Edward Townend of Hankow

In 1841 the census in England & Wales shows William Townsend (50-54) a merchant & his wife Elizibeth(35-39) , living at Upper False Hill, Streatham, Surrey. Neither parent was born in Surrey. However their children Edward (6), Alexandre (4), George (3) Herbert (1) were all born in Streatham, Surrey. There are 3 female servants : Sarah Read (39), Mary Miller (42) & Rosina Pratt (21), all of them were not born in Surrey county. Next door is a vacant house. In April 1891 and 1893, Edward Townsend gave his daughter Emily Alice Townsend some books including a book on Fanny Burney and her friends, the Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff, and Selections from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry. She treasured them and brought them to Africa, when she married Spencer Hugh Friend in August 1903 in Cape Town. In 1891 the dedication to the journal reads: Emily Alice Townsend from her affectionate father Edward Townsend The Priory, Caterham Valley, March 1891. Alice's birthday was 2nd April. In July 1912, a letter was addressed to S H Friend ,c/o E Townsend, Buckingham House, Winchester and then re-directed :'At Sherard House, Eltham, Kent,' where Henry Dobell, her uncle lived. In 1898, a postcard was sent to E Townsend Esq., Uplands, Prince of Wales Terrace, Scarborough, England from Emma G Bowring in Goteborg, Sweden in which she thanks him for sending her a copy of the Times, & asks him to thank Alice for her letter received yesterday .Emma Godfrey Bowring lived in Sweden between 1883 & 1890 & wrote Swedish Household Examination Books. Emma Bowring signed her name in Emily Alice Townsend's birthday book at December 5 1850, as she was Alice's governess in 1881 in Tunbridge, Kent. Edmund Townsend knew Emma's father in China, he was Sir John Bowring.. Our Lincoln album is marked simply Townsend 1893 in the front & dated June 27 1897 at the back. Some of the handwriting is childish, so it may have belonged to Edward's children, who collected stamps from the Far East & many other countries.. In 1913, Edward Townsend gave Juliana Horatia Ewing's book Jackanapes, with illustrations by Randolph Caldecott to Cyril Hugh Friend: 'For dear Cyril from his loving grandfather EDW Townsend, Winchester 1913' In the Oxford Companion to Children's literature, a commentator writes "In 1879 the Zulu War prompted Ewing to write Jackanapes, the story of an orphan son of an officer who is brought up by a spinster aunt, becomes a bugler in the army, and eventually dies securing a friend's life. It was published as a book in 1883, with illustrations by Caldecott."

In the 1851 census, Edward appears with his brothers and sisters living at 2 Lloyd's Place, Lewisham. Surrey, England. In the column for Occupation appears Tea Brokers CC and Colonial CC.  Edward Townsend can be traced through the 1881 , 1891 and 1901 census reports. In April 1881, Edward is a  married man of 45 living at Springhead, Sandhurst road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent with Ethel Mary Townsend and she is a scholar at 12 years old; also Edward Wilfrid at 11 and Herbert Berners at 10. All three children were born in China. However, Emily Alice & George Harold were born in England, but he is not present either in 1881 or 1891 census. The Townsends' first  two children died in infancy in China, according to Doris Brooks' family tree.

 In  the 1891 census, Edward is described as a widower, age 55, China merchant. Three of his children are present: Ethel Mary, 22 & single, Edward Wilfrid , Colonial broker's clerk and Emily Alice aged 19, my grandmother to be. They are living at The Priory, Waller Lane, Caterham, Surrey. In the 1901 census, the family are living at 1 London road, Maldon All Saints, Essex. Edward is now 65 years and a  retired merchant and a widower. Only Emily Alice is at home with him and she is 28 & single. A visitor is Amy E. S. Townsend, niece, aged 36, born in Lewisham, Surrey. 

