had nothing to do witheconomic or political conditions in the colony, the strikeboycott derived part of its force from popular feelings

The strike-boycott did not seriously affect Hong Kong’s
long-term political or economic stability, showing how
outside influences were never able to transform Chinese
nationalism into overt or sustainable anti-colonialism.
The colonial government was able to stem the growth ofcommunism and labour unionism. As they would many
decades later during the 1967 disturbances, which
occurred

duringtheGreat

Proletariat

Cultural

Revolution that engulfed China, many people in Hong
Kong appreciated the political and economic stability
there, especially in contrast to the chaos and violenceacross the border. The CO129 files reveal the efforts oflocal Chinese and Eurasian elites such as Chow Shousonand Robert Kotewall to fight the strike-boycott. In atelegram to Colonial Secretary Leo Amery in late June

1925, Governor Stubbs noted how the “responsibleChinese” had been of “great assistance.”xxx

Still, the strike-boycott demonstrates how the history ofcolonial Hong Kong was always intertwined with the restof China’s. It also exacerbated tensions among theForeign Office, the Colonial Office, and the Hong Kong
government regarding British policy towards China. TheColonial Office and the Hong Kong government
sometimes worried that the Foreign Office was moreconcerned about relations with China than about tiny
Hong Kong. When the strike-boycott and otherexpressions of Chinese nationalism convinced theForeign Office to surrender Weihaiwei (leased to Britainin 1898) in Shandong province and the British
concessions at Hankou in Hubei and Jiujiang in Jiangxi,
some Hong Kong officials worried that their colony might
be next.

xxxi

This would of course not happen until many

decades later, in July 1997. But as they had been almost
one century earlier, these were uncertain times.
CitationJohn M. Carroll, ‘CO129 and Hong Kong’s History’, China
and the Modern World: Hong Kong, Britain and China(1841–1951), Cengage Learning (EMEA) Ltd, 2019

Endnotes

Press, 1981; Ts’ai, Hong Kong in Chinese History, chapters 9 and 10;
and Carroll, Edge of Empires, chapter 5.
Wei Yuk to Henry May, 20 August 1914, enclosed in May toHarcourt, 11 September 1914, CO 129/413.
xvi

On the early colonial period, see: Jung-fang Tsai, Hong Kong inChinese History: Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony,
1842-1913 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), chapters 1and 2; Christopher Munn, Anglo-China: Chinese People and BritishRule in Hong Kong, 1841-1880 (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press,2001; reprint, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008); andJohn M. Carroll, Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials
in Hong Kong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005;
reprint, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007), chapters 1
and 2.
i

ii

Bonham to Newcastle, 13 June 1853, CO 129/42.

iii

Davis to Gladstone, 15 April 1846, CO 129/16.

“Memorial from the European and Chinese Inhabitants in Hong
Kong Relative to the Payment of Ground Rents,” 26 February 1848,
CO 129/23.
iv

vFearon’s report, June 24, 1845, CO 129/12.

On these voluntary associations, see: Henry J. Lethbridge, HongKong: Stability and Change: A Collection of Essays (Hong Kong: Oxford
University Press, 1978), chapters 3-5; Elizabeth Sinn, Power andCharity: The Early History of the Tung Wah Hospital, Hong Kong (HongKong: Oxford University Press, 1989); and W. K. Chan, The Making ofHong Society: Three Studies of Class Formation in Early Hong Kong
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), chapter 3.
vivii

Blake to Chamberlain, 24 September 1901, CO 129/306.

viii

May to Harcourt, 20 July 1912, CO 129/391.

ix

Enclosed in May to Lyttleton, 4 May 1904, CO 129/322.

x

May to Long, 5 September 1917, CO129/433.

John M. Carroll, “The Peak: Residential Segregation in Colonial
Hong Kong,” in Bryna Goodman and David Goodman, eds.,
Twentieth-Century Colonialism and China: Localities, the Everyday, andthe World (London: Routledge, 2012), 81-91.
xi

On Hong Kong and Chinese nationalism, see: Chan Lau Kit-ching,
China, Britain and Hong Kong, 1895-1945 (Hong Kong: Chinese
University Press, 1990), chapters 1 and 2; Ts’ai, Hong Kong in
Chinese History, chapters 6-9; and K. C. Fok, Lectures on Hong Kong
History: Hong Kong’s Role in Modern Chinese History (Hong Kong:Commercial Press, 1990).
xii

xiii

Robinson to Chamberlain, 11 March 1896, CO 129/271.

See, for example: Blake to Chamberlain, 18 May 1898, CO 129/283;
9 October 1898, CO 129/285; and 17 and 25 December 1899, CO
129/294xiv

For differing perspectives on Ho Kai, see: G. H. Choa, The Life andTimes of Sir Kai Ho Kai (Hong Kong: Chinese University
xv

On the mui-tsai controversy, see: Susan Pedersen, “TheMaternalist Moment in British Colonial Policy: The Controversy over
‘Child Slavery’ in Hong Kong 1917-1941,” Past and Present 171(2001): 161-202; and David M. Pomfret, “‘Child Slavery’ in Britishand French Far Eastern Colonies 1880-1945,” Past and Present 201(2008): 175-213.
xvii“Public Statement of Governor on the So-Called Slavery andDomestic Servitude Question,” 21 February 1880, CO 129/187.
xix Eitel’s report, 25 October 1879, CO 129/194.
xviii

John M. Carroll, “A National Custom: Debating Female Servitudein Late Nineteenth-Century Hong Kong,” Modern Asian Studies 43.6
(November 2009): 1463-93.
xxxxi

May to Long, 9 August 1918, CO 129/449.

“Child Slavery in Hong Kong,” Hong Kong Daily Press, 10 March1920, CO 129/461; “Child Slavery: Under British Rule,” Hong Kong
Daily News, 11 May 1921, CO 129/473.
xxii

xxiii

Stubbs to Milner, 10 July 1920, CO 129/461.

xxiv

Stubbs to Milner, 10 July 1920, CO 129/461.

xxv

Milner to Stubbs, 28 September 1920, CO 129/461.

xxvi

Stubbs to Milner, 10 July 1920, CO 129/461.

“Chinese Meeting on ‘Mui Tsai’ Question,” Hong Kong Daily Press,2 August 1921, CO 129/468; Lau and Ho’s report to governor, 4August 1921, CO 129/468.
xxvii

xxviii

Churchill to Masterson-Smith, 21 February 1922, CO 129/478.

On the strike-boycott, see Chan Lau, China, Britain and Hong Kong,chapter 4, and her From Nothing to Nothing: The Chinese Communist
Movement and Hong Kong 1921-1939 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press, 1999), chapter 4; and Carroll, Edge of Empires,chapter 6.
xxix

xxx

Stubbs to Amery, 26 June 1925, CO 129/488.

The rendition of Weihaiwei is analysed in Pamela Atwell, British
Mandarins and Chinese Reformers (Hong Kong: Oxford UniversityPress, 1985), chapters 6 and 7. On Weihaiwei and the British “loss”
of Hankou and Jiujiang, see Robert Bickers, Out of China: How theChinese Ended the Era of Western Domination (London: Penguin,2017), chapter 4.
xxxi