CHINESE IMPERIAL MARITIME CUSTOMS
Jul 14, 2007 23:49:00 GMT -5
Post by helen on Jul 14, 2007 23:49:00 GMT -5
members.pcug.org.au/~phodge/customs.htm
Peter Hodge's History Page
CHINESE IMPERIAL MARITIME CUSTOMS
I am researching the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service of which my great-grandfather William Francis STEVENSON was an employee. Before 1842 the only port of China open to foreign trade was Canton. The Nanking treaty of 1842, ending the Opium War, resulted in the opening of four additional ports to foreign trade. Shanghai quickly outstripped Canton as the principal centre of foreign trade. In 1853 during the Taiping Rebellion, Shanghai was taken by a rebel organization called the Hsiao-tao hui. The Taotai (Collector of Customs) fled and there was a breakdown in the collection of duty for the Peking government. Foreign powers were bound by treaty to pay duties on imported goods. In 1854 the Shanghai customs house reopened with three foreign employees engaged to assist the Chinese government in the collection of duties. This was the beginning of a unique arrangement where foreigners were appointed in an official capacity by the Chinese government. Government revenue collected from foreign traders increased dramatically, a major source of income for the Ch'ing Dynasty.
In 1863 an Irishman, Robert HART, was appointed Inspector General of the Customs Bureau in Peking. HART expanded the Customs Bureau into a Department of the Chinese Government, which by 1895 employed 3,500 Chinese and 700 Westerners from as many as twenty-three countries. It became a nineteenth-century international civil service, demonstrating that men of all nationalities, of diverse cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds can work together co-operatively and harmoniously with great success.
The Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs under HART not only collected tariffs but also charted the Chinese coast, managed government port facilities, supervised the discharging of cargo in coastal and inland waterways and established a postal service. At that time the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs provided about half the revenue of the Ch'ing Dynasty. It's efforts can be regarded as the constructive side of the unequal treaty system. It helped to mitigate the disasters of imperialism. The Boxer uprising of 1900 that attempted to drive foreigners from China was another facet of the colourful history of this period.
My great-grandfather, William Francis STEVENSON, born in Portsea, Hampshire in 1843, served in the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs from 1865 to 1903. He received the Chinese Order of the Double Dragon in 1882 while serving as Secretary of the Imperial Naval Yard at Taku. William Francis STEVENSON is buried in Shanghai where he died in 1904. At the time of his death he was making a return visit to China after retiring to Sydney in 1903. My grandfather Francis Langford Richard STEVENSON was born in Tientsin on 26 October 1883.
Following the collapse of the Manchu (Ch'ing) Dynasty in 1911, succeeding regimes in China, Republican and Nationalist, continued to appoint foreign staff to the Customs Service. The last foreign Inspector-General of Customs, Lester Knox LITTLE, an American, accompanied the Nationalist government to Taiwan following the Communist victory in 1949.
Many of the records of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs are copied on microfilm in the Australian National Library in Canberra. The journals of Sir Robert HART comprising seventy-seven volumes, are kept in the Special Collections department, Main Library, Queen's University, Belfast.
Archives of the Maritime Customs, left behind by the Nationalist government in 1949, are held by the Second Historical Archives, 309 Zhongshan dong lu, Nanjing 210016, People's Republic of China. The collection includes 53,672 volumes of Maritime Customs Administration records. These date from 1861 and are largely in English. A collaborative project has recently been commenced to catalogue these records. For information about the project being conducted by the Second Historical Archives, Nanjing, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, Bristol University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London (SOAS) please click here.
Queen's University, Belfast, the alma mater of Sir Robert HART, commemorated the 150th anniversary of his graduation, with an exhibition and workshop on HART held in September 2003. An international conference on Sir Robert HART was held at Queen's during the exhibition.
Queen's University holds an extensive collection of HART papers, bequeathed by Sir Robert's great-grandson in 1970. The Queen's University special collection of his personal and official papers includes 77 volumes of journals, 23 notebooks, about 7100 letters and memos, about 700 black and white photographs, 20 photograph albums and about 100 periodicals, pamphlets, books and maps.
Queen's staff are keen to carry out further research on HART, including transcriptions of his unpublished diaries and correspondence.
