Herbert Richmond Wells died 16 March 1950 ... struck by tram car.... missionary and Chinese scholar...to China from Australia 1887... interned in Stanley.... Dean of Hop Yat Church and on teaching staff Queen's College..... leaves widow and 2 sons and 3 daughters in England ...
Births and Baptisms Australia
Herbert Richmond Wells born 5 March 1863 baptism 25 May 1863 Geelong Australia
Electoral Records
Living in Lewisham 1926 - 1934 with wife Eliza Wells nee Stewart
First wife Mary Elizabeth Mines Wells died 7 April 1903 and is buried in Happy Valley Hong Kong
Probate Records
Herbert Richmond Wells of 6 Gleneally Victoria Hong Kong died 16 March 1950 in Queen Mary Hospital Victoria Hong Kong. Administration to Eliza Wells widow
Find a Grave Happy Valley Hong Kong
Herbert Richmond Wells O B.E. age 87 of the London Missionary Society Hong Kong and South China age 87
One of the most interesting tales of [Morrison Hall's] early years has to do with its first warden, Rev Herbert Richmond Wells, a fascinating Australian missionary, born in Geelong and christened there on 25th May 1863. He first arrived in China in 1887 with the American Bible Society, later being temporarily employed by the London Missionary Society before joining them permanently in 1894. Until 1903 he was stationed successivly in Guangzhou and what was then called Poklo and is today Boluo County (博罗县) on the East River.
It's almost impossible swiftly to summarise his remarkable career in religious life, education and New Territories life in the time between his arrival in HK in 1903 and his death, run down by a tram on Des Voeux Rd in March 1950. (His very full and fulsome obit can be read at "Death Of Rev. H. R. Wells: Struck Down By Tramcar", South China Morning Post Mar 17, 1950, p.8).
Among other institutions, he taught at Queen's College, was connected with the re-establishment of Ying Wa College in 1911 and a few years later with the young University of Hong Kong, as noted above, as the first warden of Morrison Hall. in 1926 he was awarded the OBE “for services in the cause of education in Hong Kong”. He had been appointed to the Government's Board of Examiners (in the Chinese language) in 1901 where he had got to know Sir Cecil Clementi (Governor 1925-1930), since Clementi too was appointed an examiner in Chinese language in 1902. Wells was still an adviser to University of Hong Kong’s new Faculty of Chinese in 1930, after his retirement as a missionary.
He helped establish the Hong Kong & New Territories Evangelization Society and was active in the Hop Yat, Wanchai and Shing Kwong Churches, and in Union Church. His long service as pastor in charge of the Hong Kong & New Territories Evangelisation Society’s churches in the New Territories, from Tai O in Lantau to Yuen Long, Tsuen Wan and Taipo, had culminated in his appointment as the London Missionary Society’s Senior Missionary in 1926, a post from which he finally retired in 1929. More interesting to my line of research, he was a noted supporter for years of the only indigenous HK Chinese attempt to emulate the western style missions to seamen, the Chinese Christian Mission to Seamen, founded by the Hainanese/Singaporean/British Rev. Tan Bockjock (I've never found his name in Chinese) in 1933, which struggled on, never really lifting off, until 1971.
Wells was on the committee of Nethersole Hospital. He led the founding of the New Territories Agricltural Society (which had annual shows, in 1927 and again in 1928 in the gardens of Sir Robert and Lady Ho Tung’s Sheung Shui villa (now the Lady Ho Tung Welfare Centre, having been gifted to the government for that use in 1934): both were on the Reverend Wells’ organizing committee) until, I think after the war (someone may remember better detail).
During WW2 Wells and his second wife, Florence (I have no details of Florence J Wells, save her name, and don't know when they married or where) were both interned in Stanley, where he was noted for having continued to give Cantonese lessons to fellow internees throughout because was a fluent Cantonese speaker and, as noted, also literate in Chinese.
