Hong Kong flag

Submitted by 80sKid on Fri, 07/02/2010 - 17:28

I was surprised to see a large number of old Hong Kong flags (ie colonial) being waved during the July 1 pro-democracy march yesterday. In relation to that - and in honour of the handover - a question about the flag raising in 1841. I didn't know there was doubt over who first hoisted it. This interesting paper is old but does anyone know if the doubt been cleared up?

http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkjo/view/44/4401656.pdf

Hi 80sKid

I was just looking up Possession Point, and by coincidence I was looking at the paper you link to just the other day. I don't think the question of who actually raised the flag is likely to ever be known, but there are a couple of odd errors in the text. The author suggests on page three that neither Duncan MacPherson (Two Years in China) nor W.W Mundy (Canton and the Bogue) mentions the flag raising though both may have been there. For one thing, Mundy visited Hong Kong in 1874, not 1841, and for another he was a tea merchant, not a soldier as suggested by the author. McPherson did mention being at the flag raising (p.78), but dated the event as February 26 instead of January 26, which may be why the author of the paper overlooked it. So I'm not sure how reliable the rest of the paper is.

Frank Welsh's popular A History of Hong Kong doesn't help matters, either, saying that Edward Belcher raised the flag at 8.15 am on January 26, 1841. In fact it was Commodore Bremer, not Belcher (who had arrived on January 25 at 8.15am, but mis-wrote the date as 26th, thereby confusing Welsh), under whose command the flag was raised (again, physically by whom we will probably never know). 

regards, Adam

I have to add the Name of Captain Charles Elliot R.N.  

" .... It was he who negotiated in January 1841 the socalled convention of chuenpi by which the chinese commissioner keshan or chi-shan agreed in principle to the cession of the island, though it must be admitted, he did so in terms sufficiently vague as to be capable of bearing any interpretation he might later have chosen to put upon them.  The convention did no more then embody the  main points of agreement and was not definitely and finally concluded, but in accordance with its terms, Elliot ordered the occupation of the island which was carried into effect on 26th January 1841.  In a proclamation of the 2 February he announced that

" Pending Her Majesty's further pleasure , the government of the said island shall devolve upon  and be exercised by the person filling the office of Chief Superintendent of the Trade of British subjects in China for the time being". 

In consequence, he became the first official in charge of the colony. 

Both sides  denounced the convention and Elliot was recalled and replaced by Sir Herny Pottinger, who secured the cession of Hong Kong in the Treaty of Nanking, 29th August 1842,  and who became, on ratification  of the treaty on 26th June 1843, its first governor .  But in spite of apparent failure, Elliot had played a fundamental role in bringing about the birth of the Colony.

(From  A Biographical Sketch-book of Early Hong Kong by G.B.Endacott Published 1962).

on another note, I have several engravings of Hong Kong which are attributed to Naval Officers 1841-1847.