Jons Jakobsson aka John Olson (1838–1918)

THE HONG

KONG LEGACY

Jons Jakobsson aka John Olson pictured in Hong Kong about 1917

This story tells of a life lived long ago in a world that has changed utterly.

Jons Jakobsson of Karlshamn, Sweden, was born in 1838 and arrived in Hong Kong around 1860. He died there in 1918. His life is a story of courage, and of a man who always remained an outsider in what was perhaps the ultimate British colony.

Sadly, it is also the story of a man who left a family which tried to erase him from their past. This is an attempt to undo that wrong and is written both as a tribute to him and as a memory of a past gone for ever.

If you have further information or comment please contact:

olsonlegacyinfo@gmail.com

YOUR QUICK GUIDE

• FOREWORD
• THE FAMILY TREE
• PROLOGUE
• A MARRIAGE IS MADE AND VOWS TAKEN
• THE SWEDISH CONNECTION
• THE CROWN COLONY
• THE GRAVES AT HAPPY VALLEY
• MAKING MONEY
• THE CHINESE CONNECTION
• A DAUGHTER MARRIED
• GROWING FAMILIES AND GROWING EXPECTATIONS
• END OF AN ERA
• THE ANATOMY OF DISCORD
• HOW THE SEEDS OF DISASTER WERE SOWN
• BATTLE IS JOINED
• THE FALLOUT
• LAST DAYS IN HONG KONG
• THE DIASPORA
• CONCLUSIONS
• WILL OF JOHN OLSON 1
• USEFUL LINKS

FOREWORD

Jons Jakobsson finally returned home to Sweden one day in October, 2008, around 150 years after he sailed away on a ship named Ocean. He left from his home port of Karlshamn in 1858, and journeyed to Hong Kong where he died in 1918.

The plaque, which marks his homecoming and which commemorates him, was placed on the grave of his only sister Hanna and her daughter Nanny in the churchyard (pictured bottom) of the small village of Trensum not far from Karlshamn. Jons had paid for that grave not long before he himself died and was buried in Happy Valley Cemetery, Hong Kong, in 1918.

The plaque also commemorates his three brothers Olof and Anders who died in Hong Kong, where they joined him in his new life, and the eldest of the family Ola who died as a baby on the family farm at Ubaboda, Skane, Blekinge, Sweden.

The parents of Jons Jakobsson are also commemorated as there is no known memorial to them though they both died and were buried in the graveyard at the church in Karlshamn.

     

The church at Trensum near Karlshamn and the grave of Hanna Olsson and her daughter Nanny before and after the plaque was installed.

Like the voyage of Jons Jakobsson’s life it has been a long journey to discover his history and the family he gave life to on the other side of the world from his birthplace.

It began back in 2000 when I first placed a message on the Hong Kong Forum of genealogy website. I was looking for any information regarding John or Charles Olson in early 20th Century Hong Kong. It was not until October 2004 that Jill Fell, herself an unknowing great granddaughter of Jons Jakobsson, replied saying she thought we might be related.

That was a major catalyst for the journey which yielded this story.

It has been a fascinating trip through archive material that had survived within the family and the remaining records in Hong Kong and included a trip to Sweden in 2007 and culminated in the placing of the plaque on the Olson grave late in 2008.

By its very nature this research has been difficult and full of cul de sacs. The turning over of so many stones is risky and some discoveries and conclusions have been unpalatable to some. But that is the way life is and if sensibilities are offended it was not intended.

What happened nearly 100 years ago in Hong Kong is no reason for more division. All concerned in that drama were consenting adults, some with more appealing personalities than others. If this narrative has any importance, it is that it provides much more information than heretofore, and sets some records straight in as far as is possible. Hopefully, it may also be helpful to any students researching this period.

Throughout, I have applied the balance of probabilities rule where I do not have all the facts and have scrupulously attempted to avoid unfounded speculation. I make no apologies for taking this route. This is a warts and all story.

There are many people to thank. Jill Fell replied to my request and gave me the research document on her direct family compiled by her cousin, the late Brian Lewis, to which I refer often.