His abilities as a Chinese linguist led to what was probably his longest lived memorial, his several basic Cantonese language teaching books including Cantonese for everyone: a simple introduction to Cantonese (1929); The Book of Changes and Genesis (English and Chinese) (1930); Commercial conversations in Cantonese and English (1931); Chinese official documents and petitions (1931); An English-Cantonese Dictionary (1931); Gods, ghosts, devils: stories of Chinese life and beliefs (trans) (1935) and in Chinese 訂正粤音指南 (Ding zheng Yue yin zhi nan (Cantonese pronunciation guide)) (1930). (I owe my understanding of H.R. Wells’ long career in Hong Kong to discussions with HKU's Dr Peter Cunich.) Throughout the 1930s his Cantonese lessons were a regular feature on RTHK's predecessor, ZBW.
Both Wells and his first wife Mary, who had died aged 39 in 1903, are buried at Happy Valley. After his death, Well's second wife, two sons and three daughters subsequently lived in Britain, where Mrs Wells died, aged 83, in Sevenoaks in 1953.
I need to update and correct - and introduce an interesting oddity.
I made a mistake about who was in Stanley with HRW. It was indeed his second wife, but she was not called Florence. He had married Eliza Stewart (1870-), a Scot from Breswick in Ayrshire, who was a fellow missionary. In addition to three of the children from Wells' first marriage, in 1905 Mrs Wells added a daughter, Winifred Alice. According to the BAAG list Mrs Eliza Wells was who was in Stanley with HRW. She had set out from London in November 1939 to rejoin her husband, so was evidently with him at the fall of Hong Kong.
Now here is the oddity. Their daughter Winifred Alice evidently went to university in Britain once she and her mother (and initially HRW) had returned there in 1924 (to 64 Fordel Rd., Hither Green, London SE6). By 1931 Winifred Alice was a BA, was living in Bermuda and was a teacher, but it would seem as a teacher working as part of the household of a Mr J.C. Dunn, with whom (and three other female employees) she travelled on the SS Colombia via the Panama Canal to Los Angeles, whence to Santa Barbara, in that year. There is then a gap until the narrative resumes in Lewisham (next door to Hither Green), where she gets married to a Herbert James Wood, a university teacher of some sort, affiliated to King's College London. They travel together to New York in 1934 where Mr Wood was to spend a year in some sort of deal with the Rockefeller Foundation. In the 1939 General Register both are back in Britain and living in Bristol, Mr Wood still giving himself as a university lecturer and WAW giving herself as a 'private teacher'.
Now, at some point before July 1940 - I have no idea what occasioned it - Mrs Wood wrote a Brief History of Hong Kong (at 278pp not so very brief), which in July 1940 was, technically at least, published by the South China Morning Post. There is, however, no mention at all of the work in pre-war editions of the SCMP.
I have no firm evidence, but my hunch is that wartime somehow derailed things and, although printed (1,000 copies), the book was not distributed but (I'm guessing) was stored somwhere. That hunch is because barely had the Brits reappeared in HK, with the military administration running things, between 24th and 29th September 1945, and only then, advertisements for Winifred A. Wood's book appear in the South China Morning Post and Hong Kong Telegraph. It is otherwise still born - I have found no reviews or other mentions either at the time or later (though it does appear in bibliographies here or there and one second hand bookseller opines that it is based on E.J. Eitel's 1895 history).
The only other possible - but only vaguely possible - thought I have is that the book may have been related to the 25 January 1941, Centenary Supplement the South China Morning Post published as part of that day's newspaper.
I haven't a clue what happened to Mrs Wood or her husband - the faint trail I have peters out in Bristol in 1939. Although I know what happened to Herbert Richmond Wells, I do not know Mrs Eliza Wells fate for certain either despite my confident earlier assertion that she died in Sevenoaks in 1953. From the probate record, where she is noted as the legatee, she clearly survived her husband (she was 6-7 years younger than him) but beyond that the records are ambiguous.
If anyone does have further and better particulars, I should be delighted to learn of them.
Comments
Herbert Richmond Wells O.B.E. 5 March 1863 - 16 March 1950
Could this be him?
Carl Smith Card 151543
Herbert Richmond Wells died 16 March 1950 ... struck by tram car.... missionary and Chinese scholar...to China from Australia 1887... interned in Stanley.... Dean of Hop Yat Church and on teaching staff Queen's College..... leaves widow and 2 sons and 3 daughters in England ...
