A Voyage to War: An Englishman's Account of Hong Kong 1936-41

By Hugh Dulley

Hugh Dulley's father (Peter Dulley) and mother (Therese Sander) met in Hong Kong on New Year's Eve 1935. Four years later at the outbreak of war Peter, a weekend sailor, was called up in the Hong Kong Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He eventually graduated to commanding an ocean-going tug of 500 tons from Hong Kong to Aden. En route he called at islands still enjoying pre-war peacetime and navigated across the Indian Ocean using a sextant. In July 1940 Therese, who was eight months pregnant, was evacuated from Hong Kong to the Philippines, where Hugh was born. They then travelled to Australia after a short stop in Hong Kong, which was to be the last time she saw Peter. Collected here is Peter's correspondence to Therese over a period of six years. Edited and condensed by Hugh, it paints a unique and often humorous picture of life in Hong Kong in World War 2. It is published to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Hong Kong.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Uniform
• Release date: Nov 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781911604044

Hugh Dulley

Hugh Dulley was born in the Philippines in 1940, and subsequently evacuated to Australia for the duration of WW2. He followed his father to Westminster School and rowed at Henley. Most of his career was in NHS management. He holds an MA in Applied Psychology, which proved valuable later for researching, writing and editing papers in the NHS, and latterly studying history and archaeology. He has revisited Hong Kong and Australia on a number of occasions.

Book preview

A VOYAGE TO WAR

AN ENGLISHMAN’S ACCOUNT OF HONG KONG 1936 – 41

Taken from the original correspondence by Peter Dulley Written and edited by Hugh Dulley

To Peter and Therese

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Preface

Foreword

Introduction

Personal Timeline

Map of Hong Kong in the 1930s

Map of Journey to Aden and Back

Map of the Mediterranean

Map of the Chinese Coastline

1 Arriving in Hong Kong in the 1930s

2 A Whirlwind Romance

3 A Long Distance Engagement and a Trip to Shanghai

4 Making Plans for the Bride’s Return

5 The Wedding and the Honeymoon in the Philippine Islands

6 Hong Kong

7 Hong Kong in Wartime

8 The Evacuation to the Philippine Islands

9 Planning the Return to Hong Kong

10 A Sad Departure

11 Preparing for the Voyage

12 The Voyage to Aden

13 Life in Aden

14 The Return Journey

15 The Last Few Months

16 The Japanese Threat

17 The Invasion

18 Epilogue

Appendix I: The Glossary

Appendix II: Place Names Old and New and Abbreviations

Appendix III: List of Names Mentioned in Letters

Appendix IV: Exchange Rates

Appendix V: Press Statement on the Evacuation – October 1940

Appendix VI: HWM Dulley’s Ships

Appendix VII: The Crew of St. Aubin

Appendix VIII: The Jardine Matheson Archive

Appendix IX: Letters from Internees of the Japanese Camps in Hong Kong

Bibliography

Index

Copyright

A Voyage to War – An Englishman’s Account of Hong Kong 1936–41

On Sunday 7 December 1941 the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club was hosting a regatta and preparing for lunch when news of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong broke. Many members of the Club were killed or wounded in the subsequent fighting while those who survived became prisoners of war or, if civilians, interned.

Lieutenant Commander Dulley went missing, presumed killed in action, sometime between 7 and 25 December 1941. As a keen sailor and Olympic oarsman he had been a very active member of the Club for over 10 years, winning the Commodore’s Cup twice, the Cruiser Championship, the Illingworth Cup and the Long Harbour Race as well as coming second in the Macau Race.

To this day, the Club commemorates the important role played by Peter Dully and all those who volunteered for service with the Hong Kong Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (HKRNVR), by running a pursuit race, in which sailor compete for the HKRNVR Memorial Vase.

We are proud to be recognising the sacrifices that these volunteers made and are honoured to have been asked to show appreciation for their efforts on our behalf in this book.

Mark Whitehead

Commodore

Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club

May 2016

Foreword

There is a special poignancy in reading a story whose ending you already know. I first came across Lieutenant Commander Hugh ‘Peter’ Dulley’s name some thirty years ago. I knew him as one of a number of men who lost their lives at a house called Postbridge. At that time I knew nothing else about him; I didn’t even know where Postbridge was.

