I recently found a document in a bundle of papers I was given that had once belonged to a senior scholar in the field of modern Chinese history. With a covering letter dated 13 August 1956, it’s a 20 page packing list detailing the contents of seven crates of the documents of the Shanghai office […]| Robert Bickers
My work has often considered questions of memory and history making, and of forgetting. A correspondent’s query nudges me to return to my files about a small case study of this that I very briefly mentioned in my book The Scramble for China, but had notwritten up more fully: one of the Shanghai International Settlement’s […]| Robert Bickers
The tweet included an eye-catching image, and a mystery. I have since found this photograph of Lully Goon in over 50 north American and European newspapers, but there will have been more. She was ‘Un succès féminste en Chine nationaliste’ for Le Petit Journal, her tale growing grander as it echoed further and further: she […]| Robert Bickers
On 18 June 1842, Queen Victoria recorded in her journal an unusual afternoon’s visit: … we drove with Uncle, the Cousins, &c riding to see a Chinese Collection belonging to a Mr Don [sic], who made the collection, in order to have it exhibited in aid of Charities. The profits made, are to be applied […]| Robert Bickers
Not that Chairman, but Henry John Howard Tripp, Chairman of the Shanghai Recreation Club in 1897. A long-time resident of Shanghai, where he worked as agent for the Mitsui Bishi Company (having previously lived in Japan), Tripp was a keen (if apparently not brilliant) sportsman, a sometime jiujitsu practitioner, and an energetic chair who had the […]| Robert Bickers
I’m talking this Sunday evening in Hong Kong, 8 November, as part of the wonderful Hong Kong International Literary Festival. To find out more check out the Festival website, starting of course with Past Perspectives: China Bound 太古集團乘風破浪 I’ll be talking about China Bound, and the story of nineteenth and century globalization that I found […]| Robert Bickers
Over on my Department’s blog, I recently answer a few questions about my new book China Bound, what I’m working on next, and my favourite close-to-campus food outlets. Featured Historian: Robert Bickers| Robert Bickers
Over on Historians at Bristol I’ve posted a short note on my search for the University of Bristol’s first Chinese graduate. It took me to Paris, New York, Beijing, and back to Bristol, or, to be precise, Horfield. Looking for Chan Ching Yau: the first Chinese undergraduate at Bristol| Robert Bickers
Over the last couple of years I have been working with colleagues to transfer some of the scattered sets of biographical information that I have developed during research projects over the last two…| Robert Bickers
As a historian, I dwell in the past in more ways than one. Unlike some of my peers, I remain curious about stories once told, and as new resources come online, or I visit new archives, I will in qu…| Robert Bickers