Births and Baptisms Australia
Herbert Richmond Wells born 5 March 1863 baptism 25 May 1863 Geelong Australia
Electoral Records
Living in Lewisham 1926 - 1934 with wife Eliza Wells nee Stewart
First wife Mary Elizabeth Mines Wells died 7 April 1903 and is buried in Happy Valley Hong Kong
Probate Records
Herbert Richmond Wells of 6 Gleneally Victoria Hong Kong died 16 March 1950 in Queen Mary Hospital Victoria Hong Kong. Administration to Eliza Wells widow
Find a Grave Happy Valley Hong Kong
Herbert Richmond Wells O B.E. age 87 of the London Missionary Society Hong Kong and South China age 87
That looks like the right man
That looks like the right man, as Barbara Anslow's diary records him giving a talk on 'Old Hong Kong'.
The list at https://gwulo.com/node/46226 has his occupation as 'insurance", but the age matches so I think it was a mistake.
The wife in the node 46226
The wife in the node 46226 shows his wife as Mrs E Wells which matches
Morrison Hall
[Admin: I've copied Stephen's notes below from his comment on the Morrison Hall page.]
One of the most interesting tales of [Morrison Hall's] early years has to do with its first warden, Rev Herbert Richmond Wells, a fascinating Australian missionary, born in Geelong and christened there on 25th May 1863. He first arrived in China in 1887 with the American Bible Society, later being temporarily employed by the London Missionary Society before joining them permanently in 1894. Until 1903 he was stationed successivly in Guangzhou and what was then called Poklo and is today Boluo County (博罗县) on the East River.
It's almost impossible swiftly to summarise his remarkable career in religious life, education and New Territories life in the time between his arrival in HK in 1903 and his death, run down by a tram on Des Voeux Rd in March 1950. (His very full and fulsome obit can be read at "Death Of Rev. H. R. Wells: Struck Down By Tramcar", South China Morning Post Mar 17, 1950, p.8).
Among other institutions, he taught at Queen's College, was connected with the re-establishment of Ying Wa College in 1911 and a few years later with the young University of Hong Kong, as noted above, as the first warden of Morrison Hall. in 1926 he was awarded the OBE “for services in the cause of education in Hong Kong”. He had been appointed to the Government's Board of Examiners (in the Chinese language) in 1901 where he had got to know Sir Cecil Clementi (Governor 1925-1930), since Clementi too was appointed an examiner in Chinese language in 1902. Wells was still an adviser to University of Hong Kong’s new Faculty of Chinese in 1930, after his retirement as a missionary.
He helped establish the Hong Kong & New Territories Evangelization Society and was active in the Hop Yat, Wanchai and Shing Kwong Churches, and in Union Church. His long service as pastor in charge of the Hong Kong & New Territories Evangelisation Society’s churches in the New Territories, from Tai O in Lantau to Yuen Long, Tsuen Wan and Taipo, had culminated in his appointment as the London Missionary Society’s Senior Missionary in 1926, a post from which he finally retired in 1929. More interesting to my line of research, he was a noted supporter for years of the only indigenous HK Chinese attempt to emulate the western style missions to seamen, the Chinese Christian Mission to Seamen, founded by the Hainanese/Singaporean/British Rev. Tan Bockjock (I've never found his name in Chinese) in 1933, which struggled on, never really lifting off, until 1971.
Wells was on the committee of Nethersole Hospital. He led the founding of the New Territories Agricltural Society (which had annual shows, in 1927 and again in 1928 in the gardens of Sir Robert and Lady Ho Tung’s Sheung Shui villa (now the Lady Ho Tung Welfare Centre, having been gifted to the government for that use in 1934): both were on the Reverend Wells’ organizing committee) until, I think after the war (someone may remember better detail).
During WW2 Wells and his second wife, Florence (I have no details of Florence J Wells, save her name, and don't know when they married or where) were both interned in Stanley, where he was noted for having continued to give Cantonese lessons to fellow internees throughout because was a fluent Cantonese speaker and, as noted, also literate in Chinese.