Photographs of 19th Century Shanghai and Tientsin
I have a collection of photographs dating from the 1870s, belonging to William Francis Stevenson, which can be seen HERE
Peter Hodge's History Page
CHINESE IMPERIAL MARITIME CUSTOMS
I am researching the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service of which my great-grandfather William Francis STEVENSON was an employee. Before 1842 the only port of China open to foreign trade was Canton. The Nanking treaty of 1842, ending the Opium War, resulted in the opening of four additional ports to foreign trade. Shanghai quickly outstripped Canton as the principal centre of foreign trade. In 1853 during the Taiping Rebellion, Shanghai was taken by a rebel organization called the Hsiao-tao hui. The Taotai (Collector of Customs) fled and there was a breakdown in the collection of duty for the Peking government. Foreign powers were bound by treaty to pay duties on imported goods. In 1854 the Shanghai customs house reopened with three foreign employees engaged to assist the Chinese government in the collection of duties. This was the beginning of a unique arrangement where foreigners were appointed in an official capacity by the Chinese government. Government revenue collected from foreign traders increased dramatically, a major source of income for the Ch'ing Dynasty.
In 1863 an Irishman, Robert HART, was appointed Inspector General of the Customs Bureau in Peking. HART expanded the Customs Bureau into a Department of the Chinese Government, which by 1895 employed 3,500 Chinese and 700 Westerners from as many as twenty-three countries. It became a nineteenth-century international civil service, demonstrating that men of all nationalities, of diverse cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds can work together co-operatively and harmoniously with great success.
The Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs under HART not only collected tariffs but also charted the Chinese coast, managed government port facilities, supervised the discharging of cargo in coastal and inland waterways and established a postal service. At that time the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs provided about half the revenue of the Ch'ing Dynasty. It's efforts can be regarded as the constructive side of the unequal treaty system. It helped to mitigate the disasters of imperialism. The Boxer uprising of 1900 that attempted to drive foreigners from China was another facet of the colourful history of this period.
My great-grandfather, William Francis STEVENSON, born in Portsea, Hampshire in 1843, served in the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs from 1865 to 1903. He received the Chinese Order of the Double Dragon in 1882 while serving as Secretary of the Imperial Naval Yard at Taku. William Francis STEVENSON is buried in Shanghai where he died in 1904. At the time of his death he was making a return visit to China after retiring to Sydney in 1903. My grandfather Francis Langford Richard STEVENSON was born in Tientsin on 26 October 1883.
Following the collapse of the Manchu (Ch'ing) Dynasty in 1911, succeeding regimes in China, Republican and Nationalist, continued to appoint foreign staff to the Customs Service. The last foreign Inspector-General of Customs, Lester Knox LITTLE, an American, accompanied the Nationalist government to Taiwan following the Communist victory in 1949.
Many of the records of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs are copied on microfilm in the Australian National Library in Canberra. The journals of Sir Robert HART comprising seventy-seven volumes, are kept in the Special Collections department, Main Library, Queen's University, Belfast.
Archives of the Maritime Customs, left behind by the Nationalist government in 1949, are held by the Second Historical Archives, 309 Zhongshan dong lu, Nanjing 210016, People's Republic of China. The collection includes 53,672 volumes of Maritime Customs Administration records. These date from 1861 and are largely in English. A collaborative project has recently been commenced to catalogue these records. For information about the project being conducted by the Second Historical Archives, Nanjing, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, Bristol University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London (SOAS) please click here.
Queen's University, Belfast, the alma mater of Sir Robert HART, commemorated the 150th anniversary of his graduation, with an exhibition and workshop on HART held in September 2003. An international conference on Sir Robert HART was held at Queen's during the exhibition.
Queen's University holds an extensive collection of HART papers, bequeathed by Sir Robert's great-grandson in 1970. The Queen's University special collection of his personal and official papers includes 77 volumes of journals, 23 notebooks, about 7100 letters and memos, about 700 black and white photographs, 20 photograph albums and about 100 periodicals, pamphlets, books and maps.
Queen's staff are keen to carry out further research on HART, including transcriptions of his unpublished diaries and correspondence.
Photographs of 19th Century Shanghai and Tientsin
I have a collection of photographs dating from the 1870s, belonging to William Francis Stevenson, which can be seen HERE