I even wrote about him, just a few words in a book I composed about the battle of Hong Kong. And then years later, when studying for my PhD about the evacuation of British women and children from Hong Kong to Australia in 1940, I came across his name again. Then I learned about his wife and as yet unborn son, and their break of journey in the Philippines where that son would be born.

Now, with this book, we have the chance to understand more about the family. Why Peter was in Hong Kong, how he met his wife, their romance and life together for a few short years before war came. And that of course is the poignancy; this was years before I was born, yet I am considerably older now than they were then. They were two young people trying to start a family at a time when much stronger forces were turning the world to war. In that experience, of course, they were far from being alone. And this just adds to the impact of their story. It speaks for thousands, in fact hundreds of thousands, of other ordinary people at that turning point in history.

So in essence it is a sad story, and yet an inspiring one. They did their best, though Peter would be killed and his wife left widowed and looking after young Hugh (the editor of this work) alone. Like many other ladies in that situation, she managed. She had little choice.

For Lieutenant Commander Dulley, and many of his comrades, December 1941 in Hong Kong marked the end. His body was never identified after the war. It may still be hidden somewhere in Wong Nai Chung Gap where he fell, though more likely he is lying in one of the many graves in Hong Kong marked only ‘Known Unto God’. That was Rudyard Kipling’s phrase, applied to all unknown British and Commonwealth graves ever since, originally including his own son John who was lost in the Great War.

So, in the absence of an identified memorial, this book will suffice – with a granularity of detail and personality that three words carved into stone could never reveal: Here lies Lieutenant Commander Hugh ‘Peter’ Dulley, in his Voyage to War.

Dr Tony Banham

Hong Kong, May 2016

Introduction

Producing this book has been a hugely interesting and rewarding journey. I now feel that I have come to know my father (Peter) and to admire his letter writing, with all the illuminating insights into his life in Hong Kong. He took letter writing very seriously and allowed plenty of time, so that the result was a well-crafted letter. In preparing this book I had an advantage in that my mother (Therese) had told me stories about pre-war Hong Kong, and I know the Dulley and Davidson families well, both past and present.

The aim of this book was to make these letters on pre-World War 2 Hong Kong available to all who might be interested, so that they did not just lie in some archive, possibly never to be seen again. They provide a vivid picture of the social history of Hong Kong at the time and also life in the Hong Kong Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in the lead up to the Japanese invasion. My main objective has now been achieved and I hope that the reader will be drawn into accompanying Peter on his journey.

It seems a long time ago but then the British Empire still ruled a large part of the world, those parts coloured in red in a school atlas, and many thought it would continue to do so. The invasion was to mark the beginning of the end of the British Empire. Hong Kong was a very different place to the modern, vibrant international city of today; it was even called sleepy by some. Many of the differences are well known, such as Hong Kong is no longer part of what was the British Empire, but has now reverted to being part of China, which then was a far cry from the major power it is today. It is hoped that this book will show the other differences.

As Tony Banham says in his Foreword, the Dulley’s fate was sadly not unique in Hong Kong or for that matter much of the rest of the world. World War 2 had an enormous impact on all, the men going away to war and many families having to leave their homes or to suffer enemy bombing or both. We have all been fortunate in living during a period of over seventy years without another World War, so it is hard to understand the sheer scale of the trauma created at the time.

I have added some additional chapters to the letters. Chapter 1 was written to cover what is not in the letters, which were written to Therese, Peter’s wife, who had lived in Hong Kong in the 1930s, so did not need a description of life there. For most this will not be the case as they were not living in Hong Kong in the 1930s or may not have been to Hong Kong. The introductory chapter also places Peter’s letters in context. Chapter 16 has been added to explain the Japanese threat to Hong Kong from 1936–41. Chapter 17 covers the invasion from Peter’s point of view and Chapter 18 brings the story to a conclusion following Peter’s death. Every effort has been made to ensure that these chapters and all the footnotes are historically correct, but if there are any errors, then I apologise to the reader in advance.

Chris Munn, who was then in the Hong Kong University Press, offered me one of the most important and delightful pieces of advice – ‘no matter how interesting the letters are they should be halved in length’. Remarkably this was achieved by removing duplication, information that would have been of no interest to the reader, and summarising some topics in the first chapter. A few colourful remarks and some short pieces that were not really part of the main story were also cut out. The letters to Therese are the main core of the book and other letters have been deleted where they duplicated information, apart from the letters written during the voyage to Aden, which have been amalgamated to provide one text.