I also thank my cousin Jennifer Maslen and her late mother Vera Olson, and my cousins the late Elizabeth Abrahams, and her sister Juliet Olson who were all most helpful. The picture shows, from left: Elizabeth Abrahams (nee Olson), Jill Fell (nee Warren), the author John Olson 3, Jennifer Maslen (nee Olson), and Juliet Olson. It was taken in January 2005 when Jill Fell met the Olson family. Ian Olson and Neil Olson, the brothers of Jennifer Maslen were unable to come to the meeting at the home of Jennifer Maslen and her husband Stephen in Bredon, Worcestershire, England.

Many people in Hong Kong helped. Bernard Hui, Archivist at the Public Record Office, got me started and Colin Day and his colleagues were amazing and the Carl Smith Archive was absolutely invaluable.

In Sweden I pestered many people. But none of the real background to Jons Jakobsson would have been discovered without the inspirational help and professional expertise of Per Frodholm and Vanja Jonasson who traced the family back to the 1650s and were able to take me to the houses where our ancestor was born, grew up, and lived in Sweden when I visited them in 2007. Their achievement was extraordinary. We owe them a huge debt for they painted the most precise picture of all. They are pictured here with me when I visited Karlshamn which is also pictured below.

In England I received great help from places as disparate as the School for Oriental and African Studies and the Church Missionary Society. The pictures come from family archives, the Hong Kong Public Record Office, the Japanese Steamship Co., my own camera and some internet sources.

Latterly new information has been added to this site and a huge amount of help and advice has come from David Bellis and his colleagues in Hong Kong. David runs gwulo.com and has a legion of subscribers who have encyclopedic knowledge about old Hong Kong and are generous in sharing it. I thank them all.

Despite all the help I have been given in one area I failed utterly. I have simply run up against a brick wall in trying to find our Chinese links.

It has been a roller coaster journey. One thing is sure however, my great grandfather Jons Jakobsson, who left Sweden as a young man and died in Hong Kong nearly 60 years later, gave me a great story to tell.

John Olson,
Dublin,
Ireland,
October, 2010

THE FAMILY TREE

(This is a simplified and much shortened version of the Swedish family which then evolves into the Hong Kong branch of the Olson family and so on)

PROLOGUE

This is Jons Jakobsson aka John Olson.

Jons Jakobsson was born on a small farm in Ubbaboda, Skane, Blekinge, Sweden on February 24th, 1838, the son of Jakob Olsson and Kerstin Ingvarsdotter.

Eighty years later, John Olson, as he became known, died on May 23rd, 1918, at 98b Wanchai Road, Hong Kong, of throat cancer.

He was my great grandfather.

This picture of John may have been taken close to his 80th birthday. It was certainly taken at a family celebration of some sort for, in the original picture from which this is taken, he is shown sitting patriarch proud surrounded by his male grandchildren.

We do know the precise date of the signature beneath the picture. He wrote that on February 13th, 1890. It was to sign his Will.

But before that much had happened to this man from the province of Blekinge in southern Sweden, with its many lakes and forests, which are about as much like 19th Century colonial Hong Kong as the surface of the moon.

A MARRIAGE IS MADE AND VOWS TAKEN

In a strange way the story for my generation of Olsons really starts on September 28, 1906, when St Joseph’s Church in Kowloon saw the wedding of 22-year- old John Olson, eldest son of Jons Jakobsson aka John Olson and a Chinese woman named Ching Ah Fung, to a slight 17-year-old girl named Annie Louisa Moore Burke.

It was a mixed marriage - both of religion and race - and it is not recorded whether their parents attended the ceremony. Neither is it recorded where the reception was or what the bride wore. We do know that it was a time of great upheaval in Hong Kong for only ten days before the marriage as many as 10,000 people had been killed by what may have been the worst ever typhoon to hit the Colony.

It was hardly an auspicious time to get married. But, characteristically, John and Annie Louisa never spoke of it just as they spoke little of their backgrounds and lives in Hong Kong. They were to pass on this practice to the four children they would have. All were boys, Ernest, Hugh, William (known as Ossie) and Charles (known as Tubby). All were educated in England and all, in their time, kept silence when it came to talking about their background.

The result of that quiet wedding more than 100 years ago year in Kowloon as the rest of Hong Kong mopped up the debris left by the typhoon, buried the dead and began repairing and rebuilding, was to produce a new family in England. It was a family which set out to bury the past and it was largely successful until now.

The reason was simple. Though the code of silence which John and Annie Louisa imposed on themselves and their children was not genetic, its genesis lay in genetics.

