"History of Colonial Hong Kong (1800s - 1930s) | AboutHK.Com - more information about HK"

The Colonial Hong Kong period began in the 19th century when the British, Dutch, French, Indians and Americans saw China as the world"s largest untapped market.

The British empire would launch their first and one of the most aggressive expeditionary forces to claim the territory under Queen Victoria in 1840 -- three years after she became the queen of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The territory would later be known as Hong Kong gained from the last dynasty of Imperial China.

Territorial Establishments

Beginning of Trades

By the end of the 18th century the British Empire were already well established in trading and conquest around the world. China was the main supplier of tea to the British, who were domestically consuming 30 million pounds of Chinese tea by 1830 averaging 2 pounds of leaves for every citizen. From the British economy standpoint, Chinese tea was a crucial item since it provided massive wealth for the taipans and the tea duty accounted for 10% of the government income. Though alot of conflict exist during the trades. The British diplomats have never been in favor of performing kowtow to the Emperor of China. Many saw it as a religious pursuit and would rather be treated as equal. Though the members of the Qing Dynasty thrones and courts always saw the British envoys as uncivilized foreigners strictly here for tea, silk and other far east goods. At the time China"s social structure, as passed down from Confucian philosophy, ranked merchants relatively low since they were considered citizens who only enriched themselves.


Streets of Hong Kong 1865

Some of the earliest items sold to China in exchange for tea were British clocks, watches and musical boxes. Though those were not enough to compensate for the unbalance trading of massive quantities of tea. China developed a strong demand for silver. After the 1757 territorial conquest of Bengal in India, the British would have a monopoly access on the production of opium. The supply would begin an illegal trade route trading opium for silver, though it would come at the price of creating a new drug addiction. Lin Zexu would be the Chinese commissioner who wrote a letter to the Queen Victoria in 1839 taking a stance against the acceptance of opium in trade. He confiscating more than 20,000 chests of opium already at the port and supervised their destruction.


Henry Pottinger first HK governor

Confrontation

By 1840 the Queen saw the destruction of British products as an insult and sent the first expeditionary force to challenge British"s "ancient rights of commerce"[5]. The First Opium War (1839-1842) began at the hands of Capt. Charles Elliot of the Royal Navy and Capt. Anthony Blaxland Stransham of the Royal Marines. After a series of Chinese defeats, Hong Kong Island was occupied by the British on January 20, 1841. The island was first used by the British as a staging post during the war, and while the East India Company intended to establish a permanent base on the island of Zhoushan, Elliot took it upon himself to claim the island on a permanent basis. The ostensible authority for the occupation was negotiated between Captain Eliot and the Governor of Kwangtung Province. The Convention of Chuenpeh was concluded but had not been recognized by the court of Qing Dynasty at Beijing. Subsequently, Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking, at which point in time the territory became a Crown Colony.

The Opium War was ostensibly fought to liberalize trade to China. With a base in Hong Kong, British traders, opium dealers, and merchants launched the city which would become the "free trade" nexus of the East. American opium traders and merchant bankers such as the Russell, Perkins and the Forbes family would soon join the trade. Britain was granted a perpetual lease on the Kowloon Peninsula under the 1860 Convention of Beijing, which formally ended hostilities in the Second Opium War (1856-1858).

In 1898 the United Kingdom was concerned that Hong Kong could not be defended unless surrounding areas were also under British control. In response a 99-year lease titled the Second Convention of Peking was drafted and executed, significantly expanding the size of the Hong Kong via the addition of the New Territories. The lease would set to expire at midnight, on June 30, 1997.


Second Convention of Peking

Demographics

Population

When the union flag was raised over Possession Point on January 26, 1841, the population of Hong Kong island was about 6,000 mostly comprised of Tanka fishermen and Hakka charcoal burners living in a number of coastal villages. In the 1850s large amounts of Chinese would immigrate from China to Hong Kong due to the Taiping Rebellion. Other mainland floods, typhoons and famine would also play a role.

Around 1862 Hong Kong had an estimated population of 120,000. In 1914 despite an exodus of 60,000 Chinese fearing an attack on the colony after World War I, Hong Kong"s population continues to increase from 530,000 in 1916 to 725,000 in 1925 and 1.6 million by 1941.


1890 Woman in traditional dress

Integration

The establishment of the free port made Hong Kong a major entrepot from the start, attracting people from China and Europe alike. Though the society remained segregated and polarized due to language barriers. A de facto segregation existed between the European minority and the Chinese majority. Slow rise of a British-educated Chinese upper class of the late 19th Century forced the creation of racial laws such as the Peak Reservation Ordinance, which prevented Chinese from living in upscale Victoria Peak. The Chinese society had little to no official governmental influence throughout much of the early years. Some of the small number of Chinese elites that the British governors could rely on included Sir Kai Ho and Robert Hotung.

Culture

Lifestyle

The east portion of Colonial Hong Kong was mostly dedicated to the British filled with race courses, parade grounds, barracks, cricket, polo fields. The west portion was filled with Chinese shops, crowded markets and tea houses. The Hong Kong tea culture began in this period and evolved into Yum cha. One of the most common breakfast was congee with fish and barley.

In the mid 1800s many of the merchants would sell silk, jade and consult fung shui to open shops that favor better spiritual arrangements. Other lower ranked groups like coolies arrived with the notion that hard work would better position them for the future. And the success of boatmen, merchants, carters and fishermen in Hong Kong, would leapfrog China"s most popular port in Canton. By 1880 Hong Kong"s port would handle 27% of the mainland"s export and 37% of imports.