Edward Townsend was a merchant or Tea broker, a trade which had its disreputable side. The Chinese only wanted to trade bullion for tea & they preferred silver to gold. However, silver was in short supply, so the East India company began to trade opium of high quality, which they bought in India , smuggled the drug into Canton & with the proceeds purchased tea, which although valuable, was not nearly as valuable as opium.  Opium was banned in China, &  the Mandarins of China were outraged at the debasement of their people, so the illegal trade at Canton led to the Opium War  between China & Britain in 1840-1842. Given the strength of the British Navy & their superior ships & guns, the British won this war, imposing their demands at the treaty of Nanjing.  The three crucial elements of the treaty in Britain's favour were a fixed tariff of 5 percent on all goods; most favored nation status & the most vital clause extra-territoriality, which meant that all Britons living in China would be responsible to the British Consul for their welfare. After 1842, Hong Kong (near Canton)  was ceded to  Britain, while four treaty ports, viz: Amoy, Foochow, Shanghai & Hangchou became open to foreign trade. In addition, the Chinese paid a second indemnity of 21 million silver dollars to Britain  & Chinese Customs had to be supervised by the British.  China's ancient civilization was highly advanced  for instance: their art, calligraphy, language, science, inventions, mathematics and in the early 19th century, they were reluctant to trade with Britain . They needed for very little except resources like copper, silver & gold. The Chinese people were excellent farmers & were able to feed their enormous population without imports. Growing rice was labor intensive, thus creating jobs for numerous people, but was at risk from drought or floods. Their handicrafts were beautiful & many worked at making porcelain or lacquering furniture or smaller objects like tea caddies. They grew wheat & beans; while cotton was both grown & spun; and silkworms provided silk for spinning into fine garments.  The principal exports from China between 1800 & 1836 were tea, silk, fine cottons, porcelain & lacquered goods.  Chinese exports of tea increased by over fifty percent. Silk exports increased four-fold. But the import of opium ruined this prosperity for the Chinese as the British & American traders turned a large profit from selling opium, & silver was taken out of China. The economic consequences of this trade were disastrous for China, while the human cost was dire, an estimate of 2 million people became addicted. For Britons, the trade in tea proved most profitable, as tea drinking in the afternoon became fashionable among the aristocracy  soon spreading to all ranks in English society. The underlying benefit lay in the water being boiled for tea, as in large cities such as London drinking water was  polluted, being the cause of many deaths from typhoid or cholera.  In 1840, James Graham reminded the House of Commons that the taxes on teas alone during 1839 brought in nearly 3.7 million pounds in revenue into the Exchequer. In British India, roughly one-tenth of the government's revenue, or 2 million pounds, was derived from the trade with China.  [Source: Roads to Xanadu : East & West in the making of the Modern World by John Merson,1989 & Stephen R Platt Imperial twilight : the opium war & the end of China's last golden age, 2018]

As far as I know, Edward Townsend was not involved in smuggling opium to Canton, as he worked in Shanghai with R B Davies in 1863 and then in Hankow in 1868. Hankow was in Central China, which is inland from Hangchou, a port on the coast, and it is situated on the mighty Yangtze River. Other large companies such as William Jardine , first founded in Canton in 1832 and the Sassoons from Britain; also Robert Forbes from Boston,USA & Wilcocks & Latimer from Philadelphia were involved at the foreign factories in Guangzhou or Canton in South China. In 1873, the Chinese began cultivating opium on a vast scale in northern China, the farmers earning five times more for this crop than any other. On June 6 1863, a notice appeared in the Shanghai Herald :" Mr Edward Townsend is this day admitted a Partner in my business which will in future be carried on under the Firm & style of Davies, Townsend & Co. R B Davies." In the Calendar for 1868, Edward Townsend is listed as a foreign merchant in Townsend & Co.. Hankow. He is being assisted by his brother Montague Spencer Townsend, a Clerk in Hankow, & is described as an East India merchant previously. Other members of the family were Alexander Townsend, a 'colonial broker' (1871) or East India merchant (1881); and Herbert Berners Townsend (called Bertie) as a tea broker (1871) So Edward Townsend's world in the 1860's included his wife Emily Sarah Townsend and his first five children and at one time or another his brothers. .But living in Hankow would have been very different from living in Shanghai or Hong Kong. The Hankow Directory of 1874 reveals the relative importance of Amoy, Foochow, Shanghai and Hankow. Although a place inland in Hubei Province, Hankow was home to at least 45 merchant companies of which Townsend & Co. was one. He would have been in touch with the Consul in Hankow as three of his children were born at the Consulate, thus ensuring that they were British citizens. However, unlike Hong Kong there is no mention of a British hospital or British doctors in Hankow, which may explain the death of Emily Sarah's first two children

