Category Archives: user engagement

French Men of War at Pagoda Anchorage, Foochow, 1884

In this, the first of a series of posts by undergraduate finalists in history at the University of Bristol, Nicholas Barker reflects on a tense moment caught in a seemingly quiet image. The stillness of this photograph masks a brutal … Continue reading

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Andrew Hillier on Images of War and Regimental Memory

Following a recent visit to the Royal Hampshire Regiment Museum in Winchester, Dr Andrew Hillier discusses the rich resources that are available in such museums and their importance to the study of imperial history. There are well over one hundred … Continue reading

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Found object

Some of the photographs and negatives we are presented with are beyond salvage, but it can be worth persevering. The following episode has no China connection, but perhaps indicates what might be done with any seemingly hopeless case. It is also … Continue reading

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Spotted: James Hudson Taylor

A correspondent recently wrote to us, correcting a date and identifying in a photograph  two of the China missionary enterprise’s most notable figures. This photograph, above, showing staff and pupils of the Chefoo Girls School includes, we now know, James Hudson … Continue reading

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Andrew Hillier reflects on Three Brothers in China: Visualising Family in Empire

Having just completed his PhD at Bristol, ‘Three Brothers in China: A Study of Family in Empire’, Andrew Hillier is now working on developing it  into a book. On 12 May 1846, Eliza Medhurst set off by boat from her family … Continue reading

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Our China spies

We have been attempting to persuade a friend of the project, author Adam Brookes, former BBC Beijing correspondent, to pen a note to mark the paperback publication of his second novel, Spy Games. If you have not read it, you … Continue reading

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Fu Bingchang's Diaries

One of our star photographers is Chinese diplomat Fu Bingchang (1895-1965), who pursued with fairly equal vigour all his life his activities as a diplomat, photographer, diarist, and lover. Excepting the diaries these facets of his life are fairly well … Continue reading

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‘So this is fame’! Margot Fonteyn in China

Today sees the unveiling by the blog’s colleague Ronald Hutton of an English Heritage Blue Plaque at the flat in London’s Covent Garden where Margot Fonteyn lived when Prima Ballerina of Sadler’s Wells Ballet. The blog knows her better as Peggy Hookham, … Continue reading

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Jon Chappell on burning opium in Nanning

A guest blog from Jon Chappell, who recently secured his PhD at the University of Bristol, on ‘Foreign Intervention In China: Empires And International Law In The Taiping Civil War, 1853-64’. Jon is currently working on a British Inter-university China Centre … Continue reading

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David Bellis on Warren Swire’s second visit to Hong Kong, 1911-12

In this, the second of a series of blogs, David Bellis explores the photographs taken by G. Warren Swire on his trip to Hong Kong in 1911-12. Because John Swire & Sons was headquartered in London, each year one of the … Continue reading

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