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- Permanent Link:
- https://digital.soas.ac.uk/ATF0000024/00001
Notes
- General Note:
- Holographic manuscript
- General Note:
- This letter bears the name W. H. Lay
- General Note:
- This copy sent to H. Charles Wilkinson on May 29th 1896
- General Note:
- Yantai, previously known as Chefoo, is located in present day (2020) Shandong province
- General Note:
- Chefoo was designated a treaty port by Treaty of Tientsin 1859
- General Note:
- Thomas Tierney Fergusson founded the trading firm of Fergusson & Co in 1861 following the establishment of a treaty port at Chefoo [Yantai]. Until 1889 he traded alone but then went into partnership with John Pender Wake. According to Frances Wood, author of No dogs and not many Chinese: Treaty port life in China 1843-1943 , "Chefoo was never much of a trading port, with only four foreign trading firms (three of them British) active in 1891, shipping beancake, vermicelli, peanuts, silks, hairnets, lace and fruits." During his time in Chefoo Fergusson was a staunch supporter of the Catholic St Mary's Church and of the Catholic Mission there. Fergusson went on leave to England in 1889, dying there unexpectedly, on 22nd November 1890. The firm Fergusson & Co continued under new ownership for a number of years but Fergusson's property was managed through agents in China, first by his widow, Anna Fergusson and, after her death, in 1908 by his daughter Anne Marie Madeleine, wife of Admiral Sir Charles Henry Coke. During Lady Coke's life the property was sold off in various lots, the last being sold in 1940.
Record Information
- Source Institution:
- SOAS University of London
- Holding Location:
- Special Collections
- Rights Management:
- All applicable rights reserved by the source institution and holding location.
- Resource Identifier:
- MS 380715 ( SOAS manuscript number )
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