That man born Jons Jakobsson from far away Sweden had arrived in Hong Kong in the 1860s and sired six children with two Chinese women. These relationships were, in all likelihood, the reason for the long silence.

So, in a strange way it was from this marriage that the story that follows unfolds. It produced a family which grew up halfway around the world from Hong Kong and which, unlike other families where information about cousins and aunts and uncles is shared and gossiped about, said virtually nothing about their past. It was not their style. In this family the past was a silent place. They simply melted into their new surroundings and Hong Kong ceased to exist except in the privacy of their minds.

Ironically it was that very silence which excited an interest among some of the next generation that has finally produced this narrative.

THE SWEDISH CONNECTION

The house pictured here (top) is near a small hamlet called Ubbaboda in the county of Skane and province of Blekinge in southern Sweden and was the birthplace of Jons Jackobsson in the winter of 1838. Jons had an elder brother Ola, born in 1835, who died shortly after Jons was born and perhaps his death had something to do with the family moving to another farm in Ulvaboda another small hamlet about five kilometres away. Whatever the reason the family grew in their new home and two more boys were born there, Olof (1839) and Anders (1842) and a sister Hanna (1845).

The house at Ulvaboda (pictured here on the right) is today much as it must have been when Jons and his brothers helped their father on the land. These were hard times in Sweden. There is no doubt that when Jons and his brothers Olof and Anders, left Sweden it was a country in a state of dire upheaval.

During the mid-1800s, Sweden was struck by a series of failed harvests. Agriculture had been struggling for long before that and big families and generations of divided inheritances led to the fragmenting of farms into tiny unsustainable holdings. Also, much as in Ireland, the potato, the staple diet of the poor, ensured that body and soul could be kept together from minimal areas of land thus ensuring a continuum of hunger and want. The population of many parishes doubled or trebled and the net result was that in the middle of the 19th century, Sweden was a land of poverty, want and social frustration.

Thus the root causes of Swedish emigration were the same as much of the rest of Europe: population pressure, economics and - above all - agricultural hardship.

A Swedish bishop at the time explained the population pressure in three words: "peace, vaccination, potatoes." Sweden had not been to war since 1814. Smallpox vaccination had reduced the infant mortality from 21% in 1750 to 15% in 1850. And potatoes became the poor man's bread. The combined effects resulted in a doubling of the population between 1750 and 1850, and, in a country with few industries and cities, the burden impacted most on the agricultural sector who became a new underclass.

Jons and his family were part of that underclass and it is hardly surprising that in 1853 his father, Jakob Olsson, decided to leave the land and take his family into the nearby city of Karlshamn where he got a job in the shipyard and at least had the advantage of regular employment and regular income. There they lived at several addresses until settling in the house shown here on the left.

We do know that the brothers were probably literate by the standards of their class. In those days the Swedish Elementary Schools Act of 1842 had all but wiped out illiteracy. So, the brothers were probably better equipped for emigration than many of their contemporaries from other western European countries.

But how did they get to Hong Kong? In those days almost all of Sweden’s emigrants went to America. Their port of destination was almost always New York and from there most headed towards Chicago and the mid west where land was available. This was especially true after the1862 Homesteader’s Act that gave each family the right to 160 acres of land.
But this was not the way the Jakobsson brothers went. We know from records at the Seaman’s House in Karlshamn, a sort of trade union centre for seafarers, that all three signed on as seamen of one kind or another.

Records show it is probable that Jons Jakobsson left Sweden in 1858 aboard a ship called Ocean which was bound for Lisbon to take on a cargo of salt. This was a regular trading route at the time and the salt – produced in lagoons south of Lisbon since Roman times - was needed to preserve fish for the winter months. Jons signed on as a cook on that ship and it’s fair to speculate that he may have left it in Portugal from where he would have easily found other vessels bound for the East. This theory is backed by the fact that he is described as a “non-existent” person in Swedish records. This means he never sought permission to emigrate officially.

We also know from Swedish records from the Seaman’s House in Karlshamn, which is pictured here, that Olof also signed on as a seaman though we can only trace him working on coastal vessels. He too was noted as being “non-existent”. Perhaps both young men cocked a snook at the society they came from.

Olof was certainly in Karlshamn until 1867 when he is recorded as paying tax in that city. Brother Anders signed on as a seaman cook and was still in Karlshamn in 1869 according to tax records. There are no clues as to how either got to Hong Kong where they joined their brother.

