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The First Museum in China: The British Museum of Macao (1829–1834) and its Contribution to Nineteenth-Century British Natural Science*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2012

ROGÉRIO MIGUEL PUGA
ROGÉRIO MIGUEL PUGA*
Affiliation:
FCSH-New University, Portugal
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Abstract

This article establishes that the first museum in China was not the Zhendan Museum in Shanghai, founded by the French Jesuit Pierre Marie Heude (1836–1902) in 1868, but the “British Museum in China”, founded in 1829 by three supercargoes of the English East India Company, in Macao, a Portuguese enclave in the Pearl River Delta since c.1577. My research, based on Portuguese, British and American sources, allows us to better understand the context in which the founders of the museum interacted and lived in Macao, how their research and field-work was important for academic British institutions such as the British Museum in London and how the British Museum of Macao was founded and became the first (western-styled) museum in China.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 22 , Issue 3-4 , October 2012 , pp. 575 - 586
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2012

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Footnotes

*

This article represents an extended version of a section of a paper I presented at the seminar Commerce, Migration and Culture: New Perspectives, at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (University of London), on 21 July 2010.

References

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8 See, for example: H. Du Cros et al., “The Pearl River Delta”, p. 33; John Fitzgerald, Awakening China, pp. 50–52 and Ren Hai, s. v. “Museums”, pp. 568–569.

9 Rogério Miguel Puga, A Presença Inglesa, pp. 83–97.

10 The Chinese Repository, vol. 4, n. 2, June, 183, pp. 96–98.

11 The Canton Miscellany, n. 5, 1831, p. 381.

12 “Natural Curiosity”, Caledonian Mercury, n. 12312, 21-08-1800, p. 3 and Trewman's Exeter Flying Post, n. 1923, 21-08-1800, p. 3.

13 On British ecological and epistemological imperialism, see Fan, Fa-Ti, “Victorian Naturalists in China: Science and Informal Empire”, British Journal of the History of Science 36, n.1, March, 2003, pp. 1–26 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Fan, Fa-Ti, British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter (Cambridge, MA, 2004)Google Scholar; Drayton, Richard, Nature's Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the “Improvement” of the World (New Haven, 2000)Google Scholar and Schiebinger, Linda, Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World (Cambridge, MA, 2004)Google Scholar.

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15 Catholic Church of our Lady of Grace built by the Portuguese in 1591 and rebuilt in the seventeenth century.

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17 Richardson, John, “Report on the Ichthyology of the Seas of China and Japan” in The Report of the Fifteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, vol. 15 (London, 1846), p. 205 Google Scholar (pages 205–228 list several specimens sent by British men from Macao and Canton). Williams, Samuel Wells, The Middle Kingdom, vol. 1 (London, 1848), p. 268 Google Scholar, also advises: “The ichthyology of China is one of the richest in the world, though it may be so, however, more from the greater proportion of food furnished by the waters than from any real superabundance of the finny tribes. . .Several large collections of preserved fishes have been made in Canton, and Mr. Reeves has deposited one of the richest in the British Museum, together with a series of drawings made by native artists from living specimens.”

18 Murray, Hugh et al., An Historical and Descriptive Account of China, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1836), pp. 286–289 Google Scholar.

19 In 1829 Millett was mentioned as a “droll chap” by Harriet Low in her personal diary [ Low, Harriett, Lights and Shadows of a Macao Life: The Journal of Harriett Low, Travelling Spinster (Woodinville, 2002), p. 65]Google Scholar. In 1832 she described “old Millett” as a “stiff old Bachelor who is conceited in the extreme and fancies he must be right” (p. 304).

20 Dr. Robert Morrison was the first Protestant missionary to arrive in China (1807); he translated the Bible into Chinese and wrote the famous Chinese-English Dictionary.

21 Spencer, Roger, Horticultural Flora of South Eastern Australia, vol. 3 (Sydney, 2002), p. 213 Google Scholar.

22 Sir Hooker, William Jackson and Arnott, G. A. Walker, The Botany of Captain Beechy's Voyage; Comprising an Account of the Plants Collected by Messrs Lay and Collie, and other Officers of the Expedition (London, 1841), pp. 166–172 Google Scholar. The expedition visited Macao in April 1827.

23 See Richard B. Hinds (ed.), The Zoology of the Voyage of H. M. S. Sulphur, p. 120, Sir William Jackson Hooker and G. A. Walker Arnott, The Botany of Captain Beechy's Voyage, pp. 166–172.

