Friends of Sir Robert Hart
Mary Tiffen
Contents
The Author
Dedication
Foreword by Emma Reisz, Lecturer in Asian History, Queen’s University, Belfast
Carrall Family Tree
Map of China with Nineteenth Century British names and use of Pinyin Spelling
Contents
List of illustrations
Prologue
Links with the Past
The Hart Connection
Hart: Relations with Women, Family and Staff
The Victorian Family, Legal and Illegal
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Emma Spry Edwards Goes to China in 1853
Emma's Devon Parents
London and Emma's Marriage to a Wilcocks?
Widowhood and Remarriage
The China that Greeted Emma
The Whampoa Battles of December 1854 and March 1855
The Death of Buckton and the Arrow War
Marriage to Sampson, and Meeting Robert Hart
Chapter 2: Robert Hart Builds a Career in China and Hastily Finds a Wife
Hart’s Ulster Origins
Coping with a Strange World and Lovely Women
Ayaou
The Beginnings of Hart’s Customs Career
The New Inspector-
Courting Hester Bredon
Chapter 3: Theo Sampson and Emma
Sampson’s Early Life
The Coolie Trade
The Botanist
Canton society
The Teacher
Retirement and a Difficult Readjustment
Chapter 4. Emma Carrall and Hart’s Mid-
Emma Carrall’s Visit, 1875
Tensions with Hester — and Two Sets of Children
A Crisis of Political Loyalties, 1876
Hart’s Last Leave in Europe
His First Children during a Second Attempt at Married Life
Emma Carrall — the Sequel
Chapter 5: Jim Carrall Finds a Wife, and Almost Crashes His Career
School and School Friends
Starting Work
Leave and Marriage
Frances Meets Hart
Foochow (Fuzhou) and Jim Carrall Shows His Mettle
Background to the French Attack on Fuzhou, August 1884
The Battle
Thanks from the Chinese
Family Matters and Leave in England, 1887–9
Chapter 6: The Chefoo Schoolgirls and Sir Robert Hart
Chefoo and Shantung Province
Hart Contacts the Carrall School Girls
Schooldays Remembered
Winter Festivities, 1900
Chapter 7: Girls Growing up: the Boxer Rebellion
The Tientsin and Peking visits, Spring 1900
Chefoo in the Shadow of the Boxer Rebellion, Summer 1900
The Worst Day in Chefoo
Summer Holidays and the End of the Siege
After the Siege
Sir Robert’s Account of the Siege, and Letters Flow
Chapter 8: Girls Growing up: Romantic Upheavals, 1901–2
A Quiet Winter and Spring — but with some Sport
Rumours Abound and Reputations are at Risk
An Autumn Wedding
Romance in Shanghai?
Chapter 9: Death Strikes
Jim Carrall in the Winter of 1902
Scarlet Fever Kills
The Return to England
Illness and Financial Worries at Marseille
Another death
Chapter 10: The Girls Settle for Marriage
Arriving in a New World
Finding a Home
Kath Trains as a Teacher, and Muriel and Emily as Wives
The End of Kath’s Story
Changing families?
Chapter 11: Hart: the End
The Illegitimate Children in the 1890s
The Legitimate Children
The Truth Comes Out
The End of Hart’s Career
Hart and his Staff
Hart, Women and Family
A Personal Postscript
Acknowledgements, Notes and Sources
Bibliography