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Death of a Young Shanghailander: The Thorburn Case and the Defence of the British Treaty Ports in China in 1931

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

R. A. Bickers
R. A. Bickers
Affiliation:
Nuffield College, Oxford
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Extract

On June 4th 1931 the North China Daily News—the principal British owned English-language newspaper in Shanghai published a small report on page 12 headed ‘Alleged crime by foreigner: Shooting affair on the Nanking railway: Held by military authorities’ This went on to state a Russian had been arrested for the murder of two Chinese gendarmes on the 1st of June at 10pm. He had been challenged as a prelude to a search but had fired on them and escaped having fatally wounded two men. The following morning a ‘suspicious looking foreigner’ had been arrested in the vicinity and was still being held in custody. The source of this story was the previous day's Shenbao, the leading Shanghai Chinese newspaper which had picked up the story from the Suzhou press. The Russian's name was given as Xi si ke tuo qu luo—which might be transliterated as ‘Sea Scout’, for reasons which will become clear.

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Articles
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , May 1996 , pp. 271 - 300
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

This paper was first presented at the Institute of Historical Research's Imperial and Commonwealth History seminar in November 1993, and my thanks go to all those who patiently listened and questioned. I am also grateful to the following for their constructive and critical redings of different drafts of this paper: Heather Bell, John Darwin, Jane Duckett, Andy Thompson, Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Glenn Wilkinson. I would also like to thank the Lord Killearn for giving me permission to quote from the diaries of his father, the then Sir Miles Lampson, currently held in the library of the Middle East Centre, St Antony's College, OxfordGoogle Scholar

1 ‘E'ren qiangsha xianbing’ [Russian shoots gendarmes dead] Shenbao, 3/6/31/, p. 15.Google ScholarThe original reports from the Wuxian ribao of 3/6/31/ and 4/6/31 can be found reproduced in the Shanghai Mercury and Evening Post [SEPM], 8/8/31/ pp. 1, 6.Google Scholar

2 Fung, Edmund S. K., The Diplomacy of Imperial Retreat: Britain's South China Policy, 1924–1931 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1991), 236, 284n84;Google ScholarThorne, Christopher, The Limits of Foreign Policy: The West, the League and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1931–1933 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1972) pp. 49n, 135, 138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Donald Jordan's brief sketch of the issue is typical. No mention is made of Thorburn's actions and ‘Nanking’ is swiftly charged with having ‘stalled’ the investigation, Chinese Boycotts and Japanese Bombs: The Failure of China' ‘Revolutionary Diplomacy’ 1931–1932 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan press, 1991), p. 225.Google Scholar

3 The term is Feuerwerker's, Albert whose The Foreign Establishment in China in the Early Twentieth Century (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1976) remains the broadest survey of the structures of the foreign presence.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For Shanghai in particular see Clifford, Nicholas R., Spoilt Children of Empire: Westerners in Shanghai and the Chinese Revolution of the 1920s (Middlebury, Vermont: Middlebury College press/University of New England Press, 1991), pp. 16–78. There is as yet no adequate comprehensive survey of the British presence.Google Scholar

4 ‘Statement made by MrThorburn, M. Hay to MrBlackburn, Consul, 4th June, 1931’ enclosure No. 5 in Shanghai No. 148, 5/6/31, enclosed in Peking No. 830, 12/6/31/ F3677/3361/10, Public Record Office, Foreign Office Correspondence Series, FO371/15509[hereafter M. Hay Thorburn Statement, 4/6/31]; ‘Motor-Car “Chit” issued by the Taylor Garage bearing the date June 3, 1931, purporting to have been signed by W. J. Hay-Thorburn’, 13/7/31, National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 263, Shanghai Municipal Police Special Branch files, [hereafter SMP] D2464. The woman was a Mrs W. P. Roberts–whom Mansel described as a ‘young married lady who was very friendly with the boy’ and was ‘perfectly respectable’ … ‘as far as I know’ Mrs Roberts appears not to have been interviewed by the police, ‘M. Hay Thorburn Statement, 4/6/31’.Google Scholar