His abilities as a Chinese linguist led to what was probably his longest lived memorial, his several basic Cantonese language teaching books including Cantonese for everyone: a simple introduction to Cantonese (1929); The Book of Changes and Genesis (English and Chinese) (1930); Commercial conversations in Cantonese and English (1931); Chinese official documents and petitions (1931); An English-Cantonese Dictionary (1931); Gods, ghosts, devils: stories of Chinese life and beliefs (trans) (1935) and in Chinese 訂正粤音指南 (Ding zheng Yue yin zhi nan (Cantonese pronunciation guide)) (1930). (I owe my understanding of H.R. Wells’ long career in Hong Kong to discussions with HKU's Dr Peter Cunich.) Throughout the 1930s his Cantonese lessons were a regular feature on RTHK's predecessor, ZBW.
Both Wells and his first wife Mary, who had died aged 39 in 1903, are buried at Happy Valley. After his death, Well's second wife, two sons and three daughters subsequently lived in Britain, where Mrs Wells died, aged 83, in Sevenoaks in 1953.
Best,
Stephen D
Wells
I need to update and correct - and introduce an interesting oddity.
I made a mistake about who was in Stanley with HRW. It was indeed his second wife, but she was not called Florence. He had married Eliza Stewart (1870-), a Scot from Breswick in Ayrshire, who was a fellow missionary. In addition to three of the children from Wells' first marriage, in 1905 Mrs Wells added a daughter, Winifred Alice. According to the BAAG list Mrs Eliza Wells was who was in Stanley with HRW. She had set out from London in November 1939 to rejoin her husband, so was evidently with him at the fall of Hong Kong.
Now here is the oddity. Their daughter Winifred Alice evidently went to university in Britain once she and her mother (and initially HRW) had returned there in 1924 (to 64 Fordel Rd., Hither Green, London SE6). By 1931 Winifred Alice was a BA, was living in Bermuda and was a teacher, but it would seem as a teacher working as part of the household of a Mr J.C. Dunn, with whom (and three other female employees) she travelled on the SS Colombia via the Panama Canal to Los Angeles, whence to Santa Barbara, in that year. There is then a gap until the narrative resumes in Lewisham (next door to Hither Green), where she gets married to a Herbert James Wood, a university teacher of some sort, affiliated to King's College London. They travel together to New York in 1934 where Mr Wood was to spend a year in some sort of deal with the Rockefeller Foundation. In the 1939 General Register both are back in Britain and living in Bristol, Mr Wood still giving himself as a university lecturer and WAW giving herself as a 'private teacher'.
Now, at some point before July 1940 - I have no idea what occasioned it - Mrs Wood wrote a Brief History of Hong Kong (at 278pp not so very brief), which in July 1940 was, technically at least, published by the South China Morning Post. There is, however, no mention at all of the work in pre-war editions of the SCMP.
I have no firm evidence, but my hunch is that wartime somehow derailed things and, although printed (1,000 copies), the book was not distributed but (I'm guessing) was stored somwhere. That hunch is because barely had the Brits reappeared in HK, with the military administration running things, between 24th and 29th September 1945, and only then, advertisements for Winifred A. Wood's book appear in the South China Morning Post and Hong Kong Telegraph. It is otherwise still born - I have found no reviews or other mentions either at the time or later (though it does appear in bibliographies here or there and one second hand bookseller opines that it is based on E.J. Eitel's 1895 history).
The only other possible - but only vaguely possible - thought I have is that the book may have been related to the 25 January 1941, Centenary Supplement the South China Morning Post published as part of that day's newspaper.
I haven't a clue what happened to Mrs Wood or her husband - the faint trail I have peters out in Bristol in 1939. Although I know what happened to Herbert Richmond Wells, I do not know Mrs Eliza Wells fate for certain either despite my confident earlier assertion that she died in Sevenoaks in 1953. From the probate record, where she is noted as the legatee, she clearly survived her husband (she was 6-7 years younger than him) but beyond that the records are ambiguous.
If anyone does have further and better particulars, I should be delighted to learn of them.
StephenD