24 See P. J. P. Whitehead, “The Reeves Collection of Chinese Fish Drawings”, Bulletin of the British Museum, Natural History Series, n. 3, 1969, pp. 191–233.

25 Vachell, Ivor and Vachell, Arthur Cadogan, A Short Account, or History, of the Family of Vachell (Cardiff, 1900), p. 84 Google Scholar.

26 The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society: Zoology, vol. 1 (1857), pp. xliii–xlv.

27 Ibid .

28 The Asiatic Journal, vol. 28, n. 165, September 1829, p. 370.

29 India Office Records (IOR, British Library, London): G/12/103, fls. 70–71, 74, 80–81, 84–85.

30 In 1783 James Henry Cox and John Reid, chief of the “Imperial Company”, were the only British residents in Canton, and the EIC had no power over them (IOR, G/12/77, fl. 81). In 1786 only two independent traders, John Henry Cox and John M. Intyre, lived in Macao (IOR, R/10/15, fl. 14). After helping the supercargoes on a voluntary basis, Intyre was nominated agent of the EIC in that city in 1785, where he assisted the crews of arriving ships and the Canton factory (IOR, G/12/79, part 2, fls. 6–7, G/12/89, fl. 9, G/12/98, fl. 2).

31 IOR, R/10/15, fl. 14, G/12/101, fls. 9–10, G/12/103, fl. 10.

32 Arquivos de Macau, 3rd series, vol. 17, n. 3, March 1972, pp. 133–135.

33 Cheong, Wen Eang, Mandarins and Merchants: Jardine Matheson & Co., A China Agency of the Early Nineteenth Century (London, 1978)Google Scholar.

34 Thomas Beale arrived in Macao in 1791. He traded in the enclave and smuggled opium until, poverty-stricken, he committed suicide (see Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (AHU), Portuguese Overseas Historical Archive, Lisbon): Macau, box 37, doc. 14; box 42, docs. 16, 26; box 45, docs. 21, 49;box 46, doc. 31 and box 63, doc. 2 and Puga, Rogério Miguel, A World of Euphemism: Representações de Macau na Obra de Austin Coates: City of Broken Promises enquanto Romance Histórico e Bildungsroman Feminino (Lisboa, 2009), pp. 183–185 Google Scholar.

35 Chinese divinity; Chinese Pidgin English term (corrupted form of the Portuguese word “Deus”).

36 The Asiatic Journal, vol. 28, n. 165, September 1829, p. 370.

37 The hong merchants did business with the westerners individually, but the group was responsible for all matters relating to the stay and safety of the foreign crews in China, and for that reason they were called “security merchants”.

38 The Asiatic Journal, vol. 28, Ibid.

39 The first British Embassy to China in 1793 allowed for the education of the young George Thomas Staunton (1781–1859), regarded as the first British sinologist. Acting on his father's wishes and with the assistance of Chinese teachers, he began to learn Mandarin in London in 1792. He took part in above mentioned diplomatic expedition, exemplifying the British desire to set up a permanent trading post in China, later becoming a sinologist, a supercargo and EIC administrator in Canton-Macao. In 1793, aged twelve, George Thomas accompanied his father, Sir George Leonard Staunton (1737–1801), deputy secretary and minister plenipotentiary in Lord Macartney's Embassy, as a page to the ambassador. The adolescent studied Chinese with Pol Ko and Lee, two Chinese missionaries from the Propaganda Fide [Roman Catholic College for the Propagation of the Faith]. Later, in April 1798, Staunton was appointed clerk of the British factory in Canton, promoted in 1804 to EIC supercargo and the following year took part in introducing vaccination in China by translating the Treatise of the Company's surgeon, Alexander Pearson. In 1808 Staunton was appointed factory interpreter, and in 1816 he became president of the Select Committee, living in Macao between trading seasons. That year, together with William, Earl Amherst (1773–1857) and Sir Henry Ellis (1777–1855), he was appointed King's Commissioner in the second British Embassy to Beijing (1816–1817). His mission was to try (although in vain) to defend the rights of British traders in Canton and Macao. Staunton wrote “Considerations upon the China Trade” (1813, see IOR, G/12/20, fls. 444–488). On the second Embassy, see: IOR, G/12/196, G/12/197, G/12/198; Jin Guo Ping and Wu Zhiliang (eds), Correspondência Oficial Trocada Entre as Autoridades de Cantão e os Procuradores do Senado: Fundo das Chapas Sínicas em Português (1749–1847), vol. 5 (Macao, 2000), docs. 158–160,161, 165–166; and Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (AHU) Portuguese Overseas Archive, Lisbon, Macau, box 40, docs. 20, 38; box 41, doc. 13; box 42, docs. 7; box 43, doc. 27.