5 Givens, T. P., IC Sp. Br. to DC (Crime), 1/6/31, SMP D2464/1, 3/6/31.Google Scholar

6 Thorburn, M. Hay Statement, 4/6/31.Google Scholar

7 Blackburn, A. D. to Moss, G. S., 1/6/31, enclosure No. 1 in Shanghai No. 148, 5/6/31, enclosed in Peking No. 830, 12/6/31, F3677/3361/10, FO371/15509.Google Scholar

8 SMP D2464/1, 3/6/31, Givens, T. P., IC Sp. Br. to DC (Crime), 1/6/31; M. Hay Thorburn Statement, 4/6/31.Google Scholar

9 SMP D2464/5, 3/6/31.Google Scholar

10 Ross, D. I., SMP Special Branch, ‘Shooting of Railway Police by foreigner alleged to be Russian, but suspected to be a British subject, named William John Hay Thorburn’, Enclosure 4 in Shanghai No. 148, 5/6/31, enclosed in Peking No. 830, 12/6/31, F3677/3361/10 FO371/15509.Google Scholar

11 Thorburn, Mansel Hay to Givens, T. P., 5/6/31, SMP D 2464/1; See also the enclosures in Peking No. 840, 13/6/31, F4053/3361/10, and Peking No. 843, 15/6/31, F4054/3361/10/15510.Google Scholar

12 ‘Report on visit to Soochow by Vice-Consul A. L. Scott on the Hay Thorburn Case, June 9th–16th, 1931’, Enclosure No. 1, in Shanghai No. 162, 19/6/31 in Peking No. 921 30/6/31, F4401/10 Fo371/15510.Google Scholar

13 ‘Translation of a telegram received by the Shanghai North Station Military Police on June 2nd’, SMP D2464/6, 5/6/31, and enclosure in Shanghai No. 152 9/6/31, in Peking No. 843, 15/6/31/ F4054/3361/10 Fo371/15510.Google Scholar

14 His bag and the clothing he was seen wearing when he left were later found in a creek near Henli, SMP D 2464/10, ‘Supplementary statement of Hsieh Hsin-fu’, 7/8/31. Chinese Report, enc. 2, Legation Tour Series No. 180, 22/10/21 to Marquess of Reading, Fo676/95.Google Scholar The presence of the chloroform is a little puzzling but it is also mentioned in the Wuxian ribao of 3/6/31, SEPM, 8/8/31, p. 6.Google Scholar

15 SMP D 2464/5 6/8/31; China Weekly Review, 8/8/31, pp. 369–70.Google Scholar

16 SMP D 2464/5 6/8/31.Google Scholar

17 Chinese Report, enc. 2, Legation Tour Series No. 180, 22/10/21 to Marquess of Reading. FO 676/95.Google Scholar

18 Ibid. This is obviously exculpatory but the youth was 5 foot 10", athletic and, probably, very frightened, unwell, and behaving at all rationally. The physical detalis come from SMP D 2464/5, 3/6/31.

19 Minister's Tour Series No. 168, 8/8/31, F4680/3361/10 F0371/15511.Google Scholar

20 Minister's Tour Series No. 180, 22/10/31 and enclosures, FO676/95; Legation to FO, No. 318, 18/11/31, F6676/3361/10, Legation to FO, No. 388, 15/12/31, F7506/3361/10, FO371/15511; the business plans, which required at least £5,000 are outlined in M. Hay Thorburn to H. Hay Thorburn [no date], enclosed in Lieut. Col. H. Hay Thorburn to Sir John Simon, 2/3/32, F2771/74/10, FO371/16199. File 74/10 1932 in the same FO371 volume contains details of pressure exerted on Mansel to accept the Foreign Office claim and his receipt. The elder Thorburn, Chief Accountant in a real estate company since at least 1938, was still in Shanghai in 1941, and was interned by the Japanese in Shanghai's Pootung [pudong] Camp in 1943, Directory and Chronicle of China and Japan … 1938, 1941; ‘Complete List of Internees in China’ [1944], FO916/1038.Google Scholar