When Jons left Sweden he was probably almost penniless. When he died he was a reasonably wealthy man who had changed his focus on life more than most of us can imagine. He had moved from a peasant society in Sweden, gone half way around the world, and settled in a British colony where he had absolutely nothing in common, not even language, either with the occupying power or the native population.

Yet, fifty odd years later when he died he had absorbed both Chinese and British culture and produced a family of which he was clearly proud, but which, when he had gone, strove to write him out of history.

They probably had many reasons for doing so and there is no doubt that the mores imposed by the society of the time were a major influence. Money and business also played their part in what is a complicated and ultimately sad story.

Nevertheless, the founder of this little dynasty Jons Jakobsson, was an achiever and must have been driven by wanting his family never to see the sort of poverty and hardship he must have experienced in his native Sweden. His descendants are various and splits and rents happened in the larger family over the years after his death. But that does not take away from the achievement of his life’s journey, which in its defiance of the societal rules of the day must have taken great courage and vitality.

THE CROWN COLONY

Jons Jakobsson probably stepped ashore in Hong Kong about 1860. We will never have an exact date as no records exist. We must assume he worked his passage there via Lisbon having left Karlshamn in 1858, but there is no reason to think from what we know of his subsequent life that his arrival was part of any great plan on his part.

He was in his very early 20s and he must have seen a lot of the world when he first set eyes on the waterfront of Hong Kong which is pictured here in the 1870s. We know nothing of his reasons for settling. Perhaps he liked the frontier style life that existed there then; perhaps he was simply tired of the sea. Whatever it was it was not the presence of other Swedes. Even in 1872 there were only six recorded in the Census of that year.

He must have anglicised his name to John Olson once he decided to stay for he would quickly have seen that Empire demanded conformity. He may of course have had other baggage to shed as well as his name but nothing is known of his leaving of Sweden. Today, 150 years later we do know that when he died at 98 Wanchai Road in 1918 he left much baggage behind him. The keys to some of it are still missing – gone with his son John and daughter in law Annie Louisa, their children and their sealed lips and the rest of his children.

The story which follows, pieced together from research in Sweden, the help of the Public Record Office of Hong Kong, the Carl Smith Archive in Hong Kong, and from family papers and memory has thrown up a tale of a man who did not set much store by the mores of the Victorian society he found himself living in but used it to carve out a life for himself and his family.

Undoubtedly what the young Jons Jakobsson saw when he arrived in Hong Kong was an exciting new frontier for Europeans of all sorts - a place where fortunes were waiting to be made and not too many questions were asked. Those early years though are blank and we do not hear of him officially until 1866 when, as John Olson this then 28 year old Swede had a liquor licence for an establishment called The National Tavern at 292 Queens Road West, Hong Kong, and was also manager of the Oriental Restaurant. The source for this information is the South China Morning Post and the Jury List for that year. (Carl Smith Archive, Hong Kong Public Records Office)

To have achieved this position means he must have been in the Colony for some time considering he would probably have had little or no English when he arrived and would have needed to establish himself before he would have been granted a liquor licence.

As we shall see, many years later he appointed a Wilhelm Petersen as executor of his Will and it may be that it was Petersen - a fellow northern European - who gave him a start. The number of Swedes living in Hong Kong at the time dropped as low as four according to official census figures of the times and Wilhelm, who was probably German, had held a spirit licence since 1859 for The German Tavern at 224 Queen's Road West. So, perhaps it is not too much a leap of the imagination to construe that Petersen gave John his first chance in that trade - perhaps simply as muscle on the door.

Petersen himself was clearly quite a character in what was a rough business in the Hong Kong of those days. As late as February, 1882, he was summonsed by an Inspector of Nuisances for keeping pigs in his establishment without permission. The summons was dropped and the next day he sent the animals to the slaughter house! (Carl Smith Archive, Hong Kong Public Records Office)

He also appears to have had a European wife and a Chinese wife at the same time and children with both. But the fact that he became the only executor of John Olson's Will shows he was more than just a casual friend. Strangely too, when he died the surety for the administration bond on his estate was exactly the same at that of John, who from now on, we will refer to as John 1 for clarity.

