Modern transformation of the Huizhou merchant : Wu Jim-pah (1850-1927) the Mandarin-capitalist in late Qing Tianjin

Abstract

Contrary to the significance that HSBC and its comprador office made on

the modernisation in China at the turn of the 19th and the 20th Century, studies

about the Bank’s expansion in the Beijing-Tianjin area were exceptionally limited.

In this research, the importance of HSBC’s expansion to North China in the 1880s

will be primarily examined by the Bank and its comprador office’s roles in the

railways development in North China.

During this process, Wu Jim-pah, as the first comprador of HSBC in

Tianjin, offered significant aids in establishing HSBC’s collaboration with the

Qing Court and the influential Bei-yang Ministry under Li Hong-zhang’s

administration. This research is going to examine Wu Jim-pah’s career and

personal development in late Qing Huizhou, Suzhou, Shanghai, Tianjin and

Beijing, so as to answer a series of questions related to China’s social-economic

reforms and its earliest capitalists’ formation at the turn of the centuries.

Moreover, acts as the first academic study focusing on Wu Jim-pah’s

participation in the early modernisation projects of late Qing China, this research

put the collection and classification of historical materials in the central place. The

findings of primary resources from the archives in China and overseas, namely,

the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica in Taipei, the National

Library of China, the Shanghai Library, the Southwest Jiao-tong University, the

Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences (TASS), the HSBC Group Archives, London

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), as well as the Public Record

Office at Kew, London, could be regarded as the most valuable part of this

research.