scholarly journals Translation and the British Colonial Mission: The Career of Samuel Turner Fearon and the Establishment of Chinese Studies at King's College, London

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 623-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
UGANDA SZE PUI KWAN

AbstractThe University of London was the first institution in the United Kingdom to establish a professorship in Chinese. Within a decade of the first half of the nineteenth century, two professorships in Chinese were created at its two colleges: the first at University College in 1837 and the second at King's College in 1847. Previous studies of British sinology have devoted sufficient attention to the establishment of the programme and the first Chinese professorship. However, despite the latter professorship being established by the same patron (Sir George Thomas Staunton; 1781–1859) during the same era as the former, the institutionalisation of the Chinese programme at King's College London seems to have been completely overlooked. If we consider British colonial policy and the mission of the Empire in the early nineteenth century, we are able to understand the strategic purpose served by the Chinese studies programme at King's and the special reason for its establishment at a crucial moment in the history of Sino-British relations. Examining it from this perspective, we reveal unresolved doubts concerning the selection and appointment of King's first Chinese professor. Unlike other inaugural Chinese professors appointed during the nineteenth century at other universities in the United Kingdom, the first Chinese professor at King’s, Samuel Turner Fearon (1819–1854), was not a sinophile. He did not translate any Chinese classics or other works. His inaugural lecture has not even survived. This is why sinologists have failed to conduct an in-depth study on Fearon and the genealogy of the Chinese programme at King’s. Nevertheless, Samuel Fearon did indeed play a very significant role in Sino-British relations due to his ability as an interpreter and his knowledge of China. He was not only an interpreter in the first Opium War (1839–1842) but was also a colonial civil servant and senior government official in British Hong Kong when the colonial government started to take shape after the war. This paper both re-examines his contribution during this “period of conflict and difficulty” in Sino-British relations and demonstrates the very nature of British sinology.

Author(s):  
Paul Huddie

This chapter will show that the Russian conflict was a distinct period in Ireland’s economic history, being a catalyst for Ireland’s post-Famine agricultural recovery. It will be shown that this was caused by the increase in prices and demand which in turn encouraged farmers to alter the distribution of their tillage, export more livestock, hire more labourers and increase the latter’s wages. It will also include various (largely neglected) aspects of industry; showing Irish shipping companies’ comparable astuteness in relation to government contracts, which many entrepreneurs and merchants also eagerly sought, but also the inflexibility of the linen sector and the consequent problems experienced. Finally this chapter will show that the war was, much like the 1850s as a whole, a distinct period in the history of Irish taxation and Irish society’s relationship with its government in London in the nineteenth century and its relationship, or place within, the wider society of the United Kingdom.


1990 ◽  
Vol 122 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-369
Author(s):  
S. Gunasingam

Since the time South Asia, together with other Asian and African countries, became an integral part of the British Empire, the significance of manuscripts, published works and other artefacts, relating to those regions has stimulated continued appreciation in the United Kingdom, albeit with varying degrees of interest. It is interesting to note that the factors which have contributed in one way or another to the collecting of South Asian I material for British institutions vary in their nature, and thus illuminate the attitudes of different periods. During the entire nineteenth century, the collectors were primarily administrators; for most of the first half of the twentieth century, it was the interest and the needs of British universities that led to the accumulation of substantial holdings in many academic or specialist libraries.


Afrika Focus ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-57
Author(s):  
Darsheenee Raumnauth ◽  
Roopanand Mahadew

This article reviews the obligations under international law of the United Kingdom and Mauritius towards the Chagossians. With the detachment of Chagos from Mauritius as an essential condition for the independence of Mauritius from the British colonial master, the Chagossians have, over the past four decades, endured enormous human rights violations . This article assesses the responsibility of the two states vis-à-vis the Chagossians. A comprehensive factual account is first presented to clarify understanding of the history of Chagos. The legal framework is then analysed to assess the responsibility of each state, before a number of recommendations are made.