21 Minguo shi da cidian (Beijing: Zhonggo guanbo dianshi chubanshe, 1991) 992.Google Scholar On the Blueshirts see Tien, Hung-mao, Goverment and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927–1937 (Stanford: Stanford University press, 1972), pp. 54–65.Google ScholarThe description of the Fuxingshe comes from Lloyd Eastman, ‘Nationalist china during the Nanking decade’ (see fn. 36), pp. 143–4.Google Scholar

22 Minguo renwu da cidian (Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 1991), p. 1116.Google Scholar

23 Ibid.; Eastman, ‘Nationalist China during the Nanking decade’, pp. 130, 136;Google ScholarZhonghua minguo shi dacidian (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1991), p. 430.Google Scholar

24 ‘Arrest of foreigner at Chen-I’, C.D.I. Robertson, 19/6/31, SMP D2464; Mr. A. Costa (a ‘Portugese’–possibly Eurasian) working forthe Jiangsu river police, claimed to have seen him on June 12th near Suzhou station being led to a ferry crying ‘Jiu ming!’ [save me] from where he was taken to his death; Enc. in TS No. 168, 8/8/31, F4680/3361/10 FO371/15510.Google Scholar

25 Thorburn, M. Hay Statement, 4/6/31.Google Scholar

26 Shanghai No. 172, 1/6/29, FO228/3980/3 20k. Coates, P. D., The China Consuls: British Consular Officers, 1843–1943 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 170.Google Scholar The most notorious example in Shanghai was the Peters and Judd case in the mid-1930s; E.W. Peters, an SMP Sergeant was tried with a companion for the cold-blooded murder of a sick Chinese beggar, British public opinion was in his favour and he was acquitted despite overwhelming evidence, NCH, 12/2/36, pp. 278–80, 19/2/36, pp. 321–2;Google ScholarPeters, E.W., Shanghai Policeman (London: Rich and Cowan, 1937), pp. 233–322.Google Scholar This was not, of course, a phenomenon confined to the Shanghai Interational Settlement; on parallel cases in India see, for example, Renford, R. K., The Non-Official British in India to 1920 (Dehli: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 35.Google Scholar

27 The China Review: A Quarterly, 10 1931, pp. 11–13.Google Scholar

28 See the minutes by Shearman, M. and Mackillop, D., 1/12/31, on Tour Series no. 358, 30/10/31, F7086/3361/10 FO371/1551. In a letter to the SEPM, for example, ‘P.’ dismissed the charge with caveat that: ‘I can readily conceive circumstances wherein it would not only be a duty, but a pleasure, to shoot a great many more than two Chinese soldier’, SEPM, 10/11/31, p. 11.Google Scholar

29 SMP D2464/44, SMP Arms Identification Section, Report No. 1585, 11/6/31.Google Scholar

30 Tien, , Goverment and Politics in Kuomintang China, p. 64.Google Scholar

31 China Weekly Review, 1/8/31, p. 330.Google Scholar

32 Colonel Huang's conclusion is also bolstered, for example, by the German Comintern agent Otto Braun's account of his secret journey from Shanghai to the Communist base area in Jiangxi province in 1932, Braun, Otto, A Comintern Agent in China 1932–1939 (translated by Moore, Jeane, London: C. Hurst and Company, 1982), pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

33 Peking No. 1660, 9/11/31, F7627/3361/10, F0676/95.Google Scholar

34 The phrase constitues the dedication to ex-0Shanghai resident Davidson-Huston's, J. V.yellow Creek: The Story of Shanghai (London: Putnam, 1962).Google Scholar On the question of the treaty port mythologies see my ‘History, Legend, and Treaty Port Ideology, 1925–1930’ in Bickers, R. A. (ed.), Ritual and Diplomacy: The Macartney Mission to China, 1792–1794 (London: BACS and Wellsweep, 1993), pp. 81–92.Google Scholar

35 This theme informs works such as Pelcovits, N. A., Old China Hands and the Foreign Office, (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations/King's Crown Press, 1948)Google Scholar and Thomas, Pauline Y. N., ‘The Foreign Office and the Business Lobby: British Official and Commercial Attitudes to Treaty Revision in China, 1925–30’, University of London, London School of Economics, Ph.D., 1981.Google Scholar

