The Chinese Collections at Queen's
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The Chinese collections at Queen's | 女王大学的中国收藏 Speaker: Dr Aglaia De Angeli 司马兰 (Lecturer, HAPP/History, QUB) This presentation is part of the Chinese Culture Forum 2020 programme at Queen's University Belfast, organised by the Language Centre at Queen's.
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The Chinese Collections at Queen's
- 1. THE CHINESE COLLECTIONS AT QUB Dr Aglaia De Angeli School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics
- 2. Special Collections at the McClay Library
- 3. QUB alumni in Qing and Republican China ■ Sir Robert Hart 赫德(1835-1911), Inspector General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs (1859-1908) ■ Alphonse Théophile Piry 帛黎( 1851-1918), Commissioner of Customs and first Postmaster General of the Imperial Postal Service, China, (1911-1915) ■ Stanley Fowler Wright 魏尔特 (1873-1953), Commissioner of Customs and Personal Secretary to the Inspector General, the Chinese Maritime Customs.
- 4. Sir Robert Hart Collection
- 5. Sir Robert Hart: collection, project and the Centre for Public History https://blogs.qub.ac.uk/sirroberthart/treaty-ports-map/
- 6. Accessibility of the material
- 7. Sir Robert Hart Silver Collection at QUB
- 8. Hart and photography: a big passion
- 9. ALPHONSE THÉOPHILE PIRY帛黎 Commissioner of Customs and first Postmaster General of the Imperial Postal Service
- 10. From Nates to China Born in Nantes in 1851, from a very modest family of workers. After his graduation started to work in 1868 in France and moved to China in 1870. In 1877 enrolled in the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs. 1900 nominated Commissioner of Customs 1911 first Postmaster General of the Imperial Postal Service French and Russian diplomats picnic at the Yuanmingyuan ruins around 1911. Their Chinese servants, still wearing the queues the Manchus required of their male Chinese subjects, are visible off to the side. [14] Photograph by Théophile Piry. Collection, Charles Blackburn, Neuilly, France.
- 11. STANLEY FOWLER WRIGHT魏尔特 The Historian of the Chinese Maritime Customs
- 12. Stanley Fowley Right’s publications ■ Kiangsi native trade and its taxation. (1920) ■ The Collection and disposal of the maritime and native customs revenue since the revolution of 1911. With an account of the loan services administered by the Inspector General of Customs. (1927- reprint 1966) ■ China’s customs revenue since the revolution of 1911. (1935) ■ Code of customs regulations and procedure. (1935) ■ Documents illustrative of the origin, development and activities of the Chinese Customs Service. (3 vols. 1937- 1940) ■ China’s struggle for Tariff autonomy, 1843-1928. (1938) ■ The origin and development of the Chinese Customs Service, 1843-1911. An historical outline. (1939) ■ Hart and the Chinese Customs. (1950)
- 14. Stanley F. Wright’s legacy
Editor's Notes
- The Special Collections service at Queen's provides access to the Library's rare and early printed book, map, and manuscripts collections, as well as to more modern material. Papers relating to politics, music and language in eighteenth century Ireland contrast with politics, culture and business in nineteenth and early twentieth century China. Special Collections is the repository of Sir Robert Hart, Alphonse Thèophile Piry and Stanley Fowler Wright collections, these three men had their long and successful career in China in a period spanning from the second half of the 19th c. to the Republican era.
