My family’s roots in China began in Foochow. 

My great grandfather William Leyland Hunter arrived there from Manchester England on April 16, 1865. He was employed as a tea inspector with the W R Adamson Co. After 1874 when the company became Adamson Bell my great grandfather struck out on his own as an independent merchant.

At least one of his four children, my great aunt May Hunter, is said to have been born there. It’s told that her British passport showed Foochow as her place of birth. It’s possible that some or all the other children were also born there but changed their place of birth so as to obtain the better standing of one born in Hong Kong which was a Crown Colony.

The name “Choy” attributed to my mystery great grandmother (Anne Hunter, alias Goot Choy or Kot Choy) is more common in Fujian Province.

In 1865 the population of Foochow was about 600,000 of which about 200 were European, American or other non-Asians. It was a treaty port that dealt primarily with the export of tea. 

Today, Fuzhou is a thriving metropolis of more than 7 million people with it seems little connection or interest in times gone by. Locating any records there appear to be all but impossible. I’m hoping this blog might stir a memory or uncover a dusty old photo or document.

The Diocesan Boys School (DBS) was a boarding school/orphanage that began about 1870 in Hong Kong. While it did take in orphans, it was also a paid tuition school for the ex-pat community. I found my grandfather on the list of students for 1883. He’d have been just 6 years old. When I contacted the DBS archivist he told me that children were not admitted that young, but I thought, how many Toby Hunters, age 6, could have been living in Hong Kong in 1883?

A link to the School register on Gwulo.com: https://gwulo.com/node/44277

 There is a listing for a J. Hunter on the rolls in 1889. This could be the elder brother James.

 Thomas Cock, who became my great aunt May’s husband,  shows on the rolls in 1889 and again in 1893. Tom Cock had a brother-in-law, Henry Bridges Endicott who was with Endicott Ships Chandlery and then Augustine Heard/China Navigation. Henry was married to Tom’s elder sister Mary Cock who was born in 1865, also in Shanghai

 May Hunter also shows in on the school rolls for 1893 ( this could have been a separate school for girls )

 It’s probable that this is where our families became connected. Tobias could have introduced his sister May Hunter to Thomas Cock.

 It’s also possible that Tobias met his future wife Maud Thomson at the school although she does not show on any student list. It’s possible she attended the Diocesan Girl’s School.

 Another student who was at the school at the same time as Tobias Hunter and Tom Cock was Harry Hastings, who also attended in 1889 and remained friends with Tobias Hunter.

Harry Hastings went to Canada in 1913 and later moved to Victoria. He had a brother Robert who married in Victoria, BC and moved to Duncan, BC. Harry and my grandfather apparently kept in touch. Harry Hastings became prominent in the fight for rights in the local Chinese community of Victoria. 

As for the age of my grandfather when he was sent to the school as a boarder, I attach a reference from a letter he wrote to my mother.

 

 

I’ve found something in common with the names above.蔡 Cài, which  is apparently not a widely used name in China overall, being something like 41st usage, but in Fujian Province, as Choy it becomes 7th. As one moves south, the name changes to Choa and in Malaya it is more widely spelled Chua. Is there a connection? Who knows, but I’m at a point where I don’t rule out anything.

One other item on the subject of the Choy name and that’s this old Carl Smith card listing people living on Shelley Street.

Carl Smith Card for Shelley Street

When my great aunt Emma Hunter passed away in 1933 her funeral was posted in the newspaper. It seems to have been a well attended affair and as there were a list of attendees, I thought I might find a clue among them.

 

 

 

J. D. Bush, I discovered, lived at 9 Shelley Street and was from a well respected American family who had also grown roots in China. Like my great uncle James Hunter, James Daniel Bush was also a teacher. He died in 1939 and is buried at Happy Valley Cemetery.

 

Lastly were the two Fathers, Maestrini and Alessis. The former was well known and passed away at 98 in Italy in 2006. A further clue may be in my mother’s 1928 Diary where there’s a mention of the “two fathers” being on their ship, when they returned to China from school in England. Could it have been the same pair?

A change of tack. When I keep drawing blanks in my search for relatives, I turn to the neighborhood, the street, and the people who lived nearby for clues.

Shelley Street was in the heart of a what was a very interesting and multi-racial part of Hong Kong. There were Europeans, Portuguese, Chinese, and Indian along with a smattering of other ethnic groups.

The homes were, from what can tell, quite upscale for the times. The Club Lusitano was situated there as well as the Mosque and Parsee club. The map below shows the ethnic make-up of the area. My family lived just above had property Staunton but the actual 11 Shelley Street seems to have been close to Hollywood Road.

The Club Lusitano was on the corner of Shelley Street and Elgin. it is Pechili on the opposite side of the street.

As can be seen, the Parsee Church was located at 11 Shelley Street at one point, though likely just temporarily until more permanent facilities could be obtained or built. 

The family name “FOK” is shown below. This is a simplified text version.

This is an explanation of the name I received from a friend: 

Both Fok and Huo refers to  the same Chinese surname 霍 only the spelling for Cantonese ( especially those hailing from Hong Kong ) and Huo for Mandarin.The complete name is typical for females and is a popular name.