36 The most concise analysis of the process of consolidation of Guomindang power is in Eastman's, Lloyd, ‘Nationalist China during the Nanking decade, 1927–1937’, Cambridge History of China, Volume 13 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 116–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the ambiguities and contradictions in the party's antiimperialism see especially Cavendish, P., ‘Anti–Imperialism in the Kuomintang 1923–28’, Ch'en, J. and Tarling, N. (eds), Studies in the Social History of China and Southeast Asia—Essays in Memory of Victor Purcell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). pp. 23–56Google Scholar and Fung, Diplomacy of Imperial Retreat, pp. 153–69.Google Scholar

37 Report of the Hon. Mr Justice Feetham to the Shanghai Municipal Council (Shanghai: North China Daily News and Herald, 04 [Vol. 1] and 06 [Vol. 2] 1931).Google Scholar

38 The Army List 1931 (London: War Office, 1931);Google ScholarWho Was Who, Vol. 3: 1929–1940 (London: Allen and Charles Black, 1947);Google ScholarDirectory of China and Japan…1917 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Daliy Press, 1917);Google ScholarThorburn, M. Hay Statement, 6/4/31;Google Scholar He was a member of the Cercle Sportif Francais, a club widely disliked by the more pukka Britons because its membership was in their ‘mixed and dubious’ in both racial and class terms, Gompertz, G. H., China in Turmoil: Eyewitness, 1924–1948 (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1967), p. 80.Google Scholar

39 The terms are to be found in Swire, G. W. to Scott, John C., 27/1/33, Swire Papers, School of Oriental and African Studies [SP], JSSI, 3/8;Google ScholarPratt, J. T. to Swire, G. W., 24/4/28, SP JSS 1185;Google ScholarEspey, John, The Other City (New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1950), p. 48.Google Scholar For more on this constructed identity and its implications see my “Shanghailander” and Chinese nationalism in Republican China: colonist opposition to treaty port reform' (in preparation).

40 FO No. 524, Confidential Print F2183/1374/10, 15/5/29, FO228/4045/11 69. Such schemes had been first floated in 1862 and were a common response to external crises (see, for example, NCH, 7/8/1862, pp. 122–3, and the debate which rumbled on for the best part of a year thereafter). The diplomatic body in Beijing had presented a plan for a Sino–Foreign Municipal Council in Shanghai in 1923 (Clifford, Spoilt Children of Empire, p. 32).Google Scholar See also A Plan for the Administration of the Shanghai Area (Shanghai, 1932)Google Scholar prepared by ‘An International Group of Shanghai Residents’ [Shanghai, 1932].

41 See, for instance, the initially successful interruption of the introduction of Chinese councillors onto the SMC in 1930 (Bickers, R. A., Changing Shanghai's ‘Mind’: Publicity, Reform and the British in Shanghai, 1928–1931 (London: China Society Occasional Papers, 1992), pp. 5–6).Google Scholar The fear of the effects of what was perceived to be rabble rousing among ‘low whites’ lay behind the tightly restricted electoral rules in the Tianjin British Concession and Shanghai International Settlement (Pratt, J. T. to Swire, G. W., 24/4/28, SP JSS 1185). The activities of the distinctly shady owner of the Shanghai Spectator, A. W. Beaumont, to get himself elected to the SMC in 1934 by mobilizing White Russians and other ‘lesser Europeans’ to support his ‘Pro-Shanghai Group’ were unsuccessful, but a good example of the phenomenon feared by the diplomats and patrician ‘China hands’ alike; ‘Memorandum on A. W. Beaumont’, 6/6/34, SMP D3307; Shanghai Spectator, 1933–1934, passim.Google Scholar

