In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

1 The Leased Territory in 1898 1 In default of modern mapping, no accurate figures for the geographical composition of the New Territory in 1898 are available, but in 1960, before development overtook the area, they were reported to comprise 365.5 square miles, and to include 235 islands and islets.2 There was a similar lack of precision in regard to population. In an appendix to his Report to the Hong Kong Government, James Stewart Lockhart gave some tentative estimates, but they were no more than that, and, in retrospect, not very accurate: “There are,” he wrote, “no reliable statistics possessed by the Chinese Government of the present population of the San On district. No census appears to have been taken for many years.” His estimates were “based on inquiries of inhabitants of villages, and on personal inspection”.3 It was not until the 1911 Colony census that comprehensive figures were secured for the territory, with all villages and even the smallest hamlets included in the printed report. The total land population was then given as 94,246.4 PART ONE: RURAL SOCIETY David Faure defines the bases of local society in the opening statement of his book on village and lineage in the eastern parts of the New Territories, overall the most detailed account of settlement patterns in the Hong Kong region: Until urbanization came to the New Territories of Hong Kong, the area consisted of settlements made up of either a single group or several groups of people all of whom within the group traced their descent from a common ancestor. In the English literature, these settlements have usually been referred to as “villages” and groups tracing common descent as “lineages”. 6 The Great Difference He follows on with a detailed review of the complexities of these terms, as seen by himself and other scholars in the field.5 In this less specialized history, I shall be using them in their more general applications. There were a great many of both in the territory in 1898. The lineages ranged in size from those with several tens of members to some with several thousands. The villages were equally varied, but the greatest number of the New Territory’s seven hundred or more old villages (necessarily an approximation) had small populations of between fifty to one hundred persons.6 Many were single lineage settlements, large, medium and small, while others comprised a number of lineages living together; but in the extensive plains of the northwest, the largest lineages lived either in single village complexes, or their segments occupied similar complexes in a number of localities.7 Whatever their age, local settlements were tightly clustered, their houses packed inside walled villages or enclosed rectangles without walls; or else nestling in one or more rows against a rise or hillside, like “a flock of sheep huddled for safety against a hedge” as viewed by one visitor to China in the 1930s.8 Much of the rural architecture was defensive in nature. See Plates 3 and 6.9 Length of settlement was again varied. By 1899, the largest of the local lineages had been resident in the territory for almost nine hundred years, and many of the smaller ones for at least several hundred.10 Judging from family genealogies, they had been moving into the area all through this long time span, save during the early years of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty in the mid-17th century, when as in many other parts of the Chinese coastline, the inhabitants had been ordered to move inland to deny assistance to a persistent opponent of China’s new rulers.11 Until then, incoming migrants had been largely Cantonese or, like the local tribespeople, had assimilated over time to this dominant group. Thereafter, with official encouragement intended to offset population loss during the rigorously enforced evacuation, there had been an influx of Hakka speakers, with another big incursion between 1840 and 1860 from the East River district of Guangdong. By the time of the Lease, Hakkas would account for almost half the land population.12 Where land was vacant and unsettled, founding ancestors had been able to establish themselves without difficulty. By the custom of the county, they might find themselves having to pay rent to a resident or absentee owner of the sub-soil (or make such payments to a rising lineage extending its authority with or without some supporting title) but this was not, in itself, a major obstacle to occupation.13 Several...

Share