I have read many books on Hong Kong’s history and carried out searches on the internet over the last five years. The object of the book was to publish the letters and the rest fits around them. There may be more detailed accounts of various subjects, but it was considered that what was required was an adequate explanation of the letters and life in those times, rather than an in-depth one.

The letters were written between 1936 and 1941, seventy-five to eighty years ago and naturally they reflect those times, which were very different to today. Events and comments need to be judged by early 20th-century standards and then compared with the 21st. It is on this basis that some pieces have been left in, which might otherwise have been deleted. As an observer we bring our own values to judge a situation; the values of today are very different to those of Hong Kong in the 1930s.

Of the many people I would like to thank for helping me with this enterprise, I wish to mention first my cousin, Mary Beal. She has given me a substantial amount of her time and we have had many valuable discussions. She also carried out some very useful research, drawing on a lifetime’s experience as an art historian. She advised on the format of the text and footnotes and carried out the original proofreading. She transcribed all the letters to other members of the family and the letters of condolence written to Therese. She believed in Peter’s letters and her support gave me confidence to complete the book.

Mary introduced me to Amelia Allsop of the Hong Kong Heritage Project and, through her, Chris Munn of the Hong Kong University Press, both of whom provided valuable advice on publishing.

I am also very grateful to Tony Banham, who wrote the definitive book on the invasion of Hong Kong, Not the Slightest Chance: The Defence of Hong Kong, 1941, on which I drew heavily for the chapter on the invasion. He has sent me many very helpful emails along the way and very kindly agreed to write the Foreword to this book, which I feel is perfect and really gets to the heart of the story. I would like to thank Mark Whitehead, Commodore of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club for writing a thoughtful Preface to the book and thereby providing a link to the Club’s past members, Peter and Therese and their friends.

My thanks to the Grieve family, Elizabeth Henderson and James Grieve, whose parents were great friends of Peter and Therese in Hong Kong, for their support and loan of photos and other material. The Davidson family for their interest and encouragement. Charles Moore, my old Australian friend, who has provided me with various insights on the Far East and Australia. The many people along the way who have given me advice and support, including Owen and Sally Bryant and my local walking friends and wives. Jardines, for allowing me to search their archives at Cambridge University. The archivists at the Imperial War Museum, London, the National Archives and at the Jardine Archive for all their help.

My thanks to Lucy Duckworth and her team at Unicorn Press, particularly Vivian Foster, for all their help, advice and ideas, the end product of which has been this quality book.

My daughters Kath Hipwell and Lou Carpenter and their husbands Simon and Ben for all their support and advice on some key issues and letting me draw on their advertising, research and IT skills.

Finally I would like to thank my wife Barbara for all her encouragement, support, advice, proofreading and many other things. In addition, for her ability to interpret Peter’s handwriting, using the skills she has developed over many years of reading doctors’ handwriting and finally for putting up with the many hours I have spent on the book.

This book is to be published shortly before the 75th anniversary of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong and I hope that it will in a small way help to commemorate all those who were in Hong Kong at the time of the invasion.

Hugh Dulley

August 2016

Personal Timeline

Hugh William Macpherson Dulley 1903 –1941 (Known as Peter)

CHAPTER 1

Arriving in Hong Kong in the 1930s

‘To port lay the Island itself, with the hills coming down to the sea, but there were many promontories, on some of which were attractive houses set well apart, their white walls shining in the sun, their red or green roofs setting the seal on spacious comfort. The coastline was jagged, interspersed with sparkling sandy beaches on which the deep-blue water gently lapped … We passed the fishing village of Shau KI Wan, teeming with junks and sampans … Some were busy drying fish and others doing chores aboard their vessel.’¹

Peter Dulley² looked out from the deck of the Rawalpindi and, like many before him, felt he had arrived in a form of paradise and so it would be for the next nine years. There was no hint of the final role he would play in the year of the centenary of the founding of the Colony in 1941. Peter stood there enjoying the moment. He felt very happy about his decision to turn his back on a life in the City of London and the commute to work by train each day.