42 The growth of American institutions is described in Huskey, James L., ‘Americans in Shanghai: Community Formation and Response to Revolution, 1919–1928’, University of North Carolina, Ph.D., 1985Google Scholar; although there are many exaggerations as to the degree of their separation from the rest of Shanghai foreign society (and thereby from the attitudes of the rest of that society). See also Huskey's, ‘The Cosmopolitan Connection: Americans and Chinese in Shanghai during the Interwar years’, Diplomatic History, XI (1987), pp. 227–42;Google Scholar and Clifford, Nicholas R., ‘A Revolution Is Not a Tea Party: The “Shanghai Mind(s)” Reconsidered’, Pacific Historical Review, LIX, (11 1990), pp. 501–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On class tensions see, briefly, Bickers, R. A., ‘Changing British attitudes to China and the Chinese, 1928–1931’, University of 1992), London, School of Oriental and African Studies, PhD., pp. 113–14.Google Scholar

43 Bickers, , ‘Changing British attitudes’, pp. 151–3.Google Scholar

44 Thorburn, M. Hay Statement, 4/6/31.Google Scholar

45 NCH, 16/6/28, p.467.Google Scholar

46 One, a Dane, was the son of a retired Chinese Maritime Customs official, the other, K.M. Pate, worked for the Shanghai Telephone Company, M. Hay Thorburn Statement, 4/6/31.Google Scholar

47 The unreliable Costa claimed to have once censured Thorburn over his bevaviour towards some Chinese men in a Shanghai nightclub, ‘Statement by MrCosta, A.’, enc. in Tour Series No. 968, 8/8/31, F4680/3361/10, FO371/15510.Google Scholar

48 Fusun, Yan, Shanghai suyu dacidian [Dictionary of Shanghai colloquialisms] (Shanghai: Yunxuan chubanshe, 1924 [Facsimile edition, Tokyo, no publisher, c. 1971]), pp. 30–1;Google ScholarAllman, N. F., Shanghai Lawyer (New York: McGraw–Hill, 1943), p. 96.Google Scholar

49 For a fuller discussion of this point, and indications of the material discussed see Bickers, ‘Chinese characteristics and treaty port society: an armour of false facts?’, Chapter 2 of ‘Changing British attitudes’, pp. 29–77.Google Scholar

50 For details see ‘Piracy: Punitive Operations at Bias Bay’. Report. C-in-C China Station No. 1432/1034/4, 21/9/27, ADM 116/2502, MO3161.Google Scholar

51 In his notes for an autobiographical memoir the novelist and illustrator Mervyn Peake, a missionary child born the same year as John Thorburn and rasied in staid, urban Tianjin, placed ‘Pirates’ prominently in his impressions of his childhood. His illustrations of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island are arguably the finest interpretations of that story; Gilmore, Maeve (ed.), Peake's Progress: Selected Writings and Drawings of Mervyn Peake (London: Allen Lane, 1978), pp. 469–79.Google Scholar The works of the China-born novelist J. G. Ballard, especially the portrayal of the warfare obsessions of the young boy in the autobiographical Empire of the Sun (London: Victor Gollancz, 1984) are also worth noting.Google Scholar

52 See Shanghai No. 148, 5/6/31, and enclosure, M. Hay Thorburn Statement, 6/4/31, in Peking No. 830, 12/6/31, F3677/3361/10, FO 371/15509.Google Scholar

53 Givens, T. P., IC Sp.Br. to DC (Crime), 1/6/31, SMP D2464/1, 3/6/31; the earliest mention of the phrase was in the Shanghai Consulate-General Press release of 20th June, see NCH, 22/6/31, p. 408.Google Scholar

54 Little, E. S. to Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 5/8/31, F4557/3361/10 FO 371/15510; M. Hay Thorburn Statement, 4/6/31.Google Scholar

55 Peking and Tientsin Times. 31/7/31, p. 5.Google Scholar

56 NCH, 15/12/31, p. 374.Google Scholar

57 Even the FO sometimes seemed to doubt that he was dead; Mackillop, D. note, 17/7/31, on Peking No. 887, 26/6/31, F3931/3361/10 Fo371/15510.Google Scholar

