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New for 2012

New for 2012

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Time Period

China: Trade, Politics and Culture 1793-1980

Sources from the School of Oriental and African Studies and the British Library, London

This project answers the need for clear, intelligible and informative English-language sources relating to China and the West, 1793-1980, which can be used in the classroom or in course packs.

It is also ideal for independent projects on almost any aspect of Chinese history during the two centuries of monumental social and political upheaval that ultimately recreated China into a modern power. It comprises:

A large body of maps, colour paintings, photographs and drawings depicting people, places, customs and events that will enliven any study of China.

Substantial papers of key individuals involved in the Chinese Maritime Customs service from ECM and CAV Bowra to Robert Hart and Frederick Maze.

Records of major diplomatic missions to China ranging from the late 18th and early 19th century missions of Macartney and Amherst to those of Nixon and Heath in the 20th century.

Papers of missionaries active in all regions of China from Canton and Macao to Shanghai and Peking.

Extensive, fully searchable run of the Chinese Recorder, 1867-1941

Recently opened files from the National Archives at Kew relating to the thawing of relations with China in the 1970s.

China: Trade, Politics and Culture 1793-1980

Sources from the School of Oriental and African Studies and the British Library, London

Consultant Editors:

Professor Robert Bickers, Department of History and Deputy Head (Research), Bristol University

Professor Richard Horowitz, Department of History, California State University, Northridge

Dr Wong Man Kong , Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University

Source Libraries:

The School of Oriental and African Studies, London

The British Library, London

with additional material from Cambridge University Library, the CMS Archive, Duke University, The National Archives at Kew and the National Library of New Zealand and Yale Divinity Library.

Nature of the Material:

Unique manuscript material relating to the activities and observations of British and American diplomats, missionaries, business people and tourists in China from 1793 to 1980, together with rare periodicals, colour paintings, maps, photographs and drawings.

All of the printed materials (including the typescript records of Chinese Maritime Customs officials) have been double-keyed and are full-text searchable. All of the manuscript material has been indexed to provide ready accessibility for students by person, place and subject. An interactive map encourages searches by city and region.

There is no overlap with material published in ‘China and the West: The Maritime Customs Service Archive: From the Second Historical Archives, Nanjing, China’. There is less than 3% overlap with our microfilm series 'China Through Western Eyes'.

Scope of the Collection:

This project provides a wide variety of original source material detailing China’s interaction with the West from Macartney’s first Embassy to China in 1793, through to the Nixon/Heath visits to China in 1972-74.

It provides multiple perspectives – from politicians, diplomats, missionaries, business people and tourists, and documents many of the key events that happened in this period, including:

the 1793 Macartney Embassy
the 1816 Amherst Embassy
the founding of Singapore
the Opium Wars
the opening of Hong Kong
the Taiping Rebellion
Missions in China, 1869-1970
the Japanese seizure of Taiwan
the 'opening of Korea'
the Sino-French and territorial struggles with Germany, Britain, America and Japan
the Boxer War
the Russo-Japanese war
the 1911 Revolution
the Republican and Nationalist governments of Sun Yatsen and Jiang
the Warlord period
the Sino-Japanese war
the Rape of Nanjing
the Communist Revolution led by Mao
the Korean War
the Great Leap Forward
the 1972 Nixon visit to China
Rolls-Royce's negotiations regarding the delivery of jet engines to China, 1973-1975
the Douglas-Home and Heath visits to China, 1973-74

There are key documents relating to the Chinese Maritime Customs service, from Robert Hart to Frederick Maze; significant sources describing the lives of missionaries in China; papers of key individuals such as Thomas Stamford Raffles, Lord Aberdeen and Rewi Alley.

We also include an extensive, fully searchable run of the Chinese Recorder, 1867-1941, and Light and Life, 1935-1970.

The material is ideal for project work as there are substantial clusters of original documents for almost all of the issues covered.

In addition, this project offers over 400 colour paintings, maps and drawings by English and Chinese artists, as well as countless photographs, sketches and ephemeral items, depicting Chinese people, places, customs and events, which provide a striking visual accompaniment to the documentary images.

