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Howqua
Wu Bingjian (; 17694 September 1843), trading as "Houqua" and better known in the West as "Howqua" or "Howqua II", was a hong merchant in the Thirteen Factories, head of the '' E-wo hong'' and leader of the Canton Cohong. He was once the richest man in the world. Biography A Hokkien by his paternal ancestry with ancestry from Quanzhou, Wu was known to the West as ''Howqua'', as was his father, Wu Guorong, the founder of the family business or '' hong''. The name "Howqua" is a romanization, in his native Hokkien language, of the business name under which he traded, "浩官" (). He became rich on the trade between China and the British Empire in the middle of the 19th century during the First Opium War. Perhaps the wealthiest man in China during the nineteenth century, Howqua was the senior of the hong merchants in Canton, one of the few authorized to trade silk and porcelain with foreigners. In an 1822 fire which burned down many of the cohongs, the silver that melted allege ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1843 Deaths
Events January–March * January 3 – The '' Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms'' (海國圖志, ''Hǎiguó Túzhì'') compiled by Wei Yuan and others, the first significant Chinese work on the West, is published in China. * January 6 – Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross discovers Snow Hill Island. * January 20 – Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná is appointed by the Emperor, Dom Pedro, as the leader of the Brazilian Council of Ministers, although the office of Prime Minister of Brazil will not be officially created until 1847. * January ** Serial publication of Charles Dickens's novel ''Martin Chuzzlewit'' begins in London; in the July chapters, he lands his hero in the United States. ** Edgar Allan Poe's short story " The Tell-Tale Heart" is published in ''The Pioneer'', a Boston magazine. ** The Quaker magazine '' The Friend'' is first published in London. * February 3 – Uruguayan Civil War: Argentina supports Oribe of Uruguay, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abiel Abbot Low
Abiel Abbot Low (February 7, 1811 – January 7, 1893) was an American entrepreneur, businessman, illegal opium smuggler and dealer, and philanthropist who gained most of his fortune from the China trade, importing teas, porcelains, and silk, and building and operating a fleet of reputable clipper ships. Early life Abiel Abbot Low was one of twelve children (eight sons, four daughters) of a Salem, Massachusetts, drug merchant, Seth Low. Abiel grew up attending public schools; became a clerk in the house of Joseph Howard & Company, a company engaged in the South American trade, and moved to New York with his family in 1829. There, Seth Low's pharmaceutical business flourished, importing drugs and India goods. China In 1833, Low sailed to Canton, China, and started working as a clerk for the mercantile house of Russell & Company, the largest American firm in China and also the country's leading American opium trading and smuggling enterprise. Founded by Samuel Russe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Houqua (clipper)
''Houqua'' was an early clipper ship with an innovative hull design, built for A.A. Low & Brother in 1844. She sailed in the China trade. Name ''Houqua'' was named in honor of the Canton Hong merchant Houqua, a long-time trading partner of the Low brothers who had died the year before the ship's launching. Houqua, (also spelled Howqua or Hoqua), was the most prominent Hong merchant of the day. He "was to take her delivery in China as a warship on behalf of the Chinese government. However, upon arrival, she was found to be too small, and so she spent her career in merchant service for A.A. Low. Construction The ''Houqua'' design combined the practical experience of an experienced sea captain with the mathematical insights of a leading naval architect of the time, John W. Griffiths. In 1843, the A. A. Low & Bros. representative in Canton, William Low, and his pregnant wife Ann had been passengers on a very slow and frustrating trip home from Canton with Captain Nathaniel Pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mansfield, Victoria
Mansfield is a town in the foothills of the Victorian Alps in the Australian state of Victoria. It is approximately north-east of Melbourne by road. The population of Mansfield was at the 2021 census. Mansfield is the seat of the Mansfield local government area. Mansfield was formerly heavily dependent on farming and logging but is now a tourist centre. It is the support town for the large Australia ski resort Mount Buller. It is associated with the high-country tradition of alpine grazing, celebrated in the film made around Mansfield, near the now famous Craigs Hut, called '' The Man from Snowy River'' (based on a poem by Banjo Paterson). History The traditional owners of the Mansfield region are the Yowengillum clan of the Taungurung people. They also inhabited Alexandra and the Upper Goulburn River. British colonisers began to enter the region in 1839 when Andrew Ewing (sometimes referred to as Andrew Ewan), a stockman representing the Scottish livestock company ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Eildon
The Eildon Dam is a rock and earth-fill embankment dam with a controlled spillway, located on the Goulburn River between the regional towns of and within Lake Eildon National Park, in the Alpine region of Victoria, Australia. The dam's purpose is for the supply of potable water, irrigation, and the generation of hydroelectricity. The impounded reservoir is called Lake Eildon.The first cut of ground was done by Mr Bain and Mr MacLean from Scotland. Location and features Designed by the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission of Victoria, construction of the original water storage, which was known as Sugarloaf Reservoir, took place between 1915 and 1929 to provide irrigation water for what was a vast uncultivated area on Victoria's northern plains. The original weir was modified in 1929, and again in 1935, to increase the storage capacity to . However, this reservoir was still limited in its capacity to meet the growing demand for water in the Goulburn Valley and to prote ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Chinnery