The last couple of years had been busy. He had decided after his return from Chile, where he worked for a mining company, Gibbs & Co., to go overseas again. From enquiries with friends, it was suggested he apply to Jardine Matheson in the City of London for a job overseas. He may have read of the Far East³ and been drawn by its mystique, the opportunity for adventure and the offer of a different career and lifestyle. Companies recruited British middle class men for careers in the Far East; they came from the public schools and were imbued with the idea of service.⁴ Selection depended on the interview. They particularly wanted sportsmen and those with some experience of leadership through being a school prefect or being in the Officer’s Training Corps.⁵

The selection process may not have proved a hurdle; however there were demands made by companies then. It was made clear to recruits that marriage before the end of the second tour of service was not considered appropriate, and permission had to be sought.⁶ Peter, however, married half way through his second tour but at thirty-three would have been older than many.

Hong Kong Island from the Harbour

Then there was the clothing that had to be purchased for those warmer climes. In Hong Kong’s case there was the need to have both summer white suits and warmer winter clothing; it was a time-consuming task. Tropical kit lists were provided with the names of colonial outfitters. Friends and relatives who had lived in those parts provided advice, for example to buy only formal articles of clothing at home and purchase the rest from Chinese tailors and shoemakers in the Far East.⁷ The Straits Settlements sola topee was regarded as essential protection for Europeans in the tropical sun; however by 1937 they were scarcely worn as the users found them cumbersome.⁸

The normal means of transport to Hong Kong then was by ship. Therese Sander, Peter’s future wife, took something over a month from London to Hong Kong via the Suez Canal in 1936. During the voyage her ship would need to stop possibly twice to refuel with coal. There was real drama in sailing to distant places. They were often unknown, their cultures totally different and the venture took weeks. The great shipping lines were the P&O,⁹ which was rather grand, the Blue Funnel, the Glen Line, the BI¹⁰ and the Bibby Line. They took passengers to all corners of the Empire.¹¹

The departure was made more memorable as passengers would be away for four years by the 1930s. The docks had an atmosphere all of their own, old brick warehouses, tall, grey steel cranes and railway lines with goods wagons lined up along the quays. The ships dominated the quayside, each with one or two long white gangways. The passengers’ trunks marked ‘wanted on voyage’ would be awaiting them in their cabins whilst the rest would be stored in the hold. There would be final farewells to loved ones. Paper streamers would have been obtained, one end being held fast whilst the roll was thrown to the family waiting on the quay to wave them farewell. This signified the last link and as the ship moved slowly away, with much hooting, the tape was finally broken. Those on the quayside continued to wave until they were just small specks in the distance.

For newcomers sailing East, the month-long voyage would be a memorable experience.¹² By tradition, the East began at Port Said, which was a coaling port. Orders would be given that portholes should be closed and the cabin door sealed against coal dust and thieves, who were said to come aboard.¹³

Each day a good lunch was followed by a siesta, then deck tennis or a lounge in the canvas pool, which was erected over the fore hatch.¹⁴ In the early evening people bathed and changed for dinner. The custom was to wear dinner jackets until Port Said and then a short white jacket with black trousers, which was known as the bum freezer.¹⁵ The passengers came from similar backgrounds and there was generally a happy atmosphere on board; many becoming lifelong friends.¹⁶ After dinner there was dancing to the band which played tunes from the scores of Cole Porter and Ivor Novello. For the non-dancers there was the option of playing bridge.¹⁷

There were shipboard romances encouraged by the feeling of freedom and of getting to know people quickly. There were young ladies travelling to join their parents, brides-to-be and wives, all of whom were an attraction to the male passengers.¹⁸ Despite this idyllic description, there could be problems with sea travel, such as the choice as to where to sleep; some preferred the troubled slumber on deck in long chairs to the heat of their cabins.¹⁹

Joseph Conrad vividly remembered his first experience of the Far East: ‘Suddenly a puff of wind, a puff faint and tepid and laden with strange odours of blossoms, of aromatic wood, comes out of the still night – the first sigh of the East on my face. That I can never forget. It was impalpable and enslaving, like a charm, like a whispered promise of mysterious delight.’²⁰

Jack Dulley in 1933

Agnes and Herbert Dulley visiting Peter in Chile in 1926

Evelyn Dulley or Sister Marie Joseph, after she had retired

The vegetation of Penang, the last stop before Hong Kong, was most luxuriant: coconuts, oranges, bananas and other fruits grew in abundance beside immense numbers of flowering plants and shrubs.