There are also c400 colour images from the British Library archives (from various sources) which support and illustrate the manuscripts. Many of them are drawings
and sketches by William Alexander from the Macartney embassy, but there are also photographs, portraits, and paintings of Chinese life, many by Chinese artists.

From the School of Oriental and African Studies, London (SOAS):

MS 380334

John Baker Carpenter, miscellaneous papers.

MS 380396

Compendium of Instructions to HM Consular Officials in China. 2 vols

MS 380476

Letters of James and Hannah Legge, 1866-1897 and Misc papers

MS 380645

William Lockhart, transcripts of Lockhart’s correspondence and biography

PP MS 11

Alan Baker/William Evans, correspondence c1883-1913

PP MS 49

Papers of the Scott Family, correspondence 1909-1940, plus notebooks, diaries and misc papers

PP MS 67

Sir Robert Hart, private letters 1868-1906, plus official letter and misc papers

MS 211081

Sir Robert Hart letterbook

MS 211351

Sir Robert Hart correspondence

PP MS 2

Sir Frederick Maze, correspondence, letters, reports and despatches c1882-1943

PP MS 69

Bowra Papers, correspondence, diaries, ephemera, photographs, biographies, scrapbooks

SOAS Printed Material:

The Chinese Recorder 1869-1937 (1867, 1938-41 from Yale)

cc327.09034/654609

Rodney Gilbert, The Unequal Treaties: China and the Foreigner (London, 1929)

cc327.51042/20634

W. E. Soothill, China and England (1928)

cc327.09034/52939

The Anti-foreign riots in China in 1891 (1892)
N. China Daily News and N. China Herald

cc 327.09034/2954

Henry Brougham Loch, A Narrative of Events in China – Earl of Elgin’s Second Embassy (3rd ed. 1900)

CWML Q.175

S. Wells Williams, A History of China (1897)

CWML N.170

Sir George Staunton, Macartney’s Embassy to China (London 1821, trans. From Chinese)

CWML s139 v.1

G. Lanning and S. Couling, The History of Shanghai (Shanghai, 1921)

cc951.002/166157

Charles William Cambell, [Handbook to] China (London, 1920)

CWML L36 2v

Alexander Michie, The Englishman in China during the Victorian Era: as illustrated in the career of Sir Rutherford Alcock (Edinburg, 1900)

cc951.035/81876

Mary Hooker, Behind the scenes in Peking, being experiences during the Siege of the Legations (London, 1910)

CWML A.18/5

Sun Yat-Sen, Three principles: English reader translated into simple English with abridgement and adaptation from the original […] with full notes and questions for class discussion by Baen Lee (Shanghai, 1927)

CWML N46 2v

Sir John Barrow, Some account of the public life, and a selection from the unpublished writings, of the Earl of Macartney (London, 1807)

CWML M3

Clarke Abel, Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China, and of a Voyage to and from that Country, in the years 1816 and 1817:containing an account of the most interesting transactions of Lord Amherst’s Embassy to the Court of Pekin and observations on the countries which it visited (London, 1818)

CWML N305

William Henry Sykes, The Taeping Rebellion in China: its origin, Dense type progress, and present condition: in a series of letters addressed to the “Aberdeen Free Press” and the “London Daily News” (London, 1863)

CC327.5101821 /4008

Hart, Sir Robert, These from the land of Sinimi (1901)

SOAS Maps and Atlases:

Atlas D87/114420

The New Atlas and Commercial Gazetteer of China, by the Far eastern Geographical Establishment, 1917

CWML Q135

China, by J. Arrowsmith, 1858

Atlas D87 3253

Atlas of the Chinese Empire; containing separate maps of the 18 provinces of China proper on the scale of 1:3,000,000 and of the 4 great dependencies on the scale of
1:7,500,000 together with an index to all the names on the maps and a list of all the protestant mission stations, by Edward Stanford for the C.I.M, 1908-1909

CWML Q80

Map of China, compiled from original surveys and sketches, by James Wyld, Geographer to the Queen, 1840.

MMSL CH308

Maps and plans accompanying China through the stereoscope, c1902.

CWML M86

Map of China: prepared for the China Inland Mission, 1898.