58 See the case of the three schoolboy stowaways narrated by Espey, John, Other City, p. 96.Google Scholar

59 The question of motivation is still a puzzling one but without any definite statement from Thorburn himself this remains the most likely interpretation of his actions: it was one of the schemes drawn up by the boys, and it was the one admitted to be most likely by John's friend Pate Olsen, who told Mansel that John had probably gone to Nanjing or Henli; Blackburn, A. D. to Moss, G. S., 1/6/31, enclosure No. 1 in Shanghai No. 148, 5/6/31, enclosed in Peking No. 830, 12/6/31, F3677/3361/10, Fo371/15509 M. Hay Thorburn Statement, 4/6/31.Google Scholar

60 For the best narrative of the Comintern case so far available see Litten, Frederick S., ‘The Noulens Affair’, China Quarterly, no. 138, 06 1994, pp. 492–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61 The relationship between the SMP and the Shanghai Chinese Public Security Bureau is one of the topics covered in Wakeman, Frederick JR, Policing Shanghai 1927–1937 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).Google Scholar It is also briefly examined in the same author's ‘Policing Modern Shanghai’, China Quarterly, no. 115 (09 1988), pp. 408–40.Google Scholar

62 Bickers, , ‘Changing British attitudes’, pp. 164–5.Google Scholar

63 NCH, 11/6/27, pp. 472–73. An interesting Chinese communist view of this ceremonial is to be found in a pamplet ‘The “Devils Tattoo”’ issued by the so-called ‘Shanghai Defence Force Revolutionary Soldiers Committee’ just before the occasion, SMP IO 7760.Google Scholar

64 On the military mythologization and the forms it took—written and concrete—see Bickers, ‘History, Legend, and Treaty Port Ideology’, pp. 83–4;Google ScholarEspey, Other City, pp. 59–60.Google Scholar

65 On Cohen's involvement in the Canton revolt see, for example, China Weekly Review, 15/8/31, p. 422.Google Scholar On his career see Drage, Charles, Two-gun Cohen (London: Jonathan Cape, 1954);Google Scholar the continuing researches of Daniel S. Levy will supersede this now dated work. On Sutton see Drage's, General of Fortune: The story of One Arm Sutton (London: William Heinemann, 1963).Google Scholar Simpson's career is the subject of research in progress by the present writer.

66 ‘Miller, G. E.’, Shanghai: The Paradise of Adventurers (New York: Orsay Press, 1937);Google Scholar for another fictional account see Lambourne, John, Squeeze: A Tale of China (London: John Murray, 1935).Google Scholar

67 School of Oriental and African Studies, Library, Papers of the Royal Institute of International Affairs Box 10, ‘The Tientsin Resolutions At a meeting of British Subjects held in the Gordon Hall of Tientsin on the 15th inst.’, Tientsin British Committee of Information Memorandum, No. 31, 29/9/31.Google Scholar

68 See, for example, Gilbert, Rodney, What's Wrong with China (London: John Murray, 1926), pp. 268–72;Google Scholar and from the propaganda sheet of the Tianjin British community, ‘A Trial for Murder in the Chinese Courts’, Tientsin British Committee of Information Memorandum, No. 34, 7/2/34.Google Scholar

69 Thorne, Christopher, ‘Racial aspects of the Far Eastern War of 1941–45’, Proceedings of the British Academy 66 (1980), pp. 329–77.Google Scholar

70 ‘Thorburn Case’, Enclosure No. 4 in Shanghai No. 166, 24/6/31 in Peking No. 951, 2/7/31, F4022/3361/10 FO371/15510.Google Scholar

71 China Press, 7/7/31, enclosure in Shanghai No. 188, 7/7/31, enclosed in Peking No. 1030, 15/7/31, F4488/3361/10, FO371/15510.Google Scholar

72 SEPM, 1/9/3, p. 11; 10/8/31, pp. 7–8, 17/8/31, p. 7.Google Scholar

73 Shanghai No. 211, 27/7/31, enclosed in Peking No. 1124, 3/8/31, F5547/3361/10, FO371/15511.Google Scholar

74 NCH, 14/7/31, p. 52; 21/7/31, pp. 93–4.Google Scholar

75 St Andrews Society of Shanghai to Rt. Hon. J. Ramsay MacDonald, MP, 15/7/31, F3958/336110 FO 371/15510; NCH, 21/7/31, p. 84, 28/7/31, p. 109.Google Scholar

