Sex
Female
Status
Deceased
Wife of John Fleming, Chief Accountant of Lowe, Bingham & Matthews. Their marriage took place in Hong Kong on 7 July 1927. Mrs. John Fleming is referred to in the diary entry of George Gerrard 10 April 1943 as being in Toronto, but I'm not sure that this is the same person. I had thought that Kitty Fleming and her children had stayed in Scotland during the war. John Fleming himself was interned in Stanley, having returned alone from home leave according to my recollection. The Flemings had three children, Elizabeth, Marion and Quentin.
Comments
Catherine (sic) Baillie Fleming nee Strong 1894 -
Scotlands People
STRONG Catherine Baillie 7 1894 687/34 Glencorse Midlothian
Mrs John Fleming in Toronto?
Thank you, annpake for finding Katharine Fleming's birth date. "Scotland's People" is a wonderful resource. Is there any record of Katharine, Catherine or Katherine Fleming traveling to Canada with her children around 1940-41 that you can trace?
Catherine Baillie Fleming nee Strong and family
Sadly records of arrivals in Canada only recorded to 1935. However, from Passenger Lists arriving at Vancouver, Victoria and Pacific Ports
Passenger List Tourist Passengers Embarked at Hong Kong 26 February 1935
Katharine (sic) Baillie Fleming 40 born in Scotland
Marian Fleming 4 born in Victoria Hong Kong
Jo?? [unreadable] Fleming 2 born in Victoria Hong Kong
[The whole section relating to the Flemings is almost unreadable]
Tourist Passengers Embarked at Shanghai March 3rd 1935
Katharine Fleming 6 born Victoria Hong Kong
Canadian Immigration Service Records
Visitors and First Timers Sailed from Greenock 5 October 1935 Empress of Bedford
John Fleming 43 Chartered Accountant born Penicuik Scotland. In Transit ex Vancouver 19 October 1935. Proceeding to 293 The Peak Hong Kong via Vancouver
Katherine B Fleming 40 born Glencoe Scotland In Transit
K. Eliz. (sic) Lockhart Fleming 6 born Hong Kong In Transit
Marion (sic) Lyndesey (sic) Fleming 4 born Hong Kong In Transit
John A Quentin Fleming 1 born in Hong Kong In Transit
John Fleming's family during the war
Thank you for checking up on this. I'll try and find out elsewhere if Fleming brought his family back to Hong Kong in 1939.
John Fleming & Catherine Baillie Fleming nee Strong family
Public Ancestry Tree
Marriage 24 June 1919 Edinburgh John (Ian) Fleming & Catherine Baillie Strong
John Fleming 27 May 1891 Penicuik Midlothian - about 1873 Transvaal South Africa
Katherine Elizabeth Lockhart Fleming March 1929 Hong Kong - 14 December Bonnyrigg Midlothian
Marion Lyndsay Fleming 12 December 1930 Hong Kong - 26 July 2017 Glasgow Lanarkshire
John Andrew Quentin Fleming 31 January 1934 Hong Kong - 17 July 2006 Edmonton Canada. Departure for Canada 17 August 1940
Andrews Cards Death 8 March 1952 Katharine Baillie Strong of 36 Morningside Place Edinburgh beloved wife of John Fleming C.A. late of Hong Kong. [Death records in Scotland use wife's own surname as well as her husband's]
Passengers to Canada 1940
Passenger List Liverpool to Quebec and Montreal departing 17 August 1940
Elizabeth Fleming age 11 C.P.R.
Marion Fleming age 9 C.P.R.
Quentin Fleming age 6 C.P.R.
5,118 children came to Canada under non-governmental arrangements in 1940, and 1,532 under a government scheme. They were officially known in Canada as British Guest Children. Other British child evacuation for the period was 1,306 to Australia, 470 to New Zealand, 1,473 to South Africa, and 2,928 to the United States.
The Fleming children travelled on the Duchess of Atholl Canadian Pacific line departed Liverpool 17 August 1940. Destination port Montreal. Their intended future permanent residence is shown as Canada.
I have double checked the passenger list. Catherine Fleming was on the same voyage age 45 address C.P.R Glasgow and her intended future permanent residence is shown as Hong Kong. She is not listed with her children.
Evacuation of British Guest Children
That's very interesting - and surprising. Clever you to find this! I don't think this part of the Fleming family story has been documented. Quentin was young to send away. My own cousins, aged 11 and 12, left Hong Kong with their mother in 1938 after the invasion of Canton. They stayed in England with her for the duration of the war.
CORB Children evacuated WWII
A good overview of the CORB program is in the book The Absurd and the Brave, by Michael Fethney. It includes as Appendix XIV, a list of “The CORB children who arrived safely in the Dominions.” Separate lists are given for Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa bound children. For each child the CORB number, surname, first name, age at registration and home town are listed. They are given in “ship batch order” but without information on the date of departure or ship on which they sailed.
https://www.johndreid.com/ww2-british-child-evacuees-to-canada
Mothers joining evacuated children?
That's a useful reference text. It occurs to me that Kitty Fleming might have gone to Canada together with Mrs Penn and Mrs Young (also wife of an accountant) to be with their children. Here is the relevant passage from Gerrard's diary of 10 April 1943:
" Bob Young got a letter on Tuesday from his wife in which she said that she and the children had left Victoria for Toronto. I think both for the kiddies education and company. Also Mrs John Fleming And Mrs Penn had gone there too. "
Penn family
Patricia Penn, whose father, Harry became a POW https://gwulo.com/node/13793 mentions "getting stuck in Canada" when her mother was trying to get back to Hong Kong with her two children. I assume her mother is the same Mrs Penn referred to by Gerrard. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
Hong Kong families "stuck in Canada"
This account by John Penn, Harry Penn's son, expands on the circumstances as to how he and his sister got stuck for 18 months in Canada with his mother, presumably with the Flemings and the Youngs. It chimes with Gerrard's 1943 account of them going to Toronto from Victoria.
"John Penn continues that we were on leave in the UK in 1939, and upon the outbreak of war in Europe, AHP returned to HK. We (my mother, my sister, Patricia, and I) followed in 1940, proceeding trans-Atlantic because of the war. We got as far as Vancouver when the evacuation of HK commenced and, as a result, we were stuck in Canada. After 18 months in Victoria, we moved across to Toronto and the first news that we had of our father was when HKDF member, Benny Prouxl, escaped from camp and reached Canada in 1943. We returned to the UK by convoy in January 1944, and AHP got back to the UK in December 1945, having stayed on to get the office up and running again."
The account is published by the Royal Hong Kong (Volunteers) Regiment
https://www.rhkr.org/history/memory/lambert.htm