From the Church Missionary Society:

H/H5/E1/Ch2/1

Light and Life Magazine of the Dublin University Missions 1935-1947

H/H5/E1/Ch2/1

Light and Life Magazine of the Dublin University Missions 1949-1970

Faithful unto death. A memorial of Eleanor J Harrison and Edith Nettleton of Chungan, Fukien, China. Reprinted from The Dawn, November and December 1930 (12p)
DE GRUCHE, Kingston, Dr D Duncan Main of Hangchow, who is known in China as Dr Apricot of Heaven Below (243pp)
GAMMIE, Alexander: Duncan Main of Hangchow (159pp)
MOULE, Handley Carr Glyn: George Evans Moule, D D, missionary and bishop in China. Honorary fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (16pp)
MOULE, Handley Carr Glyn: A short memoir of George Evans Moule. By his brother. Together with a memoir and verses by the Venerable A E Moule, D.D and a letter from the Right Reverend H J Molony (39pp)
In memoriam. George Evans Moule, from the Journal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (5pp)
HEADLAND, Emily: The Right Rev. William Armstrong Russell, D.D, Missionary Bishop in North China, C.M.S. missionary from 1847-1879 (15pp)
HEADLAND, Emily: The Rev. George Smith, C.M.S. missionary from 1858-1863 (15pp)
HEADLAND, Emily: The Rev. George Smith, D.D, Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong, C.M.S. missionary from 1844-1849 (16pp)
STEWART, Robert Warren: Letters from the Rev. Robert W Stewart on the recent disturbances in Foochow (No. 42 in Reports, Letters, etc Vol II, 8pp)
WATSON, Mary E: Robert and Louisa Stewart in life and in death. With a chapter by Mr Eugene Stock (x, 242pp)
ELWIN, Arthur: A short sketch of the life of Mary Vaughan of Hangchow (80pp)

From the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand:

The Papers of Rewi Alley

MS-Papers-6533-357 – Notes on Yunnan, [c1969], 1958

MS-Papers-6533-358 – Notes on Shansi Province, 1967

MS-Papers-6533-369 – Notes on Shansi Province, c1973-1985

MS-Papers-6533-372 – Notes on Shanghai, 1934-1969

MS-Papers-6533-373 – Notes on Shanghai, 1934-1973

MS-Papers-6533-382 – Articles on Prominent Chinese Revolutionaries, c1970-1987

MS-Papers-6533-383 – Articles on Americans in China, c1970-1987

MS-Papers-6533-384 – Articles on Dr B K Basu and Hand Mueller, c1986

MS-Papers-6533-415 – Articles on the Cultural Revolution, c1967-1969

MS-Papers-6533-416 – Articles on Industrial Development in China, 1967-1969

From the National Archives, London:

FCO 21/479

Reforms [education] 1968 Jan 01-1969 Dec 31

FCO 21/480

Institutions 1968 Jan 01-1969 Dec 31

FCO 21/643

Annual review of China, 1969 1970 Jan 01-1970 Dec 31

FCO 21/680

State of education and educational institutes in China. 1970 Jan 01-1970 Dec 31

FCO 21/802

China: annual review for 1970 1971 Jan 01 - 1971 Dec 31

FCO 21/841

Economic situation in China 1971 Jan 01 - 1971 Dec 31

FCO 21/855

Visit of Mr Malcolm MacDonald to China Jan 01 - 1971 Dec 31

FCO 21/860

Taiwan: annual review for 1970 1971 Jan 01 - 1971 Dec 31

FCO 21/968

China: annual review for 1971 1972 Jan 01-1972 Dec 31

FCO 21/871

International future of Hong Kong 1971 Jan 01 - 1971 Dec 31

FCO 21/982

Visit of President of United States, Richard Nixon, to China February 1972 1972 Jan 01-1972 Dec 31

FCO 21/983

Visit of President of United States, Richard Nixon, to China 1972 Jan 01-1972 Dec 31

FCO 21/993

Visit of Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Sir Alec Douglas-Home 1972 Jan 01-1972 Dec 31

FCO 21/994

Visit of Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Sir Alec Douglas-Home 1972 Jan 01-1972 Dec 31

FCO 21/995

Visit of Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, to China 1972 Jan 01-1973 Dec 31

FCO 21/996

Visit of Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, to China 1972 Jan 01-1972 Dec 31

