“For this brief moment, the two sisters could be ‘together in heart and affection’, and through such letters bridge the distance of empire.” We often learn about the commerce, diplomacy, and military campaigns of the British empire without reference to the intimate side of life in these times—the development of self, the position of women, and the importance of family. In this book, the story of empire, so often told from a man’s perspective, is given a unique vantage point through Eliza Hillier’s letters to her younger sister, Martha. Written largely from Hong Kong, Shanghai, England, and Siam, the letters allow us to become a member of her family and follow the daily tribulations associated with the life of a young British woman in the port cities of Asia. We are thus able to share Eliza’s experiences as she leaves home to embark on married life, starts and raises a family, grieves at the abrupt and tragic loss of her husband, Charles Batten Hillier, and then sets about re-building her life. At once a reflection on the daily components of empire, an entertaining narrative of familial relationships, and the story of one woman’s inner feelings, My Dearest Martha guides us through the vagaries of life for a family who were very much a part of imperial careering and missionary circles in East and Southeast Asia. The letters are complemented by images and commentary from the author, a descendant of Eliza, providing context and depth, which together give us a fuller picture of British colonial life in the mid-1800s from a perspective that will resonate with readers around the world.

Following the ending of the First Opium War and the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, Britain opened five treaty ports on the Chinese mainland in the cities now known as Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, and Xiamen. Foreigners were allowed for the first time to live and work normally in these cities under the eyes of their state’s consul. In establishing this presence, consular staff and their families faced numerous challenges, including unsuitable accommodation, illness, hostile local authorities, attacks from militias and pirates, while at the same time adjusting to an unfamiliar language and culture. Henrietta Alcock (1812–1853), the first wife of the British Consul, Rutherford Alcock, was little-known until an album of sketches and watercolours depicting her life in China came to light. Acquired by the Martyn Gregory Gallery, London in the early 1990s, the works in the Alcock Album feature picturesque natural landscapes, traditional Chinese architecture, and scenes of consular life. Drawing on more than one hundred images, this richly illustrated volume brings her out of the shadows, providing a unique picture of the treaty port world in its very earliest days and of Henrietta as an amateur artist, the wife of a consul and, most importantly, a woman in empire.

In Hong Kong Public and Squatter Housing: Geopolitics and Informality, 1963–1985, Alan Smart and Fung Chi Keung Charles trace two decades of development of squatting in Hong Kong. The authors reconstruct the government policy on squatting through both ethnographic and archival research. The book sheds new light on the consequences of various attempts to control encroachment on scarce urban space. It argues that intersecting policy agendas resulted in decisions that were often not desired, but which emerged as practical solutions from prior failures. The authors address the challenges of explaining confidential policy decisions and offer new approaches applicable in other contexts. Overall, Smart and Fung make an important contribution to the understanding of how public housing and squatting interacted in influential ways that have been poorly understood and offer new perspectives on the challenges of urban governance and housing problems. “The definitive history of how resettlement policies evolved as the squatter population swelled and as London and Beijing moved closer to signing the 1984 Sino-British Declaration. A masterful combination of theorizing and documentary sleuthing, a landmark in contemporary debates over the optimal responses to the formalization of informal property.” —Deborah Davis, Yale University “Smart and Fung offer a fresh and thought-provoking analysis of the changing state-society relations in the postwar decades by unravelling the complexities of Hong Kong’s urban landscape through their critical analysis of the question of informality and the issue of squatting.” —Lui Tai-Lok, Education University of Hong Kong “Employing ethnography and combing through archives, Smart and Fung uncover how the British formalized squatter housing. Highlighting questions of sociopolitical and historical change by analyzing bureaucratic and geopolitical forces—a fascinating project delving into the nature of colonial rule, immigrant resilience, and political economic structures. A major contribution to evidence-based settler colonial studies.” —Setha Low, City University of New York

