Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/524



MR. W. V. DRUMMOND, of Lincoln's Inn, barrister-at-law, who holds the position, under the Chinese Government, of Chief Law Officer for Foreign Affairs in the southern ports of China, has a record of voluntary public service which, in many respects, is unique. He has lived in China for nearly forty years, and throughout the whole of that time he has studied local and imperial affairs connected with the Far East so closely that he is now a recognised authority. This special knowledge he has placed at the disposal of his country on more than one occasion, and, in return, has received the warm acknowledgments of two Secretaries of State. Born in London in 1841, Mr. Drummond is the son of the late Rev. James Drummond, at that time of Highgate. He was called to the Bar in 1870, and, after practising in Hongkong for two years, came to Shanghai, where he has taken the greatest interest in municipal and social matters. During the last thirty years he has been closely associated with numbers of Chinese officials, has entertained many of them, exchanged views with them on current topics, and so kept abreast of the trend of thought among the governing classes of the Empire. In 1889, at the request of the Viceroy, Mr. Drummond formed a committee to raise money in all parts of the world for the relief of distress in the famine areas in China; and of this committee, which collected about £50,000, he became chairman. During the Chino-Japanese War and the Boxer outbreak, Mr. Drummond proved a mine of information to the British Minister in China, and his services were so highly valued that on each occasion he received the thanks of the British Government through Lord Kimberley and Lord Salisbury. The Emperor of China also conferred upon him the Order of the Sapphire Button, of the Third Rank, and last year he was presented with the Red Button of the Second Rank, the second highest rank in China as a Mandarin. In politics Mr. Drummond is a strong supporter of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and is a vice-president of the council of the Liberal Unionist League, a member of the Tariff Reform League, the Liberal Unionist Association, the Liberal Union Club, and the British Empire League, as well as of several London clubs. Mr. Drummond is also the founder and chairman of the Perak Sugar Cultivation Company, Ltd., and the Kalumpong Rubber Company, Ltd., two very large companies carrying on business in the State of Perak in the Malay Peninsula, all the capital for which was raised at Shanghai. He owns and lives in a fine residence, standing in its own ornamental grounds, on the Siccawei Road.



MR. EDWARD JENNER HOGG, who has the distinction of being the doyen of foreign residents in Shanghai, may be said to have taken, indirectly, a larger share than any other man in the work of developing the Settlement. He has seen it grow gradually from comparative insignificance to its present proud position of commercial supremacy, and, far from being merely an interested onlooker, he has been actively concerned in many of the industrial enterprises, the success of which has brought this transformation about. Born in Cheshire in 1838, Mr. Jenner Hogg was educated privately, and came to Shanghai as early as 1857 to join the old firm of Lindsay &amp; Co., which had been established many years previously by former servants of the East India Company. He remained with the firm, in which his brother was a partner, until 1860, when he and his brother commenced trading together on their own account. In 1870 Mr. Hogg practically retired from business, but he has remained upon the directorate of several of the most important local industrial and development companies, and is, at the present day, chairman of the Land Investment Company and of the Shanghai Gas Company. He has always played a prominent part in the social life of the Settlement. He was one of the original "makers" of the racecourse; a foundation member of the Country Club; an officer of the old "Rangers," now the Light Horse; and was at one time Consul for