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Recent Posts
- Guest blog: Yutong Wang on Policing urban ‘nuisance’: slum clearances in ‘semi-colonial’ Shanghai in the 1930s
- Some that got away
- Guest blog: Alex Thompson on British Law and Governance in Treaty Port China
- Guest blog: Andrew Hillier on Armistice Day and its Aftermath in Treaty Port China
- Guest blog: Kaori Abe on the Abe Naoko Collection –– a glimpse of a Japanese family’s life in Shanghai, c.1927-c.1934
- Guest blog: Ghassan Moazzin on Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China
- Guest blog: Helena Lopes on A connected place: Macau in the Second World War
- Andrew Hillier on Bessie Pirkis: A Renaissance Woman in Peking Part 2
- Guest blog: Rachel Meller on Uncovering the story of Shanghai’s Second World War Jewish refugees
- Andrew Hillier on Bessie Pirkis: A Renaissance Woman in Peking
- Need and opportunity: the new HPC website
- Everything’s changed, but everything’s still the same: HPC update
- Location/Dislocation – Admiral Keppel, the Chinese Buddha at Sandringham and three key photographs
- The Forbidden City at War: Images of the Wartime Evacuation of the Imperial Art Collections
- A name, a photograph, and a history of global connections
Categories
Author Archives: Andrew Hillier
Guest blog: Andrew Hillier on Armistice Day and its Aftermath in Treaty Port China
As we approach the 105th anniversary of Armistice Day, Andrew Hillier considers the significance of the ceremony in treaty port China and for Chinese people today. Held at the Cenotaph in Victoria Park, Tianjin (Tientsin), the Armistice Day parade was … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged cenotaph, Consular Service, diplomat, First World War, May Fourth Movement, memorial, Shanghai
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Andrew Hillier on Bessie Pirkis: A Renaissance Woman in Peking Part 2
Concluding his overview of the recently digitised Pirkis Collection, Dr Andrew Hillier digs further into these 400 cartes de visite to consider what the collection tells us about the legation world and the European presence in Peking more generally during … Continue reading
Posted in Collections, Family photography, History of photography in China
Tagged British in China, Cartes des Visite, Chinese Maritime Customs Service, Consular Service, Legation, Robert Hart
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Andrew Hillier on Bessie Pirkis: A Renaissance Woman in Peking
A recent approach to HPC revealed a treasure trove of material relating to life in the British Legation, Peking, in the 1870s and early 1880s, but, as Dr Andrew Hillier explains, making sense of the photographs can be a challenge. … Continue reading
Posted in Collections, Family photography, History of photography in China
Tagged British in China, Cartes des Visite, Chinese Maritime Customs Service, Consular Service, Legation, Robert Hart
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‘Normal’ Lives Led in Abnormal Conditions
Dr Andrew Hillier shows how a recently- discovered collection of photographs shines a spotlight on the importance of family in treaty port China in the early twentieth century. On 12 April 1899, Edith Sarah Sharples and Walter James Clennell were … Continue reading
Posted in Family photography, New Collections
Tagged British in China, children, Consular Service, marriage
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A disturbing intimacy: The Private Papers of C. C. A. Kirke
Andrew Hillier discusses a diary, a photograph album and a memoir which, between them, provide a fascinating insight into consular life as well as showing how such materials can be used for exploring histories of intimacy and the emotions. The … Continue reading
Posted in Family photography
Tagged Consular Service, diaries, family albums, family history, women
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The Five Faces of Dr Walter Medhurst, D.D.
Andrew Hillier considers how five portraits of the London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary, Walter H. Medhurst (1796-1857), one of which can be found on HPC, made over the course of his career, were used to maintain connections and promote the … Continue reading
Posted in Family photography, Guest blogs, Photographers, Uncategorized
Tagged Medhurst, missionary, portrait, Sillar
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‘A Miniature World’: Photographs and Memories of Internment in China
Drawing on his own records and images from the Historical Photographs of China platform, Dr Andrew Hillier, author of Mediating Empire: An English family in China 1817-1927 (2020) has posted a number of blogs here and elsewhere about his family. In … Continue reading
Tagged Heritage, internment, Pacific War, Qingdao, Second World War, Weixian
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A Banker and his Amanuensis
Andrew Hillier draws on the Richard Family Collection in Historical Photographs of China to evoke the moving relationship between Guy Hillier and his young amanuensis, Ella Richard. Andrew’s book, Mediating Empire: An English Family in China, 1817-1927, is published this … Continue reading
Posted in Collections, Family photography, Guest blogs
Tagged Beijing, Hillier, Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, Richard family collection
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Weihaiwei and the 1st Chinese Regiment – 2. Peking and After
In the second of his two posts, Dr Andrew Hillier traces the history of the 1st Chinese Regiment, from its performance in the relief of Tianjin to its disbandment six years later. Despite its record at Tianjin, to the dismay … Continue reading
Posted in Collections, Guest blogs, Regimental Collections
Tagged army, China Campaigns, memorial, military, regiment, soldier, war, Weihai, Weihaiwei
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Weihaiwei and the 1st Chinese Regiment – 1. Relieving Tianjin
As part of the Regimental Museums Project, Dr Andrew Hillier explores photographs reflecting the short but significant contribution of the 1st Chinese Regiment to Britain’s military presence in China. Raised in 1898 to protect the Royal Navy’s newly-acquired deep-water base … Continue reading
Posted in Collections, Guest blogs, Regimental Collections
Tagged army, China Campaigns Project, military, soldier
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