at an age when they would have been weaned. As an expatriate & a merchant, Edward Townsend would probably not have been socially acceptable  in Chinese society, except as an employer.  A journalist in 1874 stressed that " Hankow is the hub of land & river traffic and the port at which resident & travelling merchants congregate", so   Hankow was within easy reach of the tea plantations, which require a damp warm climate away from the prevailing winds on the coast. Maybe  Edward & Emily had congenial friends among the expatriate merchants but one suspects as a mother Emily would have been lonely.. One  Imperial Chinese postcard, dated 25 November 1897 survives in the Townsend album, addressed to Mr Cave-Thomas, (a merchant in Shanghai) sent from Amoy to Foochow, both  ports on the coast of the South China Sea. In the Hong Kong directory, three Woods are mentioned : J W Wood, who was the secretary to the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce ; A G Wood who worked as a tea inspector in Hankow for Gibb, Livingston & Co.; & the Rev M.L. Wood, who is listed as Missionary, Shanghai absent, so perhaps Emily Sarah Wood had some relations  within reach? .In the list of foreign residents in China----1868, another Wood is listed in Her Majesty's Forces in China & Japan, namely Lieutenant T Wood, Adjutant & Quarter-Master, in charge of warlike stores, Royal Artillery. He was based at Hong Kong .Once leased to the British, Hong Kong included all the institutions essential to Victorian society, such as their judicial system at Her British Majesty's Supreme Court for China & Japan; the British Army,  schools, hospitals & doctors,  & Christian missionaries of many denominations ,the British Post Office, which continued till 1922,  British banks , British customs,  British consulates in each treaty port; with the supreme chief based in Peking in Northern China. Edward Townsend knew Sir John Bowring who  spent 10 years in China. He was an English political economist, a well travelled writer, literary translator, polyglot and the fourth Governor of Hong Kong. While he was the British Plenipotentiary to China,  he requested a survey of the treacherous Min River through Foochow in 1854. The following January,  Admiral Stirling asked the Admiralty to publish the chart & send copies overland,  as the shipping in connection with the large tea trade expected at Foochow would depend on the safety of this river & charts were essential to prevent  ships sinking there.

Banking in China : China had developed its own banking system long before Westerners sought to trade with it, but had no overarching body to control the extension of credit, unlike the Bank of England who adopted the Gold Standard, supported by its stocks of gold bullion. For Edward Townsend borrowing from Chinese banks who dealt in silver & copper coins was a risky venture, as the value of silver fluctuated widely. In addition, standard silver coins were not always available, although Mexican silver pesos were often used .  In 1711, sycee or fine silk silver was so called because, if pure, it may be drawn out into fine silk threads. So fine uncoined silver in the form of lumps of various sizes, usually having a banker's or assayer's seal stamped on them, were used by the Chinese as a medium of exchange. In 1863, Edward Townsend is still using this term syce in the title of his book for tea importers. Probably, Davies & Townsend dealt with the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation. Its advert inspires confidence : 'draws on the London & County  bank & on its own branches in London, Shanghai, Yokohama, Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore, Saigon, Manila, Foochow, Amoy , Hankow, San Francisco ,Sydney & others'