What is my family’s faith?

This is a subject that may be better left alone, but alas, that’s never been my style. I’m just too inquisitive by nature so let me begin back in early 1800s England. My sources are as secure as one can get, with documentation, written items from newspapers, the testimony of living relatives and the help of a professional genealogist. 

I’ll start with my great, great grandfather, John Hunter as that is where my story begins ( at least for the purpose of this entry )

John Hunter was a Quaker, a member of the Friends at Barrow Wife, Height, Yorkshire.

Friends Meeting House at Barrow-Wife

The tree actually goes back further, to his father James and his father, another John, but it gets far too repetitive. I believe James Hunter actually resided at the meeting house pictured above. So, for argument’s sake, we had at least three generations of Quakers, the fourth being my great grandfather William Leyland Hunter, hereinafter called “WLH” and the gentleman responsible for our Asian links.

I’ll assume for now that WLH was also a Quaker, or at the very least a Non-conformist.

So in 1865 WLH sets sail for China and in the bustling city of Foochow, with 600,000 Chinese and about 100 Europeans, he begins his new life.

Short version; the next 15 to 20 years fly by. WLH takes a friend, has 4 children, returns to England, marries Ellen Johnston, has two more children and dies! All this is accomplished before he turns fifty.

The next sign of faith is the marriage of May Hunter, the youngest  of the China born children, which takes place at St John’s Cathedral in Hong Kong, Mar 15, 1903. St John’s is Anglican.

The next to marry was George Hunter, who married at Wortley, Leeds, at St John the Evangelist, Jan 11 1909. This is also Anglican

The next to marry was my grandfather, 6 years later at St Andrews Church, Kowloon, Apr 15, 1909. St Andrews in Anglican

The remaining son, James Hunter, I assume was also Anglican, however there is no record of his birth or marriage. He did however marry a Catholic, and was baptized as a Catholic himself at age 37, on Dec 22, 1911. James and his wife Emma had a daughter, Ellen, born in 1899 who was raised a Catholic. James was buried in the non-Catholic cemetery at Happy Valley and his wife and daughter are both interred at St Michael’s Catholic Cemetery, in Hong Kong.

Then a change of faith took place! Around 1911 grandfather joined the Christian Science Church. It seems that CS arrived in Hong Kong about the time my mother was born. So why the switch? My grandfather and grandmother had lost a daughter in 1910, and another in 1913. Did their church not supply the comfort they needed during this troubled time? What or who influenced the change?

So my whole life, the family as I knew it, was Christian Scientist, and good ones at that. As a youngster I was taught CS and I went to Sunday school at local CS churches. My grandfather, my mother and her sister all practiced the religion and were firmly ensconced in it’s doctrine. Over my first twenty years I never questioned their beliefs, although by the time I married and had a family of my own, I’d long given up on formal religions. Only since looking into the history of my family, have I come to wonder about the whys and wherefores of faith. 

Throughout all this shuffling of religious affiliations it’s easy to forget the mysterious Anne Hunter alias Kot Choy. She was a Catholic. The family residence at 11 Shelley Street, Hong Kong was hers home and on the land registry as such from the late 1800s. She lived there always from what is known. Her son James and his wife also lived there. Their daughter Emma lived there. All of them died there. I would think they were all Catholic with the possible exception of James, but even he eventually converted, possibly only for the sake of household accord.

So in 1903 after her marriage to Tom Cock, May moved north to Shanghai. Her brothers George and Tobias moved to Kowloon and the eldest, James stayed at the family home on Shelley Street. After WW1, my grandfather moved his family again, joining his brother in law in Shanghai. Each had their own religious affiliations. 

Recently I’ve wondered more about the Christian Science part. It seemed to spark to life in the 1800s, blazed for a century and was popular and well viewed. Their newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor was well respected as an unbiased source of reporting. Today, CS has fallen from grace and many of it’s imposing churches are now being demolished. I’m sure it’s  be partly due to being mistakenly confused with Scientology and other cult-like followings. In any respect, CS numbers have definitely diminished. 

Follow the money!  It seems that way back in the day, the CS Church had a strong core following of well to do business people. Banking, insurance and shipping companies executives; mechanical and electrical engineering firms owners, all had a firm footing in this new church. Was CS a religion that brought social and economic advantages to it’s members? Was that it’s raison d’etre?

Two weeks prior to May Hunter’s marriage in 1903, Anne Hunter alias Kot Choy transferred a property on Shelley Street from her name as sole owner, to a trusteeship between herself and her daughter May. On her death in 1937 this property should have passed directly to her daughter May. 

On Jan 31, 1937, Anne Hunter alias Kot Choy did indeed pass away. This event should have left a single trustee for this property; May Cock, nee May Hunter, daughter of the deceased.

Anne Hunter alias Kot Choy died intestate. My grandfather Tobias Hunter and his sister May Cock, who both lived in Shanghai at he time, petitioned for administration of the estate. 