Petersen's wife Mary seems to also have been a tough lady. According to a mention in the Smith Archive after Wilhelm died in 1896 Mary, who is mentioned as being a native of Bristol, England, may have married three more gentlemen showing at the very least there was a demand for European women at that time in Hong Kong.

When John 1 arrived, Hong Kong was in its early stages of development. It was a place of huge opportunity that had only been officially recognised as a British colony when it was ceded to Britain in 1842, under the Treaty of Nanking.

To give a flavour of life in Hong Kong it is worth sketching some of the main elements of the island's development during the early years that John 1 lived there, in order to put a context on what we know of the family history that follows.

British merchant ships, mainly bearing opium - of which more later - had been using Hong Kong as a stopover on their way to and from China since the late 18th century. During the 1820s there had been calls in Britain to take the island by force from China, and the opportunity finally came with the Opium War that broke out in 1839. This happened when the Chinese government sparked hostilities when it tried to curb this most lucrative trade, which was dominated by Britain.

To protect the trade and threaten the Chinese, British troops occupied Hong Kong in January, 1841. Six months later, Captain Elliot, the British superintendent of trade and commander of the occupation force, declared Hong Kong to be a free port. This was ratified in August, 1842, by the Treaty of Nanking and in April, 1843, Queen Victoria signed the Hong Kong Charter which officially made Hong Kong a British Crown Colony. The first governor, Henry Pottinger, took office in June of that year.

A population census undertaken shortly after the occupation, showed that there were 5,650 inhabitants on the island, of which some 2,500 were villagers or fishermen, 200 lived and worked in or around the main marketplace, 2,000 were "boat people" living offshore, and there were some 300 labourers from Kowloon.

The establishment and ratification of British rule provided Hong Kong with a certain degree of insulation from the upheavals in China and, given the importance of trade to Hong Kong's economy, it was not surprising that the place was declared a free port. Although opium dominated at the beginning, over time it gave way to other merchandise with the expansion of entrepot, or distribution, centres trading with China.

The single biggest problem for European traders was the bureaucracy of mainland China, which had to be penetrated if significant business was to develop with the massive domestic market. So British traders relied heavily upon Chinese middlemen, even for the opium business, and the Chinese merchant class grew rapidly both in numbers and in wealth as the Colony developed. A survey in the late nineteenth century found that Chinese families far outnumbered all others among the wealthiest group in the Colony. (Y.C.Richard Wong, Director of The University of Hong Kong School of Business 2003).

This is evidenced by the appointment in 1880 of Wu Ting-fang as the first Chinese on the Legislative Council; a quasi parliament set up by the British to rubberstamp the diktats of the Colonial Office in London. But this appointment did reflect the increasing socio-economic clout that the Chinese community had. Governor John Hennessy, who made that appointment, once remarked during a Legislative Council meeting that, by the late 1870s, 17 out of the 18 largest property owners in Hong Kong were Chinese; and the Chinese population accounted for 90% of the government’s tax revenue. Perhaps his hand was forced a little.

As the economy expanded, workers from the mainland streamed into Hong Kong. The Chinese who went to Hong Kong during those early years were predominantly men who came in search of jobs while their families remained behind. It was only much later that some of their families started to join them. Records show that in 1845, just two years after becoming a Crown Colony, out of an estimated total population of 23,817 there were 19,201 men, 2,862 women, and 1,754 children. The sex balance improved over time as more families came to settle in Hong Kong, but large numbers of people would continue to move backwards and forwards between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland for many years. It was not uncommon for 10 - 20 per cent of the population to leave Hong Kong and return to the mainland in any one year, and in some years it was as high as 35 per cent. (Y.C.Richard Wong, Director of The University of Hong Kong School of Business.)

Not content with the occupation of the island of Hong Kong, in 1860 Britain annexed the southern part of the Kowloon peninsula, and Stonecutters Island. This came after the invasion, together with France, of the imperial capital, and the forcing of the Manchu government into signing the Treaty of Peking. But it was not until 1898 that Hong Kong saw its jurisdiction extended to the New Territories and the outlying islands under a 99-year lease that has now expired.

As an example of how undeveloped Hong Kong was around the time of John 1’s arrival the colony first produced its own postage stamps and currency in 1862. John 1 would also have suffered from a shortage of safe drinking water, for it was not until 1863 that there was the beginning of a regular supply, following the completion of the first reservoir at Pokfulam. In business terms, too, there was much to be developed and it was not until 1864 that the first indigenous bank, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, was founded.