The exotic East was all very different to Peter’s early life experiences. He was born in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire on 12 July 1903 and was christened Hugh William Macpherson Dulley. In the 1920s he became known as Peter. His father was Herbert Dulley and his mother Agnes Leonora, who came from the Macpherson family in Uddingston, Lanarkshire. Peter was the Dulley’s youngest child, Evelyn the eldest, followed by Jack.²¹ The extended Dulley family lived in Wellingborough and were respected citizens of the town. They ran the brewery and over a number of decades built a grand Baptist Chapel and an indoor swimming baths for the town, astutely using the hot water from the brewery process to heat the pool. Many of the male members of the family became clergymen.

When Peter and his immediate family moved to London, the children were sent off to the Blunts in Wellingborough for the holidays. The Blunts had been the coachman and parlour maid at the family house near Wellingborough. There was a strong family tie with them and Peter was obviously fond of Lizzie Blunt, as he was still in correspondence with her in his thirties. Jack and Peter went to Westminster School in central London, where Peter obtained a scholarship, thus becoming a King’s Scholar. The pupils were made vividly aware of the Great War by the Headmaster who, during morning prayers, read out the names of old boys who had been killed in battle. Peter eventually became the senior cadet in the Officer Training Corps. He left school in the early twenties just when London was coming back to life. He rowed with Thames Rowing Club, went to the Chelsea Arts Balls and was selected to row in the Paris Olympics on the Seine in 1924. These Olympics were immortalised in the film and music of Chariots of Fire.

The other key players that appear later in the story are Therese Sander, who became Peter’s wife, and Edgar and Eva Davidson, her uncle and aunt, who had lived in Hong Kong for many years. They, together with Peter and Therese’s other family and friends mentioned in his letters, are recorded under Names in Appendix III.

On arrival in Hong Kong in 1930, Peter was to discover a city that was both modern and crowded like every large port, but nearby was the old China with its ancient traditions.²² This oriental life was both strange and beautiful to the Europeans, in particular the Chinese dress, temples and food. There was also a wide variety of transport ranging from sedan chairs, rickshaws and sampans to the more familiar forms of travel, such as motorcars, trams, ferries and a funicular railway.

Thames Rowing Club Grand VII that went on to row in the 1924 Paris Olympics

Olympic blazer badge

Street scene

Hong Kong was born after years of conflict between the Chinese and British, which were called the Opium Wars. Settlement was reached by giving Britain sovereignty over Hong Kong Island; the British flag being raised on the Island by a naval party in 1841. Jardine Matheson and several other firms followed immediately.²³ Hong Kong was acquired by the British Government under the Treaty of Nanking in 1842; Kowloon and Stonecutters Island later in 1860; and New Territories in 1898.²⁴ It could be said that Hong Kong did not get off to a very good start with Lord Palmerston describing it as a barren island that would not provide much trade.²⁵

It had little agricultural or other value to the Chinese at the time. It did, however, provide a naval and military base for the British Empire in the Far East and a vast commercial port for its traders. With the help of the British and the Hong Kong Chinese, Hong Kong has been transformed into what it is today. There may be criticism of the Hong Kong colonial era but it is important to remember its origins and purpose were as a base and a trading centre.

The Governor of Hong Kong held a very powerful position in the Colony supported by an Executive Council, and in the 1920s one Chinese representative was admitted.²⁶ The business houses were represented by such dignitaries as J. J. Paterson, Chairman of Jardines in the 1930s.²⁷ The Legislative Council was a subsidiary body and in 1929 the number of Chinese seats was increased to three.²⁸ This was a very small number compared with the total Chinese population.

The Chinese were the original settlers on Hong Kong Island and came from a much older civilisation than their European counterparts: Ancient China dated from over 2,000 years before Christ.²⁹ In AD 1600 the Chinese Empire was the largest and most sophisticated in the world.³⁰ China had been far more advanced in science and other subjects and had, for instance, invented gunpowder,³¹ something which was later developed by the West into a lethal explosive. Great Britain had rapidly progressed during the Industrial Revolution and before, yet China had changed very little. Great Britain had benefited from competition with the rest of Europe, while China, because of its beliefs, size and location in the Far East had been isolated from the outside world for many centuries.

