It's 1900, and you live in a mess!

Not untidy - looked after by assorted amahs and servants your room is tidier than you've ever known. But as a young man arriving in Hong Kong in 1900, there's a good chance you'd live in a bachelors' mess.

The latest jurors' list from 1900 got me thinking about this. Several addresses list different family members living together, but we also find groups like this:

The link here isn't family, but employer, suggesting that Lugensland (aka Luginsland) was the Bachelors' Mess for Butterfield & Swire at the time.

Why live in a mess?

I'm guessing it was an essential part of the hiring process. Convincing a young man to travel to the other side of the world would be a lot easier if they knew food and accomodation were taken care of. A kind of early expat package.

There's also the suggestion it was valuable for the company, allowing them to keep a close eye on their new staff, and mould them into the company's culture. Here's a view of the mess's role in HSBC:

"[...] Indeed, before the communications revolution, personal knowledge of all executive members of the staff was the real basis of the chief manager's (CEO's) control.

This last assumed a socialization period for future executive staff in the London office, the Bachelor's Mess in Hong Kong's Peak district, the P&O's long passage to the East, and the continued stress on sports during years of routine tasks while juniors, apprentice-like, learned their profession."

Why "mess"?

The dictionary gives the definition:

a : a group of persons who regularly take their meals together; also : a meal so taken
b : a place where meals are regularly served to a group : mess hall

Certainly the food was an important element. Here's a description from Singapore:

"Bachelors staying at a company mess had a portion of their wages deducted towards food and lodging. The payment was not onerous and the lodgings were comfortable."

Then by extension 'mess' came to describe the place where the food was served, and the group of bachelors that ate it.

What was it like?

Hopefully we'll hear more about tjhis in the comments below, but at first glance it seems they were not too far removed from how the men would have recently lived at private schools, or university. HSBC again:

"Equally enjoyable is the story of the naked man in a bed from the bachelors’ Mess who is spotted by the wife of the bank’s Chief Manager in her rose garden in Hong Kong while having breakfast, and when she asks her amah to have the gardener remove the bed, she is told that the man had been left there because “he is one of ours”."

When were they common?

For at least a hundred years:

• In 1862, Charles Wilday Austin 'lived in Jardine's Mess at East Point'.
• A 1936 advert in the Singapore's The Straits Times: 'WANTED from Early April, young man to complete Bachelors' Mess. Well situated well furnished house. modern sanitation, etc. Write Box No. 396 Straits Times for full particulars.'.
• And here's a recent comment from reader Mike H:

I worked with Dodwells in Hong Hong from 1970 to 1975. When I arrived the Head office was in the old HSBC building in Queens Road C, although the had other offices in Ocean Centre and Queens Road. At that time the Bachelors Mess as in Dodwell Mansions adjacent to HoTung gardens/Stewart Terrace,

So they were still going strong into the 1970s. Do you know if any companies still use 'bachelors' mess' to describe their shared accommodation for new hires?

Any other memories or information about the Bachelors' Mess gratefully received - please leave a comment below.

Regards, David

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