There is no mention of the Shelley Street property in the following liquidation of assets nor in the letter of disbursements. May Hunter was a co-administrator, so she was active in the process.

There was another property owned by Kot Choy that formed part of the estate; 4 Moreton Terrace, the property that first brought my attention to any of this. 

Letters of administration were duly granted and they went about the winding up of her affairs. Funeral expenses were paid, and various legal disbursements made and the Moreton Terrace house was sold in 1939. The proceeds of the sale was held in hopes of better exchange rates between Hong Kong and Shanghai dollars. Sadly this proved to be a poor choice and considerable value was lost. 

Still, there was money left so in Sept 1940 a 1/4 share was split between my mother and her sister. The other three, quarter shares, I’m not sure about as they had obviously been disbursed a year earlier.

James was dead so anything due to him would have presumably gone to his daughter Ellen, who remained living at the Shelley Street residence until her death in 1944. Everyone else was back in Shanghai now, except my mother’s sister Nora who was working in Kuala Lumpur. So who shared in “G’s” estate? Maybe just the boys, George and my grandfather as May had been taken care of by the Shelley Street property she got in the trust?

This brings me back to the Shelley Street property, originally held by Kot Choy at a value of $6250 in 1899 and transferred to the trust Mar 31, 1903.

*Note: May this is where May’s sole ownership of the property should be recorded? Just sayin’

The next transaction is a transfer to “Wu Siu Ying” on Mar 2, 1961 and registered June 9, 1961. In case anyone missed it, “Wu Siu Ying” is Ellen Hunter’s step-mother. She was aged 43 when Ellen died and was the concubine of her father, James Hunter ) The co-petitioner for Ellen’s estate was her adopted sister, “Fok Shuk Chun” 

This transaction to “Wu Siu Ying” is marked as a “deed of gift” with no value shown.

A year later, in Sept, 1962 this property changes hands again to “Chen Shui Ling” with a value of $73,000.

And finally a year after that, in July of 1963 it goes to “Leung Yu Yee” with a new value of $232,000. 

What happened to the trust?

Below is one of my favorite mystery photos. Of the four people pictured, I know just one. The man on the left is my grandfather. I’ve posted this picture many times before, on Facebook pages and any website I can find that might take a crack at it. 

What I’ve come up with so far is, the car looks to be a 1933 Austin A10 and the location is Hong Kong. There is a Royal Hong Kong Auto Club badge on the front bumper. The building probably no longer exists and no one seems to recognize it. Unfortunately the license plate is blocked and also the side of the car so we can’t tell if it’s a two or four door, but probably the latter.

My guess ( hope ) is that the other three people are my grandfather’s brother James far right, with his wife Emma in the long coat, and their daughter Ellen. If I’m correct about the year, they were all still alive but Emma Hunter died in June of that year so the photo must have been early spring. Their ages would fit; with Tobias Hunter 56, Emma Hunter 56, Ellen Hunter 34, and James Hunter 58. Further investigation revealed that my grandfather, who at that time lived in Shanghai, had rented out his home there in order to do some traveling. My mother had married in Oct of 1931 and was on a home leave with her husband to the USA and England. My aunt, who had been living in the big house in Shanghai, had taken a job with the Rubber Institute in KL, Malaya, so there was little need for the large space at the Columbia Circle home.

If anyone has any photos that might help identify this building, and of course, any of the three people other than the one on the left, then please, please, please let me know!

For the sake of argument, I mean ethnicity as referring to one’s race or ethnic origin, such as Caucasian, Asian, Indigenous etc and nationality, meaning one’s country of citizenship, either by birth or by naturalization.  

An example would be an ethnic Chinese, born in the United States would have an American nationality but still be ethnically Chinese. Likewise, an ethnic caucasian born in China to English parents who had been born in China, would always be of caucasian ethnicity but could be Chinese by nationality. 

Emma Hunter

James Hunter

This brings me to my case in point. I have three separate death certificates; father, mother and daughter, all members of the same family. Under the heading “Rank or profession and nationality so far as is known” we have a father and mother listed as British and their daughter as Chinese. Note,  they ask for nationality and not race or ethnic origin. 

Ellen Hunter

Both parents had passed away prior to WW2 so neither of them were on the rolls of the Stanley Camp internees, but neither was their daughter. She died at the family residence, 11 Shelley Street in November, 1944. Hong Kong was under Japanese occupation and control from Christmas of 1941 until almost a year past her death. Why was she not interned during this period? Was she exempt because she was ethnic Chinese? If she was caucasian and  was born in 1899 in Hong Kong she’d have “British” status, especially if both her parents were British. Even if her grandmother ( Anne Hunter/Kot Choy ) was full Chinese, she’d have only been 25%. If her father was like his brother, one quarter Chinese, then she’d only have been about 12%. Would this amount have been enough to save her from Stanley Camp?