- Sir Robert Hart, an Irishman and Queen’s graduate, was a key figure in 19th century China. In China he was heavily involved in economics, politics, diplomacy, light-houses, railways, and the postal service. He wielded significant influence and made a substantial contribution to China’s early modernisation and its foreign relations with the West. Hart was unique because the position he held for over 40 years, that of Inspector General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, facilitated regular access to officials in the Grand Council and Zongli Yamen, thus influencing internal reform and external relationships. He was employed by the Chinese authorities and not the Western powers during a pivotal period in China’s history. Hart’s successful career in China is often attributed to his sympathetic understanding of Chinese tradition and its influence on society and culture. Sometimes this understanding is attributed to his long term intimate relationship with Ayaou, a Chinese girl, during his early years in China, 1857-1865. Hart’s life is marked by strong personal commitment to achievement – whether at school, university or as IG. He is of immense interest to scholars of Western history and also those of Chinese history due to the international nature of the Customs Service in his time. The bulk of Hart’s surviving personal papers however are held in the Special Collections at Queen’s University Belfast. These materials were donated to the University following the death of the last Sir Robert Hart in 1970. These include thousands of letters, articles, approximately 2,500 photographs, ephemera and 77 volumes of his personal diaries. Hart started to keep a diary on the first day of his arrival in China in 1854, the diaries run continuously until the day he retired in April 1908 – over 50 years of detailed comment on every aspect of his life – personal and professional.
- The SRH collection was the starting point for any project related to Chinese history at QUB. Now we have a solely dedicated project with its webpage, and we work closely with the Centre for Public History. As we are well aware that the figure of SRH is well known in China but not as much in the Western world.
- At the Sir Robert Hart project ( www.sirroberthart.org) we make it possible for any researcher and the public to gain an insight about the work and activities led by the project.
- The Sir Robert Hart Silver Collection is on display at the Naughton Gallery in the Lanyon Building of Queen’s University Belfast.
- The Sir Robert Hart collection at Queen’s includes several thousand photographs, mostly of China around 1900, along with portraits of Hart and his friends, acquaintances and colleagues.
- Collection of private papers of Théophile Piry (fl. 1880-1915), Commissioner of Customs and first Postmaster General of the Imperial Postal Service, China, 1911-1915. This collection contains a range of material bearing on Piry’s later career in the Chinese administration including drafts, notes, copies of correspondence, memoranda, reports etc relating to customs affairs in Lappa and Macao and, later, the establishment of the modern postal service in China from 1911 until Piry’s retirement in 1915. Of particular interest are the various papers concerning the development of the Imperial Postal Service, most notably in relation to arrangements with foreign counties (the so-called ‘Guest Post’ system) and the formalisation of relations with these countries both individually and through membership of the Universal Postal Union. Included can be found copies of postal agreements between China and France (1900), Germany (1905), Russia (1909) and Japan (1910), correspondence relating to China’s entry to the Universal Postal Union, 1913-1915 and two historical notes and analyses concerning the development of the postal service (U-Tchau) in China.
- At QUB we have parts of his photographic collections, as the other part is stored at the Albert Kahn Museum in Paris.
- Books and pamphlets compiled by Dr. Stanley Fowler Wright (1873-1953), Commissioner of Customs and Personal Secretary to the Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs, Sir Robert Hart. The collection comprises a range of titles in Chinese, the focus of the English language titles is China and the Chinese Maritime Customs. Many official printed papers and reports are included as are copies of annotated Customs publication.
- Wright Collection is so vast and important that it is in company with the private collection of the Scottish economist Adam Smith, early printed books pre-1700, and many more. Topics of the pamphlets include China, Sir Robert Hart, diplomatic relations and British colonial interests. Currently 100 pamphlets have been added to this online collection.
- Wright donated his personal library and papers to QUB and sponsored the stain glasses in the Lanyon Building. The arms were officially granted on March 24, 1910. The Queen’s University of Ireland founded in 1845 arms consisted of an imperial crown laid over St Patrick’s Cross, between an open book and an Irish harp. The college for the province of Ulster, Queen’s College, Belfast, used the royal arms quartered with the provincial arms (and an open book laid over the quarters). This unwieldy combination was dispensed with when the college was raised to the status of a university in 1908. Its new arms were modelled on those of the old, national university, but incorporated two new elements to reflect its civic and regional significance: the seahorse of Belfast, and the red hand of Ulster. These arms are used to this day.