Afrika Focus ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Darsheenee Raumnauth ◽  
Roopanand Mahadew

This article reviews the obligations under international law of the United Kingdom and Mauritius towards the Chagossians. With the detachment of Chagos from Mauritius as an essential condition for the independence of Mauritius from the British colonial master, the Chagossians have, over the past four decades, endured enormous human rights violations. This article assesses the responsibility of the two states vis-à-vis the Chagossians. A comprehensive factual account is rst presented to clarify understanding of the history of Chagos. The legal framework is then analysed to assess the responsibility of each state, before a number of recommendations are made. Key words: Chagos, Mauritius, United Kingdom, British Indian Ocean territories 


1931 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 197-224
Author(s):  
K. A. Walpole

There are few more remarkable developments during the nineteenth century than the movement overseas from the United Kingdom, which was to people first the backwoods of Canada and later the other Dominions. The history of this great exodus has been written only in part and one aspect has been practically neglected—the story of the Atlantic passage. Not only does this form a most important chapter in the history of emigration, but it also reveals an aspect of the humanitarian movement which has never been emphasized. It is therefore proposed in the following pages to trace the efforts made to secure the enactment of laws enforcing humane conditions on the passage to America, to follow the steps taken to secure the efficient administration of these laws, and to consider whether these efforts led to any radical improvement.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-140
Author(s):  
Philip Lloyd

This article uses a range of primary and secondary sources to analyse the work of the Irish Railway Commission 1836–39 and its challenge to the predominantly laissez-faire approach to railway development in Britain. The commission produced a model for developing railways with the state and public interest at its heart, and it advocated railways as a system that was planned to deliver specific political and economic objectives. It thereby threatened railway interests in Britain and mobilised senior political advocates of laissez-faire to defeat the commission. Nonetheless, its work was a substantial contribution to understanding Ireland and the weaknesses of nineteenth-century railway regulation that deserves a more prominent place in the history of the relationship between technology and politics.


1957 ◽  
Vol 14 (04) ◽  
pp. 348-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. E. de Smidt ◽  
H. Schermann ◽  
D. W. Williams ◽  
G. Rodger

The history of the actuarial profession in South Africa starts, as far as is known, during the last decade of the nineteenth century when three actuaries arrived in the Cape Colony from the United Kingdom. Two of these took up positions with the two South African life offices which were then in existence and the third became Government Actuary to the Cape Colony. By the time the Union of South Africa was established in 1910, four more actuaries had arrived from the United Kingdom, and a further four had arrived by 1920. Some of these gentlemen established permanent homes in this country, while others returned overseas after varying periods of time. It was no doubt due to these early beginnings that the actuarial homes of South African actuaries are today London and Edinburgh.The first South African-born actuary qualified as a Fellow of the Faculty in 1921, and since that time increasing numbers of South Africans have become qualified, mostly as Fellows of the Faculty.


Author(s):  
Lord Hope of Craighead

The fact that Scotland, while still part of the United Kingdom, has its own legal system is not an accident. Nor is it just a product of its geography. Had it been so, the system would surely have had shallow roots. It would long ago have been completely absorbed into the legal system of its much bigger southern neighbour. As it is, Scots law was able to retain its own distinct institutions and identity in 1707 when the Union with England was entered into. This is because by then it had developed its own coherent system of law. It was a system with a sound jurisprudential base, and it could stand on its own feet. That Scotland was able to achieve this was in no small measure due to the inspiration that students from Scotland found when they travelled to Holland in search of education in the civil law the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The links that they established with the university at Leiden and some of its celebrated jurists during this period were particularly strong and productive. They helped to lay the foundation for the legal system that Scotland could assert as its own. This paper seeks to trace the history of this relationship, and to identify the extent to which its influence can still be found in Scots law as it exists today.



Author(s):  
Timo Van Havere

In recent years archivists and historians have been pondering the importance of '1800' inthe history of archives and historiography: did the turn of that century mark the start of'modern' archival organisation, focused on historical research? Even though the accessibilityof Belgian archives was unsurpassed in nineteenth-century Europe, the archival historyof that country has been neglected thus far. By looking at the National Archives inBrussels and the city archives of Ghent, new light can be shed on the Belgian archivallandscape around 1800. As it turns out, 1814 was an important turning point. The politicalchange ftom the French Empire to the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was used bysome historians to secure an appointment as archivist. At the same time, the new nationalgovernment actively remodelled archives into historiographical institutions.


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