A British traveler, Isabella Bird, described Hong Kong in the 1870s as a colony filled with comforts and entertainment only a Victorian society would be able to enjoy. Other descriptions mentioned courts, hotels, post offices, shops, city hall complexes, museums, libraries and structures in impressive manner for the era. The Hong Kong Club at Queen"s Road was also a hangout for established tai-pans.


Congee, a popular colonial era breakfast

Education

In 1861 Frederick Stewart would become the founder of Hong Kong education system bringing western-style philosophy to the east. Some have argued that his contribution is the key turning point between the group of Chinese that were able to modernize Hong Kong versus the group that did not in China. The education would bring western-style finance, science, history, technology into the culture. The father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen was also educated in Hong Kong"s Central School.


Central School in 1903

Law and Order

In 1843 the legislative council was established. The governor of Hong Kong generally served as the British plenipotentiary in the far east in the early years. The Colonial Secretary would also assist in legal matters.

A colonial police force was established in the 1840s to handle the high crime rate in Hong Kong. By China"s standards, colonial Hong Kong"s code of punishment was considered laughably loose and lenient. The lack of intimidation may have been the leading cause for the continual rise in crime. Po Leung Kuk became one of the first organization established to deal with the abduction of women and prostitution crisis. Crime in the sea was also common as some pirates had access to cutlass and revolvers.

Third Pandemic

The Third Pandemic of bubonic plague broke out in China in the 1880s. By the spring of 1894 about 100,000 were reported dead in the mainland. In May 1894 the disease erupted into Hong Kong"s overcrowded Chinese quarter of Tai Ping Shan. By the end of the month, an estimated 450 people died of the illness. At its height, the epidemic was killing 100 people per day, and it killed a total of 2,552 people that year. The disease was greatly detrimental to trade and produced a temporary exodus of 100,000 Chinese from the colony. Plague continued to be a problem in the territory for the next 30 years.

Natural Disasters

In the 1870s a typhoon hit Hong Kong one evening reaching its height by midnight. An estimated 2,000 people lost their lives in a span of just six hours.

Economy

Transportations

The growth of Hong Kong depended greatly on domestic transport of citizens and cargo across Victoria Harbour. The establishment of the Star Ferry and the Yaumati Ferry would prove to be vital. In 1843 the colony had built the first ship at a private shipyard. Some of the customers later included the Spanish government in the Philippines and the Chinese Navy. The Peak Tram would begin in 1888 along with the Tramway service in 1904. The first railway line was also launched in 1910 as the Kowloon-Canton Railway. On land the rickshaws were extremely popular in the early colonial periods, since it was affordable and necessary for street merchants to haul goods. Though motor cars would make an appearance in the 1920s beginning with the China Motor Bus and Kowloon Motor Bus. The first automobile cars in Hong Kong had petrol-driven internal combustion engines arriving between 1903-05. They were not well received by the public. Only around 1910 did the cars begin to gain appeal. Most of the owners were British. The flying boats were the first British airplanes to reach Hong Kong in 1928. By 1924 the Kai Tak Airport would also be found. The first flight service from Imperial Airways would become available by 1937 at a price of 288 pounds per ticket.


1st Generation of Automobiles in HK

Hospital and Hospitality

Soon after the British occupied Hong Kong in 1841, Protestant and Catholic missionaries started to provide social service. Italian missionaries began to provide boy-only education to British and Chinese youth in 1843. "The Catholic French Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres" was one of the first orphanage and elderly home was established in 1848[11] In 1870 the Tung Wah Hospital became the first official hospital in Hong Kong. It handled much of the social services and was providing free vaccinations in Hong Kong Island and Kwang Tung. After raising funds for the 1877 famine in China, a number of the hospital officials became Tung Wah elites with much authority and power representing the Chinese majority. Some of the booming hotel businesses of the era include the Victoria Hotel, New Victoria Hotel. King Edward Hotel was considered one of the best in the era.

Finance

In 1864 the first large scale modern bank Hong Kong Shanghai Bank would be established turning Hong Kong into the focal point of financial affairs in Asia. The achievements of Sir Thomas Jackson Bart is on the scale worthy of a statue next to Queen Victoria in Statue Square. The bank first leased Wardley House at HKD $500 a month in 1864. After raising a capital of HKD $5 million, the bank opened its door in 1865. The Association of Stockbrokers would also be established in 1891.

Resources

In December 1890 the Hongkong Electric company went into production with help from Catchick Paul Chater. It was the first step in allowing the transition of gas lamps to light bulbs. Other companies like Jardine Matheson would launch the "Hong Kong Land Investment and Agency company Ltd" accumulating a wealth as large as the entire government"s total revenue.

Politics

One observer summed up the decades as "politics, propaganda, panic, rumor, riot, revolution and refugees". The role of Hong Kong as a political safe haven for Chinese political refugees further cemented its status, and few serious attempts to revert its ownership were launched in the early 1900s. Both Chinese Communist and Nationalist agitators found refuge in the territory, when they did not actively participate in the turmoil in China. However, the dockworkers strikes in the 1920s and 1930s were widely attributed to the Communists by the authorities, and caused a backlash against them. A strike in 1920 was ended with a wage increase of HKD 32 cents.


Flag of colonial Hong Kong, a Blue Ensign with the colony"s coat of arms.

When modern China began after the falling of the last dynasty, one of the first political statements made in Hong Kong was the immediate change from long queue hairstyles to short haircuts. In 1938 Canton fell to the hands of the Japanese, Hong Kong was considered a strategic military outpost for all trades in the far east, though Winston Churchill assured that Hong Kong was an "impregnable fortress". It was taken as a reality check response since the British Army actually stretched too thin to battle on two fronts.