George Chinnery (; 5 January 1774 – 30 May 1852) was an English painter who spent most of his life in Asia, especially India and Northern and southern China, southern China. Early life Chinnery was born in London, where he studied at the Royal Academy Schools. His father was an exponent of the Thomas Gurney (shorthand writer), Gurney system of shorthand; his elder brother William Chinnery owned what is now Gilwell Park in Epping Forest in Essex, before he was discovered to have committed large-scale fraud, and fled to Sweden. George Chinnery moved in 1796 to Ireland, where he enjoyed some success as an artist, and married Marianne (née Vigne) on 19 April 1799 in Dublin. Career Chinnery returned to London in 1801 without his wife and two infant children. In 1802 he sailed to Madras (Chennai) on the ship . He established himself as a painter there and then in Calcutta (Kolkata), where he became the leading artist of the British community in India. By 1813 Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ewo (hong)
The ''Ewo Hong'' () was a Qing dynasty '' hong'' established by ''Wǔ Guóyíng'' () in Canton (Guangzhou) in 1783 and later became the leader of the cohong of the Thirteen Factories under the stewardship of Howqua, who took over in 1803. Ewo later became one of the most successful ''hongs'' and the largest creditor of the East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ..., whilst Howqua's personal monetary worth reached more than 26 million Mexican dollars. As a result of the ''Ewo hong's'' upright and honest reputation, Jardine, Matheson & Co. later adopted "Ewo" as the Chinese name for their firm. p.12Online version at Google books/ref> References {{China-hist-stub History of Guangdong Companies established in 1783 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cohong
The ''Cohong'', sometimes spelled or , a guild of Chinese merchants or ''hongs'', operated the import–export monopoly in Canton (present-day Guangzhou) during the Qing dynasty (16441911). During the century prior to the First Opium War of 1839–1842, trade relations between China and Europe took place exclusively via the ''Cohong'' – a system formalised by an imperial edict of the Qianlong Emperor in 1738. The Chinese merchants who made up the ''Cohong'' were referred to as (行商) and their foreign counterparts as (洋行，literally "foreign traders"). 1738 1738 1738 1738 1738 Foundation and structure In 1738, the ''Baoshang'' system was established. This system granted a number of Chinese merchants license to trade with Western merchants as long as they helped to collect duties from the Westerners, successfully aligning trading interests with the government's revenue collection. This was the predecessor for the later Cohong system. According to John Phipps, auth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Matheson
Sir James Nicolas Sutherland Matheson, 1st Baronet, FRS (17 November 179631 December 1878), was a Scottish opium trader and taipan. Born in Shiness, Lairg, Sutherland, Scotland, he was the son of Captain Donald Matheson. He attended Edinburgh's Royal High School and the University of Edinburgh. He and William Jardine went on to co-found the Hong Kong-based trading conglomerate Jardine Matheson & Co. that became today's Jardine Matheson Holdings. China and Hong Kong After leaving university, Matheson spent two years in a London agency house before departing for Calcutta, India and a position in his uncle's trading firm, Mackintosh & Co. In 1807, Matheson was entrusted by his uncle with a letter to be delivered to the captain of a soon-to-depart British vessel. He forgot to deliver the missive and the vessel sailed without it. Incensed at his nephew's negligence, the uncle suggested that young James might be better off back in Britain. He took his uncle at his word and went ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1769 Births
Events January–March * February 2 – Pope Clement XIII dies, the night before preparing an order to dissolve the Jesuits.Denis De Lucca, ''Jesuits and Fortifications: The Contribution of the Jesuits to Military Architecture in the Baroque Age'' (BRILL, 2012) pp315-316 * February 17 – The British House of Commons votes not to allow MP John Wilkes to take his seat after he wins a by-election, on the grounds that he was an outlaw when standing. * March 4 – Mozart departs Italy, after the last of his three tours there. * March 16 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville returns to Saint-Malo, following a three-year circumnavigation of the world with the ships '' La Boudeuse'' and '' Étoile'', with the loss of only seven out of 330 men; among the members of the expedition is Jeanne Baré, the first woman known to have circumnavigated the globe. She returns to France some time after Bougainville and his ships. April–June * April 13 – Jam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hong (business)
A hong () was a type of Chinese merchant establishment and its associated type of building. Hongs arose in Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) as intermediaries between Western and Chinese merchants during the 18th and 19th centuries under the Canton System. Canton (Guangzhou) The name "hong" () originally referred to the row of factories built outside of the city walls of Canton near the Pearl River. The Thirteen Factories were used during the Canton System period to host foreign traders and the products purchased, under the aegis of the '' cohong''. The hongs (or Factories) were usually owned by hong merchants such as Pan Zhencheng (also known as Puankhequa). The Cantonese hongs changed location several times after fires and became less important after the First Opium War (18391842), as Canton lost its monopoly of foreign trade and Hong Kong was ceded to the British as a colony. Hong Kong In Hong Kong, the name ''hong'' is used to designate major business house ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thirteen Factories
The Thirteen Factories, also known as the , was a neighbourhood along the Pearl River in southwestern Guangzhou (Canton) in the Qing Empire from to 1856 around modern day Xiguan, in Guangzhou's Liwan District. These warehouses and stores were the principal and sole legal site of most Western trade with China from 1757 to 1842. The factories were destroyed by fire in 1822 by accident, in 1841 amid the First Opium War, and in 1856 at the onset of the Second Opium War. The factories' importance diminished after the opening of the treaty ports and the end of the Canton System under the terms of the 1842 Anglo-Chinese Treaty of Nanking. After the Second Opium War, the factories were not rebuilt at their former site south of Guangzhou's old walled city but moved, first to Henan Island across the Pearl River and then to Shamian Island south of Guangzhou's western suburbs. Their former site is now part of . Terminology The "factories" were not workshops or manufacturi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