More Than 1001 Days and Nights of Hong Kong Internment is the wartime journal of Sir Chaloner Grenville Alabaster, former attorney-general of Hong Kong and one of the three highest-ranking British officials during the Japanese occupation. He was imprisoned by the Japanese at the Stanley Internment Camp from 1941 to 1945. During his internment, he managed to keep a diary of his life in the camp in small notebooks and hid them until his release in 1945. He then wrote his wartime journal on the basis of these notes. The journal records his day-to-day experiences of the fall of Hong Kong, his time at Stanley, and his eventual release. Some of the most fascinating extracts cover the three months immediately after the fall of Hong Kong and when Alabaster and his colleagues were imprisoned in Prince’s Building in Central and before they were sent to the camp, a period little covered in previous publications. Hence, the book is an important primary source for understanding the daily operation of the Stanley Internment Camp and the camp’s environment. Readers will also learn more about the daily life of those imprisoned in the camp, and C. G. Alabaster’s interaction with other prisoners there. ‘A prominent figure in pre-war Hong Kong, Alabaster was one of the leaders of the British community in Stanley Internment Camp. His recently discovered journal provides a detailed and candid account of the routines, anxieties, and hardships of camp life. It also offers new insights into the complex politics and divisions among internees. With its substantial editorial introduction, this book is an important addition to the growing literature on internment during Japan’s wartime occupation of Hong Kong.’ —Christopher Munn, University of Hong Kong ‘Of the many memoirs of the Stanley civilian internment camp, this is perhaps the most fascinating and engrossing. Written soon after the war and based on a diary, it is not only a day-by-day description of the travails of life in captivity but also, more interestingly, an account of the inner tensions and divisions that were rampant among the British internees from beginning to end.’ —Edward J. M. Rhoads, University of Texas at Austin

Set against the backdrop of regional and international post–Second World War tensions, Grounded at Kai Tak is the most comprehensive account of the complex legal struggle for ownership of 71 airplanes belonging to the two main Chinese airlines, which were stranded at Kai Tak airfield in Hong Kong at the end of the Chinese civil war. The resulting contest for possession of them took place in the courts and among politicians and diplomats on three continents. In the process, the struggle became entangled with the anti-communist policies of the United States in the emerging ‘Cold War’, British hopes for restoration of her pre-war commercial position in China, disagreements between nations about recognition of the new government in Peking, and the delicate balance that the colonial government of Hong Kong had to keep to preserve that colony’s interests. Merry tells the tale of this legal saga by weaving together archival documents and news reports of the day, revealing the international alignments that emerged from the aftermath of the wars and the colourful cast of actors that influenced the outcome of the dispute. This struggle would go on to become one of the leading public international law cases on the recognition of governments at the time. ‘This is the first book-length monograph on the legal and diplomatic battles for the ownership of the seventy-one aircraft grounded in Hong Kong. Set within the wider context of the Chinese civil war and the Cold War and packed with passionate characters, the book reads like a historical novel. A major contribution to Hong Kong history, legal history, and international history.’ —Chi-kwan Mark, Senior Lecturer in International History, Royal Holloway, University of London ‘This is a fascinating story, eloquently told by one of the true experts of Hong Kong’s modern legal history. By analysing the struggle for possession of seventy-one planes from many different angles, the author offers brilliant insights into law, society, and politics in post–World War II East Asia.’ —Lutz-Christian Wolff, Dean and Wei Lun Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

“Without a clear idea of the history of the New Territories, the history of Hong Kong as a whole would be impossible to bring to any sort of satisfactory completion. ... Elucidating the development of a village, a clan, a temple, or a market-town is also, in and of itself, real and valuable history, and abundantly justifies the time and effort spent on it.” This book is a history of village communities in the New Territories of Hong Kong, including those in the areas of Ha Tsuen, Hung Shui Kiu, and Sha Tin as well as those on the islands of Lamma, Ma Wan, and Tung Ping Chau. Elaborating on primary interviews with village elders, government documents, and public information, this book places the individual histories of each area into the context of Hong Kong’s rich past. The introduction sets up the rest of the book, outlining common themes and highlighting the dangers of using the communal memories of village communities while, at the same time, showing the valuable information doing so can bring. Each chapter provides a more detailed account of one specific area, concentrating on the settlement history, the lifestyle, and the politics of that area.

Many words have been used to describe John Pope Hennessy, the former governor of Hong Kong. “Controversial” is perhaps the briefest way to outline his character. Yet we may be guilty of ascribing modern ideas to our understanding of characters of the past. An Irish Catholic raised during the age of empire and rising nationalism, a devout Tory and Disraeli follower, a believer in both the benefits of empire and a patron of local talent in his postings, it is easy to view Pope Hennessy as a man of contradictions. This volume traces Pope Hennessy’s history from his early beginnings in famine Ireland to his attempts to rise through the ranks in London. It goes on to cover his early postings to Labuan, West Africa, and, of course, Hong Kong, as well as his final days with his family. His actions and his personality are laid bare for readers fo form their own opinions of one of Hong Kong’s most enigmatic governors. “As to Sir J. P. Hennessy, the less said the better. His acts speak powerfully enough. The centre of his world was he himself. But with all the crowd of dark and bright powers that were wrestling within him, he could not help doing some good…” - Dr Ernst Johann Eitel, Missionary, sinologist, and John Pope Hennessy’s private secretary