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- Permanent Link:
- https://digital.soas.ac.uk/LOAA006334/00001
Material Information
- Title:
- Diary, 1929 - London, Paris, Holland, Berlin, Switzerland and Scotland
- Series Title:
- Diaries
- Creator:
- Addis, Charles, 1861-1945 ( Author )
- Publication Date:
- 1929
- Language:
- English
Notes
- General Note:
- Preparations for and attendance at the International Conference on Reparations in Paris as British financial expert on the Young Plan and subsequent establishment of the Bank for International Settlements. The daily record of events at the Paris conference is brief, outlining the progress of formal and informal negotiations and also mentioning social engagements and theatre and concert visits. On his return to London Addis resumes Bank of England duties as well as attending Wireless and Cable meetings, Boxer Indemnity discussions and visiting the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) and the Foreign Office. He also continues to go to Paris for Bank of Morocco meetings and to Berlin for Reichsbank meetings and to include notes on social life and family affairs. JANUARY 'Busy in the city - Reparations - Wireless Merger - League of Nations Gold Committee - Manchuria and finally Ernest Franklin who talked till 5 p.m.', 7; longstanding problem of chairman of the Imperial and International Communication Company settled with the appointment of Sir Basil Blackett; to Foreign Office to discuss Boxer Indemnity; to Berlin. FEBRUARY Attends Committee of Treasury meeting on increase in the bank rate and the failure of the British Italian Bank; to Paris with Revelstoke, Norman and Sir Josiah Stamp, statistician, for Reparations Conference, Addis appointed to meet the press; many formal and informal meetings, also concert and theatre visits. MARCH In Paris, visit from wife; brief return to London for Bank of England, Foreign Office and Cable board meetings; to Berlin. APRIL Son Tom starts new employment in insurance; Addis in Paris with 'Experts in a fine tangle', 6; to Berlin. MAY In Paris where 'Tempers are running high and nerves getting ragged', 22; agreement reached at end of month. JUNE Return to London; Committee of Treasury. Bank of England court and Tuesday Club meetings and visits to the Foreign Office especially about the Boxer Indemnity; 'to 10 Downing Street where we [Stamp and Addis] were heckled for a couple of hours on the Young Plan report by the Prime Minister', 25.JULY Working on the organisation of the Bank for International Settlements; also at meetings of the Royal Institute of International Affairs on China, the Committee of Treasury, Wireless and Cable, British and Chinese Corporation (B&C Corp.)., the Court of London University; purchase of first car; son-in-law Dan Bernard to be on London Committee of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC); to Hartrigge, Scotland for family holiday. AUGUST At Hartrigge; to Berlin; to the Hague, Holland for meeting on Reichsbank law. SEPTEMBER At Hartrigge 'six letters from Norman in little over a week. What a holiday', 6; return of son Charles; continuing work on Reichsbank law and the Bank for International Settlements; to the Hague, Amsterdam, Berlin and Baden-Baden for meetings on the establishment of the Bank for International Settlements.OCTOBER In Baden-Baden for formal and informal meetings, dinners, concerts and the theatre; visit from wife and four children and some sightseeing. NOVEMBER In Baden-Baden 'it is a mercy how I keep well working almost incessantly 15 hours a day. But we are making progress and that is the main thing', 4; in London meets Jun Ke-chou, representing the Chinese railway minister, 'He is all talk and no substance, like so many of these western educated Chinese', 19; to Paris and Berlin. DECEMBER Continued discussions on the Bank for International Settlements; to Paris; Committee of Treasury meeting, 'The air is full of impending trouble. We at the Bank will have a lot to do in saving and rationalizing derelict concerns.' 18.
- General Note:
- VIAF (Name Auhtority) : Addis, Charles, 1861-1945 URI : http://viaf.org/viaf/25400384
- General Note:
- Summary: In addition to documenting Charles Stewart Addis's role as a leading financial adviser and negotiator, the collection gives an important insight into the development of international finance and monetary policy. It comprises diaries kept by Addis (1881-1945); correspondence with his family, colleagues and friends including Alexander Michie (1886-1902) and Montagu Norman (1921-1943); business papers (1886-1945); speeches and articles (1880-1941); newspaper cuttings (c. 1860-1949) and photographs. Overall the papers are a valuable resource for those interested in European activities in East Asia in the late 19th Century; international diplomacy and banking, especially the activities of the International Banking Consortium for China; British monetary policy between the Wars; war-debts, reparations and the Anglo-American relationship; central banking co-operation and international exchange.