When he arrived, John 1 would have found a bustling dockside with ships being unloaded and loaded, Chinese labourers carrying huge loads and godowns (warehouses) full of goods waiting to be shipped. It must have been an amazing sight compared to the quayside of his native Karlshamn. As this view of the harbour from Causeway Bay in the 1870s shows the huge harbour was packed with masts and what is now Central was just being developed. The original Chinese residents lived in terrible conditions wherever they were allowed to build shacks and shelters by their new masters. There was, it is said, a mood of excitement and opportunity that was probably unrivalled by anything but an American frontier town at that same time.

And, despite there being a cadre of extremely wealthy Chinese families, like the Wild West where the Native Americans were disinherited, Hong Kong too had its underclass. The poor Chinese worked in menial jobs and lived in an indescribable squalor that no European, no matter how lowly, would ever contemplate enduring.

As early as 1851, the Colony’s chief surgeon remarked in his annual report on the ‘dirty and gregarious habits of the people, and the pestilential defects of the construction and situation of their dwellings’. (Edward Marriott, ‘The Plague Race’)

In 1873, on the recommendation of the Colonial Office, Dr Philip Ayers was appointed Colonial Surgeon and Inspector of Hospitals in Hong Kong, a post he held for 24 years. On his arrival he found the condition of the Colony, from a medical standpoint, needed serious reform. In his opinion there was no hospital worthy of the name, and sanitary conditions were totally unsatisfactory.

Ayers at once began to make the first survey of the Chinese area of the settlement, accompanied by the Surveyor-General, Mr J.M. Price. So bad were the conditions that the research nearly cost them their lives from illness contracted during their inspection.

At this stage John 1 had been running a public house and restaurant since 1866!

The report that followed was the foundation of all the sanitary measures since taken in Hong-Kong. In his report for 1874, Ayers gave a note of warning of what might be expected to happen unless the ‘current deplorable conditions’ were improved, saying that, "every condition exists for the development of the cholera or fevers of a typhoid character." (Obituary of Philip Ayers in The Lancet)

Yet it was a general indifference by government to the plight of ordinary Chinese that caused Phillip Ayres, in describing housing conditions among the poor Chinese in1892, to record: ‘The floors were reeking with filth. The drainage was very bad, the smell abominable. In some of the houses were quantities of decomposing and putrid meat, fat and bones, and one of them filled with maggots. The stench was unbearable. I found these houses in the same condition I had reported twenty years ago.’ (Edward Marriott, ‘The Plague Race’)

So, with such social inequality, it was not surprising that in 1894, rumours of an outbreak of bubonic plague that had been doing the rounds in Hong Kong for some weeks became fact. Plague had broken out first in Canton, and it was only a matter of time before it spread to the Colony. The first case came to light in Hong Kong on May 8, 1894, when James Lowson, Superintendent of the Government Civil Hospital, which had been built by Dr Ayers in the late 1870s, diagnosed a Chinese man named as A Hung as suffering from the plague, and had him isolated. A Hung was the first person to die in the outbreak, which would claim the lives of 2,500 people, both Chinese and European, and take two years to abate.

When the epidemic started John 1 was already 56 years old and all his children had been born. It must have been a frightening time for the family.

The residents of Tai Ping Shan, the main Chinese quarter on Hong Kong, living in their medieval squalor suffered medieval death rates of ninety per cent among those unfortunate enough to contract the disease. And, more seriously for the European population, who did not die in anything like the numbers of Chinese, commerce came to an almost complete stop. The plague spread from Hong Kong to Bombay and, ultimately, around the world to the United States. This global outbreak claimed some 12 million lives. The only good thing to come out of the outbreak was that Hong Kong was the place where the bubonic plague bacillus was isolated and a vaccination developed.

THE GRAVES AT HAPPY VALLEY

This then is the island that John 1 came to from Sweden to make a new life.

According to his gravestone in Happy Valley Colonial Cemetery, he was born in 1838, which accords with the Swedish records and my first knowledge of Karlshamn being his home place in Sweden comes from the gravestone of his brother Anders in Happy Valley Cemetery which is pictured below.

The picture was taken by David Bellis in September, 2010. David runs a website named gwulo.com which is very valuable for all those interested in the history of Hong Kong.