40 Morrison, E. (ed.), Memoirs of the Life and Labours of Robert Morrison, vol. 2 (London, 1839), p. 424 Google Scholar.

41 Robert Morrison, Memoirs, p. 427.

42 H. Low, Lights and Shadows of a Macao Life, pp. 157, 228.

43 The Asiatic Journal, vol. 28, p. 241.

44 Ibid., p. 286. See also p. 92.

45 In 1827 the assistant surgeon of the EIC Thomas Richardson College (1796–1879) founded the first Ophthalmic Hospital for poor Chinese in Macao.

46 Roberts, E., Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat (New York, 1837), p. 167 Google Scholar.

47 Stewart, Charles Samuel, A Visit to the South Seas, vol. 2 (New York, 1833), p. 259 Google Scholar.

48 Bennett, George, Wanderings in New South Wales. . .Being the Journal of a Naturalist during 1832, 1833, and 1834, vol. 2 (London, 1834), pp. 35–36 Google Scholar.

49 Chinese Repository, n. 8, December 1835, p. 354.

50 See Lawson, Philip, The East India Company: A History (London, 1987), pp. 137–143 Google Scholar.

51 Marshall, P. J., “Britain and China in the Late Eighteenth Century”, in Bickers, Robert A. (ed.) Ritual & Diplomacy: The Macartney Mission to China (1792–1794): Papers Presented at the 1992 Conference of the British Association for Chinese Studies Marking the Bicentenary of the Macartney Mission to China, (London, 1993), pp. 11–29 Google Scholar.

52 The Quarterly Journal of Education, vol. 6, n. 11, July–October 1833), p. 187.

53 The London Quarterly Review, n. 105, February 1835, p. 9

54 Ljungstedt, A., An Historical Sketch of the Portuguese Settlements in China (Boston, 1836), p. 38 Google Scholar.

55 See also The Calcutta Monthly Journal and General Register of Occurrences throughout the British Dominions in the East Forming an Epitome of the Indian Press for the Year 1836 (1837), p. 218: “The Secretary then brought to the notice of the meeting the various papers and donations to the museum presented to the Society during the past month. Amongst the latter there was a large collection of stuffed birds and small animals from Mr. Robert Inglis of Canton. They had formed part of the Macao museum which had recently been broken up, and constituted a very important addition to the stores of the Asiatic Society.”

56 Journal of the Asiatic Society, vol. 5, n. 52, April 1836, p. 249.

57 Edward Blyth, Catalogue of the Birds in the Museum Asiatic Society, Calcutta, Asiatic Society (1849), pp. 45, 55. See also pages xix, xxi, 75, 111, 155 and 215.

58 See the example of the Peabody Essex Museum, in Salem (USA).

59 The Macau English Tavern/Hotel was strategically located in the Praia Grande during the 1830s and was owned by two East India Company supercargoes – Richard Markwick (1791–1836) and Edward Lane (d. 1831) – who established a firm called Markwick and Lane. It was also called the “Beach Hotel” in anglophone sources, and the “English Tavern” in both anglophone and Portuguese documents [ Ball, B. L., Rambles in Eastern Asia, Including China and Manilla, During Several Years’ Residence (Boston, 1856), pp. 409–410 Google Scholar; H. Low, Lights and Shadows of a Macao Life, pp. 104, 568; and Jin Guo Ping and Wu Zhiliang (eds.), Correspondência Oficial, vol. 8, pp. 30, 37].

60 In 1835, Charles Gutzlaff's (1803–1851) second wife, Mary Wanstall Gutzlaff (d. 1849), founded a school for Chinese poor and blind children in Macao.

61 The Canton Register (1827–1844); The Canton Miscellany (1831–1832); The (Chinese) Courier and Canton Gazette (1831–1833); The Chinese Repository (1832–1852); The Evangelist and Miscellania Sinica (1833); The Canton Press (1835–1844); The Macao Review (1929–1930); The Macau Herald (1943); The Macau Tribune (1943–1945) and The Clarion (1943–1945).

62 Some of the anglophone photographers who did business there were: Eliphalet M. Brown Jr. (1816–1886), Milton M. Miller (1830–1899), Charles Leander Weed (1824–1903), John Thomson (1837–1921), Cesar von Düben (1819–1888), William Pryor Floyd (fl. 1860s–1870s) and George Ernest Morrison (1862–1920).