- General Note:
- Admin history: Charles Stewart Addis was born in Edinburgh on 23 November 1861, the youngest son of the Reverend Thomas Addis, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy. Between 1876 and 1880 he worked for Peter Dowie and Co., Grain Importers of Leith. In 1880 he joined the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) in London. In 1883 he was posted to Singapore, then to the HSBC head office in Hong Kong. In 1886 he became one of the first western bankers to reside in Peking [Beijing, China], when he was posted there as Acting Agent. During this time, he also began his experience as a writer when he was invited to contribute material to the Chinese Times by its editor, Alexander Michie. After Peking [Beijing], Addis undertook assignments in Tientsin [China] (1889), Shanghai [China] (1889-1891), Calcutta [Kolkata, India] (1891) and Rangoon [Yangon, Myanmar] (1892). While on home leave in 1894 Addis met and married Eba McIsaac, the daughter of the Provost of Saltcoats, a small town in Scotland. They were to have thirteen children. Following his marriage, Addis was posted to Shanghai. He was appointed Agent in Hankow [Wuhan, China] (1896), Calcutta [Kolkata] (1897), and served as Sub Manager in Shanghai (1898 and 1900). In 1905, he was appointed to the HSBC London Office as Junior Manager and also to the Board of Directors of the British and Chinese Corporation and the Chinese Central Railways. In 1908, he received his first official government appointment as British Censor of the State Bank of Morocco, a post he held until 1944. In 1911 he was appointed Senior Manager of the HSBC London Office. From 1912, he began his work to bring competing national banking syndicates together to form the Six Power China Consortium, transforming the policy of competition for loans to one of co-operation. The height of the Consortium's success came in 1913 when it issued a Reorganisation Loan to Yuan Shih-Kai's Republican Government. The British Government awarded Addis's efforts with a knighthood in that year. In 1917 he was appointed to the Cunliffe Committee on Currency and Foreign Exchanges After the War. In 1918 he became Director of the Bank of England, and in 1919 a member of the Bank's Committee of Treasury upon which the Governor of the Bank of England relied for advice. In that year he was also appointed to the Council of the Institute of Bankers and the India Currency Committee. In 1920, he served on the War Relief and China Famine Relief Committees, and visited New York to organise the Second China Consortium, which included banking groups from the USA, France, Japan and Great Britain. He was awarded a K.C.M.G. in 1921. In that year he retired as London Manager of the HSBC, but continued as Manager of the British Group of the China Consortium and Director on the Boards of the British and Chinese Corporation and the Chinese Central Railways. He was also elected President of the Institute of Bankers. In 1922, he was appointed Chairman of the London Committee of the HSBC, and attended the British Alternate Genoa Conference as the British financial expert. In 1923, he became Chairman of the Exchange Committee, Imperial Economic Conference. In 1924 he became a member of the Montagu Mission to Brazil; was appointed to the Colwyn Committee on National Debt and Taxation; gave evidence to the Chamberlain-Bradbury Committee and was appointed British representative on the General Council of the Reichsbank. In 1925, he served as a member of the China Advisory Committee, Boxer Indemnity, and in 1926, on the US Debt Committee. In 1929 he was the British Delegate on the Committee of Experts for Reparations in Paris. In 1930 he was appointed Vice-Chairman of the Bank for International Settlements, and also attended meetings of the Cabinet Economic Advisory Sub-Committee on China. He retired from the HSBC London Committee in 1933, and in the same year became a member of the Royal Commission on Canadian Banking. In 1944 he resigned as Manager of the British group of the China Consortium and from directorships of the British and Chinese Corporation and Chinese Central Railways. He died at Frant, Sussex on 14 December 1945. Further reading: Dayer, Roberta Allbert, Finance and Empire, Sir Charles Addis 1861-1945 (Macmillan Press, Hong Kong, 1988)
- General Note:
- Acquisition: Donated to SOAS Library 1981-1983.
- General Note:
- User restriction: For permission to publish, please contact Archives & Special Collections, SOAS Library in the first instance
- General Note:
- Published catalogue: Williams, Margaret Harcourt, Catalogue of the Papers of Sir Charles Addis, (SOAS, 1986). A copy of this list (albeit lacking box numbers) is in the Access to Archives (A2A) section of The National Archives website.
- General Note:
- Related material: Associated Material at SOAS: Addis, John Mansfield: correspondence with his father Charles Stewart Addis [ref. PP MS 25 / 1-9]. Associated Material held elsewhere: Correspondence and papers (1915-1945) held at the Bank of England Archive Section, Archive Section HO-G, Threadneedle Street, London [ref. ADM16]; HSBC Group Archives, HSBC Holdings plc, Level 36 (GCQ), 8 Canada Square, London E14 5HQ. This archive contains correspondence generated by Addis within the files of semi-official letters originating from the London Office. Also contains a photographic collection with pictures of Addis as a member of the Bank staff; Correspondence between J.O.P Bland and Addis (1906-1908) are held at the University of Toronto Library, Toronto, Canada; India Office Records, British Library. Material concerning currency and banking matters from Addis's period as London Manager 1905-1921, is kept in the Finance files, for example see IOR L/F/7/21, L/F/8/71; Public Records Office, Kew, Surrey. China files from the Foreign Office, the Treasury and the Colonial Office contain material on Addis. Correspondence and papers of Robina Scott Addis are held at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine: Contemporary Medical Archives centre [ref. PP/ADD]. For details of other collections containing material on Addis, see Williams, Margaret Harcourt, Catalogue of the papers of Sir Charles Addis, (SOAS, 1986).
Record Information
- Source Institution:
- SOAS University of London
- Holding Location:
- Special Collections
- Rights Management:
 This item is licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative License. This license allows others to download this work and share them with others as long as they mention the author and link back to the author, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.- Resource Identifier:
- PP MS 14/001/047 ( SOAS archive reference )
PP MS 14, Box 3 ( ORDER WITH REFERENCE )
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