By the early part of the twentieth century the Chinese Empire was crumbling.³² The gaps were being filled by initially Chinese warlords and then Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party). By 1928 they, together with local potentates, held most of China and looked as if they might bring some kind of order.³³ However, the Communists had not been defeated and were still a threat to them. The famous Long March by the Red Army took place in 1934 from southern to northern China,³⁴ which led to their eventual domination. The Japanese annexed Manchuria in 1932.³⁵ The result was a fragmented country under pressure from three very different powers: the Nationalists, the Communists and the Japanese.

Fishing Junk

Fishing Sampan in Rocky Island Bay

The Japanese extended their occupation of China in 1937 by taking Peking, later followed by Canton in 1938 and in the same year set up a puppet government in Nanking.³⁶

Throughout this period there was a steady flow of Chinese into the Colony. The newcomers would normally take up lowly jobs, such as coolies (unskilled labourers) but it was possible for Chinese to progress in the commercial field to becoming a comprador. Robert Ho Tung, a Eurasian, earned more than the wealthiest Europeans and was subsequently knighted,³⁷ forming with other members of ‘the gentry’ a small elite group of Chinese and Eurasians who came to play a key intermediary role between the Chinese and the British.³⁸ In the early days of the Colony, the commercial firms and public services were staffed by Europeans. Gradually Chinese staff were taken on, helped by the opening of the Hong Kong University in 1912,³⁹ but change was slow and for the majority of Chinese the scope for promotion was limited.

The Europeans were a small minority but wished to maintain control of the Colony and its financial world. Between 1916 and 1923 expatriate groups pressed for constitutional reform, but the democracy they wanted was only for Europeans. The Colonial Office saw that this would be unacceptable to the Chinese and indefensible.⁴⁰ If elections were granted for European residents, the same rights would have to be given to the Chinese, which would be the end of British Hong Kong.

Language and culture were a barrier to social interaction between the Chinese and Europeans (which loosely included Americans). As a result, they relied on Chinese interpreters or the dreaded Pidgin English. Interestingly enough, there are many examples of Chinese Pidgin English but the efforts of Europeans are not so available, though no doubt equally amusing. Few British, even longstanding ones, could speak more than a few words of Cantonese, the local Chinese dialect,⁴¹ with the result that the British made little attempt to control Chinese life.⁴² Finally, there was a vast difference in income between even the average European and the majority of the Chinese who lived at poverty level; this situation was exacerbated by the continuing flood of refugees from war-torn China. The cultural differences also meant that the Chinese and Europeans did not mix socially. Unlike the Indians, the Chinese did not play cricket, polo or hunt, or show any inclination to follow British social behaviour.⁴³

As well as the Chinese and the Europeans, the population included Eurasians, Parsees, Sindihs, Jews, Armenians and Americans.⁴⁴ The last pre-World War 2 census in 1931 showed a total population of 849,751, of whom 97 per cent were Chinese and the rest were European or other nationalities.⁴⁵ No census is available for 1941 but it is estimated that the total population had grown to 1,007,000 in 1937 and stood at 1,639,000 in December 1941.⁴⁶ This meant that the population had almost doubled in the ten years before World War 2. The Chinese were attracted to Hong Kong by jobs and better opportunities.⁴⁷ In spite of low wages, long hours and harsh working conditions, they were better off in Hong Kong and many were able to send money home. Those who sought the safety of the British colony after the full-scale Japanese invasion of China in 1937, did not develop a loyalty to Hong Kong and this would create problems during the Japanese invasion. Owing to the large influx of Chinese refugees, by 1938 it was necessary to provide refugee camps, medicine, funds, preventative medicine and social workers.⁴⁸

On arrival in 1930 Peter took up his duties in the Insurance Department of Jardine Matheson & Co., a Scottish firm founded in 1832.⁴⁹ This was one of Jardines’ oldest activities and grew from the need for a Lloyd’s type of insurance in the Far East.⁵⁰ Since the end of the nineteenth century the Keswick family had managed the firm.⁵¹ Prior to Peter’s arrival, Henry Keswick died in 1928,⁵² and his second son William Johnstone Keswick, known as Tony,⁵³ and already in China, took over running the company. John Keswick, the third and youngest, arrived in 1929; thus the Keswick dynasty was maintained