It seems there were four children fathered by William Leyland Hunter during his time in China. My grandfather Tobias and his sister May I knew first hand as they were both alive until 1970. My grandfather I saw regularly until he passed away here in Vancouver, Canada. Sadly, during his final two years he was confined to a care home, having suffered a stroke that left him unable to walk to to speak. 

His sister May died soon after in England, but my mother and I had lived with her in Vancouver when we fist arrived in Canada in 1947. We paid frequent visits to her while she lived in Vancouver so I can vouch for her relationship as my mother’s aunt ( my great aunt )

My great uncle, George Hunter, I never met, but my mother spoke of him often and told many stories of life in China that involved him in some way. Letters from my grandfather made numerous references to George and I know he worked for my grandfather in Shanghai. What I did NOT know, was the details of George’s family life; that he had married, or that he had children. It was only in about 2005 that my mother’s sister mentioned George. She said there was a “rumor” that he had twin boys!That began my search and eventual discovery of his granddaughter Diana in England. I subsequently found a record of George’s death in Shanghai in 1955 that had been recorded with the British Consulate.

So, that brings me to “James Hunter” During my entire life I don’t recall there ever being a mention of James or his family. My first knowledge came from the “Anna Hunter, alias Kot Choy” death notices, where James was listed as the eldest of the four children. Further search produced newspaper clippings of his wife’s death in 1933, and photos of their graves. The obits mentioned their daughter Ellen and the now familiar address of 11 Shelley Street, Hong Kong.

There are virtually no records of James in Hong Kong other than his death. He was said to have been a retired teacher. There’s no record of his marriage to his wife Emma or to the birth of their daughter Ellen. 

After WW2 in one of my grandfather’s letters, was a mention of Ellen, but at the time I came across it, I didn’t connect her. Now of course it makes more sense.

Ellen’s chop, Fok Shuk Wah

Ellen Hunter did indeed pass away in 1944, November 21st and was interred with her mother the next day at St Michael’s Catholic Cemetery in Hong Kong. She died as Ellen Hunter alias “Fok Shuk Wah” but what’s interesting is her father is shown as James Hunter alias “Fok Chi Sing” Her mother is Emma Hunter but has no alias.

In her probate the administrators were her adopted sister “Ip Fok Shi” nee “Fok Shuk Chun” 40 and “Woo Siu Ying” her step-mother who was 43 ( 3 years younger than Ellen ) To muddy the waters even further, the step-mother ” Woo” was the “concubine of Ellen’s father James Hunter” and Ellen herself was noted in the probate as “the deceased was a Chinese domiciled in Hong Kong”

So, was James Hunter actually a biological son of “Anne Hunter alias Kot Choy”? Remember the Baptism at St Peter’s Church, where James in listed at the son of William Leyland Hunter and is wife “Catharine” Was Anne Hunter the biological mother of any of them? Also Ellen and her mother were both buried at St Michael’s. James died before Ellen so why would she not have buried him with his wife? He’d been baptized as a Catholic and besides, non-Catholics could be still buried with their spouses or family members.

My grandmother Maud was a Thomson. Her father, William Mitchel Thomson was career military, having joined the Royal Engineers at 14 years of age. There were eight children in the Hong Kong family. Five were girls and three boys. Only the last two. Lilian and Fred were born in Hong Kong. The rest were born in the UK; my grandmother, in Aberdeen, Scotland.

One of the sisters ( Catherine ) married Jimmy Doyle, a captain on the SS Nile. About 1919 she became ill with Diphtheria and it was decided that the climate in Hong Kong wasn’t good for her. As her husband was at sea most of the time, it didn’t matter much where they made a home so he offered her a choice between Australia, New Zealand, Canada or San Francisco. As two of her sisters had already moved to the Bay area of California, it was an easy choice. In 1920 she loaded her family aboard the SS Nile and set sail for America.

Later in life Jimmy Doyle wrote a short synopsis of the family as he remembered it. While it mostly dealt with the Doyle and Thomson clan, he made the following reference to my grandfather, Tobias Hunter. While it’s not all true to the letter, the ethnicity estimate appears to have been quite accurate, as per this excerpt!

After what seems like irrefutable evidence that my mysterious great grandmother was “Anne Hunter alias Kot Choy” there is one more little snippet of evidence that can’t be ignored. 

A photocopy of a typed “Carl Smith card” from way back, that while clearly typed, it was bit difficult to make sense of.

I recently found a copy of the original Carl Smith notes taken from the records book. What it tells is that the baptisms were all at St Peters, the Seamen’s Church. When viewed along with all the other entries, the context becomes quite clear. The name of his father and mother are quite clear. “William Leyland and Catherine Hunter” Could this be the “Catherine” my mother listed on her father’s death certificate?

Surnames are all underlined.

What is still a mystery is “why would James Hunter get baptized at this point in his life?” He was 37 years old, already married, and had a 12 year old daughter ( born in 1899 ) Of note is the fact that his wife and daughter were both of the Catholic faith and James’ baptism at St Peter’s would have also been a Catholic rite, but when he died in 1937, he was buried at the main Colonial Cemetery at Happy Valley, whereas his wife who predeceased him in 1933 was buried at St Michael’s Catholic Cemetery. Their daughter who passed away in 1944 was interred with her mother at St Michael’s.