FCO 21/1087

China: annual review for 1972 1973 Jan 01 - 1973 Dec 31

FCO 21/1115

Visit of Peter Walker, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, and Michael Heseltine, Minister for Aerospace and Shipping 1973 Jan 01 - 1973 Dec 31

FCO 21/1124

Policy on export of aircraft and spares from the UK to China 1973 Jan 01 - 1973 Dec 31

FCO 21/1126

Policy on export of aircraft and spares to China from the UK 1973 Jan 01 - 1973 Dec 31

FCO 21/1226

China: annual review for 1973 1974 Jan 01 - 1974 Dec 31

FCO 21/1239

Visit of Edward Heath MP, leader of Conservative Party, to China, 21 May - 2 June 1974 1974 Jan 01 - 1974 Dec 31

FCO 21/1240

Visit of Edward Heath MP, leader of Conservative Party, to China, 21 May - 2 June 1974 1974 Jan 01 - 1974 Dec 31

FCO 21/1249

Export of helicopters to China from UK 1974 Jan 01 - 1974 Dec 31

FCO 21/1371

Internal situation in China 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 31

FCO 21/1372

Internal situation in China 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 31

FCO 21/1373

Internal situation in China 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 31

FCO 21/1374

Internal situation in China 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 31

FCO 21/1376

China: annual review for 1974 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 31

FCO 21/1393

Export of Rolls Royce Spey engines to China 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 31

FCO 21/1394

Export of Rolls Royce Spey engines to China 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 31

FCO 21/1398

Export of Rolls Royce Spey engines to China 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 31

FCO 21/1399

Export of Rolls Royce Spey engines to China: draft contract 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 31

FCO 21/1400

Export of Rolls Royce Spey engines to China 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 31

FCO 21/1401

Export of Rolls Royce Spey engines to China 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 31

FCO 21/1407

Export of Hawker Siddeley Harrier jet aircraft to China 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 31

From Cambridge University Library:

Decennial reports on the trade, industries etc of the ports open to foreign commerce and on the condition and development of the treaty port provinces: 1902-1911, volume I - Northern and Yangtze ports, 1913

Decennial reports on the trade, industries etc of the ports open to foreign commerce and on the condition and development of the treaty port provinces: 1912-1921, volume I - Northern and Yangtze ports, 1924

Decennial reports on the trade, industries etc of the ports open to foreign commerce and on the condition and development of the treaty port provinces: 1912-1911, volume I - Northern and Yangtze ports (continued, 1912-1921

Decennial reports on the trade, industries etc of the ports open to foreign commerce and on the condition and development of the treaty port provinces: 1922-1931, volume I - Northern and Yangtze ports (continued). Preceeded by 'A History of the External Trade of China, 1834-81', together with a 'Synopsis of the External Trade of China, 1882-1931', 1933

Decennial reports on the trade, industries etc of the ports open to foreign commerce and on the condition and development of the treaty port provinces: 1922-1931, volume I - Northern and Yangtze ports. Preceeded by 'A History of the External Trade of China, 1834-81', together with a 'Synopsis of the External Trade of China, 1882-1931', 1933

Decennial reports on the trade, industries etc of the ports open to foreign commerce and on the condition and development of the treaty port provinces: 1922-1931, volume II - Southern and Frontier ports (continued). Preceeded by 'A History of the External Trade of China, 1834-81' together with a 'Synopsis of the External Trade of China, 1882-1931', 1933
Decennial reports on the trade, industries etc of the ports open to foreign commerce and on the condition and development of the treaty port provinces: 1902-1911, volume II - Southern and Frontier ports (continued), with appendix, 1913

Decennial reports on the trade, industries etc of the ports open to foreign commerce and on the condition and development of the treaty port provinces: 1912-1921, volume II - Southern and Frontier ports (continued), with appendix, 1924

Decennial reports on the trade, industries etc of the ports open to foreign commerce and on the condition and development of the treaty port provinces: 1902-1911, volume II - Southern and Frontier ports, with appendix, 1913

The Treaty Ports of China and Japan: A complete guide to the open ports of those countries, together with Peking, Yedo, Hongkong and Macao, Dennys, N. B., 1867