76 It is probable that at least one of the MPs, Sir Charles Cayzer, member for Chester, was acting on behalf of Mrs Thorburn, who lived in Bridgenorth, Shropshire; Mrs. A. Thorburn to Foreign Office, 4/9/31, F4803/3361/10 FO371/15511.Google Scholar

77 NCH, 28/7/31, p. 121.Google Scholar

78 Porter, Harold to Lampson, , 28/7/31, enclosed in Lampson to Sir Victor Wellesley, 30/7/31, F4490/3361/10 FO371/15510; ‘The Tientsin Resolutions’ (see fn 67); Hankow No. 49, 2/10/31 enclosed in Peking No. 459, 4/10/31, F5369/34/10, FO371/15463.Google Scholar

79 Tour Series No. 345, 26/11/31, F6981/34/10, FO371/15464.Google Scholar

80 NCH, 21/7/31, p. 84.Google Scholar

81 The continuity among the activists can be seen in the person of Arthur de Sowerby, C., editor of The China Journal, and self-styled explorer, who had been replacement leader of the Shanghai Fascisti and became a Committee member of the BRA, NCH, 14/1/28, p. 53; NCH, 28/12/32, p. 498.Google Scholar

82 NCH, 12/11/31, p. 240;Google ScholarOriental Affairs, April 1935, pp. 155–6.Google Scholar For details of the BRA's founding and early history see the ‘Annual Report’ for 1931, and Woodhead's speech on extraterritoriality in SMP D2961.

83 SEPM, 11/11/31, p. 11, 19/11/31, p. 11. See also, for example, the opinions recorded disapprovingly by Lampson, St Antony's College, Middle East Centre, Killearn Papers, Lampson Diaries, 28/10/31;Google Scholar and Woodhead, H. G. W., A Visit to Manchukuo (Shanghai: Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury, 1932), pp. 106–7;Google Scholar on this point see Endicott, S. L., Diplomacy and Enterprise: British China Policy 1933–37 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975), pp. 28–30.Google Scholar

84 Lampson Diaries, 14/9/31.Google Scholar

85 On India see, for example, Renford, Non-Official British in India, passim.Google Scholar

86 For details of the regulations see the various editions of Sir E. Hertslet's TreatiesGoogle Scholar, notably Hertslet, G. E. P. and Parkes, E. (eds), Hertslet's China Treaties. Treaties etc., between Great Britain and China; and between China and Foreign Powers… (London: Stationary Office, 1908) volume 2.Google Scholar

87 Lampson wrote of Porter that ‘he might, if he knew the facts, be able to exercise a calming influence’; he was ‘not only an ex-Government official and therefore of an understanding turn of mind, but also a thoroughly sound and sensible fellow’ Lampson to Sir Victor Wellesley, 30/7/31, F4490/3361/10 Fo371/15510. In August Porter was writing to Lampson about the influence he had exerted on Howard, editor of the North China Daily News, to write ‘an excellent’ leader which praised the Minister's handling of the case, Porter to Lampson, 10/8/31, enclosed in Peking No. 1208, 21/8/31, F4842/3361/10 Fo371/15511.Google Scholar

88 The practices by which restraint and influence were exercised are described in Bickers, Changing Shanghai's ‘Mind’, passim., and Bickers, ‘Changing British attitudes’, pp. 147–53.Google Scholar

89 Brenan, J. F. to Lampson, , 8/5/31, FO676/96, Part 3.Google Scholar

90 On this theme generally see Endicott, Diplomacy and Enterprise, passim;Google Scholar on some of the adaptations to changing circumstances undertaken by British companies in response see Osterhammel, Jürgen, ‘Imperialism in Transition: British Business and the Chinese Authorities, 1931–37’, China Quarterly, no. 98 (06 1984), pp. 260–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Renford has written in similar terms about India: ‘Something had to go, if the core imperial interests were to be preserved. The privileges and pretensions of the non-official European community would surely have been marked out for sacrifice, however active and well organised the community had been.’ Renford, Non-Official British in India, p. 403.Google Scholar

91 NCH, 26/6/25, p. 579. The Royal Navy's firm response to the Shuntien piracy in 1934, which involved the outright violation of Chinese territorial integrity, was by then anachronistic, Endicott, Diplomacy and Enterprise, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

92 On the Canton disputes see Wilbur, C. Martin, The Nationalist Revolution in China, 1923–1928 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar On British naval intervention in general see Bowie, C. J., ‘Britain and the use of force in China, 1919–1931’, University of Oxford, D. Phil. thesis, 1983.Google Scholar

93 The most comprehensive analysis to the background and consequences of the killing of Gu Zhenghong by Japanese mill foremen, can be found in Rigby, W. R., The May 30 Movement: Events and Themes, (London: Dawson, 1980).Google Scholar A later example of the possible ramifications of individual actions was the 1947 student movement, sparked off by the rape of Beijing university student Shen Chong by American soldiers, Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N., Student Protests in Twentieth Century China: The View from Shanghai (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 139–42, 261–3.Google Scholar

94 The quotations are from Birmingham, Chamberlain's speech of 29 January, 1927, Appendix 6Google Scholar, SirWhyte, Frederick, China and Foreign Powers: An Historical Overview of their Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928), p. 59;Google Scholar The best analysis of this shift can be found in Wilson, D. C., ‘Britain and the Kuomintang, 1924–28: A Study of the Interaction of Official Policies and Perceptions in Britain and China’, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, Ph.D., 1973.Google Scholar

95 Lampson, to FO, Peking No. 1171, 13/8/31, F4820/3361/10 FO371/15511.Google Scholar

96 Cab. No. 34(31), 17/6/31, F3488/34/10, and FO Paper, 16/6/31, F3455/34/10 FO371/15461. The draft treaty can be found in F3563/34/10, FO371/15461.Google Scholar

97 Shanghai No. 10, 30/5/31, F2917/34/10 FO371/15461.Google Scholar

98 Peking No. 964, 7/3/31, F4058/34/10, FO371/15463.Google Scholar

99 Foreign Office No. 241, 25/7/31, F4036/3361/10, Mackillop, D. minute, 22/7/31, F4302/3361/10 FO371/15510.Google Scholar

100 See Bickers, , ‘Changing British attitudes’, pp. 138–9.Google Scholar

101 Lampson, to FO, Nanking tel. No. 27, 9/8/31, F4377/3361/10, FO371/15510.Google Scholar

102 Lampson, to Sir Victor Wellesley, Peitaiho Beach tel., 14/8/31, F4474/3361/10, FO371/15510.Google Scholar

103 Diaries, Lampson, 29/7/31.Google Scholar

104 Diaries, Lampson, 19/9/31, 21/10/31; The original telegram announcing this admission [Nanking No. 59, F5213/3361/10] has been unaccountably weeded, it is quoted in Peking No. 1472, 8/10/31, F6664/3361/10; Peking No. 293, 21/10/31, F6039/3361/10 and Peking No. 294, 21/10/31, F6040/3361/10, FO371/15511.Google Scholar

105 Diaires, Lampson, 12/12/31.Google Scholar

106 Cab. Paper 320 (31), 15/12/31, and tel. to Peking No. 174 (TS), 17/12/31, F7569/34/10; Peking No. 761, 30/12/31, F7810/34/10, FO371/15465.Google Scholar

107 There had also been problems of coordination with the United States over the issue. The outlines of the negotiations can be found in Fishel, W.R., The End of Extraterrioriality in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952), pp. 168–87;Google Scholar a brief sketch of the internal political situation can be found in Eastman, ‘Nationalist China during the Nanking decade’, pp. 128–30.

108 On the later history of the BRA see Collar, Hugh, Captive in Shanghai: A Story of Internment in World War Two (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990)Google Scholar and the documents collected as ‘British Residents’ Association of China’ in the A.G.N. Ogden Papers, SOAS Library.

109 Rasmussen, O. D., ‘Was John Thorburn killed?’, China Critic, 5:34, 25/8/32, pp. 876–7.Google Scholar