The inscription on the headstone says:

Sacred to the memory of Anders Olson a native of Carlshamn, Sweden, born in 1842 and died in Hong Kong on 21 March 1872 aged 30 years. This stone is erected by his affectionate brother John Olson

The St John’s Cathedral burial register shows the burial of Andrew Olson, age 30, took place on March 22, 1872. (Is this anglicised version of Anders where Hugh Olson, father of Jennifer, Ian and Neil, got his name? His given names were Andrew Hugh Fitzgerald). The register also shows Anders' residence at time of death as ‘Seaman's Hospital’.

That John 1 was firmly attached to his homeland can be in no doubt and that he was deeply moved by the death of his brother Anders - who may have been there only a matter of a few months and may even have come specifically at his bidding - is demonstrated by the fact that on the day of his brother's burial on May 22, 1872 John 1 sat down to write to his parents with the sad news.

This is known because the letter he wrote is noted in the death record of Anders in official documents in Karlshamn, Sweden. That record says John’s letter was dated May 22, 1872, and that Anders died of smallpox. The record also notes that the letter took almost two months to arrive. Below is the entry from the official record in Karlshamn. Interestingly Anders was not described as a non-existent person as his brothers had been. So it appears he had applied to emigrate to Hong Kong.

The Seaman’s Hospital where Anders died was first opened by the Church Mission Society in the Wanchai district in 1843. It had 50 beds and was under the charge of a surgeon who had worked for the Honourable East India Company. This waterfront hospital, which had been supported financially by Jardine Matheson, the first commercial house in Hong Kong, flourished for many years. There is nothing on record to say it was the exclusive preserve of seafarers before it finally became the British Naval hospital in 1873. This happened when the former naval floating hospital, a frigate named HMS Melville which had taken part in the first Opium War, was sold and the Seaman's Hospital was purchased and put under naval control.

So it is probable that the Seaman’s Hospital was the nearest place to take the young Anders when he fell ill. It was certainly close by John’s business but we do not know whether Anders worked with his brother.

John's other younger brother named Olof worked for or with John in Hong Kong in one of his enterprises but we have no idea when or how he travelled to the Colony but, if the anchor on the grave is anything to go by, he worked his way out as a seaman. Whether he arrived at the behest of John 1 we do not know.

Olof died in 1880 and his gravestone in Happy Valley says:

Sacred to the memory of Olof Olson a native of Carlshamn, Sweden, born 24 November 1839, died 17 August 1880

The picture of the grave was also taken by David Bellis in September, 2010.

According to the St John’s register Olof died on August 18, 1880 and his residence is shown as Nationals (sic) Hotel, Queen’s Road, Central and a note adds that he died in the Civil Hospital.

Olof’s address is in all likelihood the old National Tavern, as the public house seems to have become a hotel at some stage and Olof is mentioned on the Jury List for 1880 as the manager of the National Hotel.

His gravestone was erected by John in September 1882 and cost HK$950 from a stonemason called Fernando Sainz who made a copy of the grave marking the last resting place of Anders.

The deal was handled by John’s compradore Tang Leong Kok. (Carl Smith Archive). A compradore was the Chinese employed as head of the Chinese staff and, as agent, by foreign trading houses. He, for it was always was a he, was a vital cog in a trading house so John was a successful and busy enough man to depute the task of having a gravestone for his brother Olof arranged by his compradore. But he did make sure that the stone was a replica of that which stands over his other brother's grave.

Perhaps something may be drawn from the fact that it took John two years to erect a monument to Olof and then he left the details to his compradore. Also, unlike the grave of his younger brother Anders that carries the inscription “This stone is erected by his affectionate brother John Olson”, there is just a simple inscription noting Olof as the incumbent. Finally, there is no record of John 1 writing home to tell his family. We will never know.

What we do know is that Olof, like his brother John 1 was also declared a non-existent person in Swedish records because he had never sought permission to emigrate. Apart from that the death of this 41 year old Swedish man left no clues to his personality or character

MAKING MONEY

Until now none of the family knew of, or confessed knowledge of, of a man called Jons Jakobsson.

Neither did we know anything of the career of John Olson, as he called himself, in Hong Kong except for the fact that he declared himself to be a hotelkeeper on the birth certificate of his son John 2, who was my grandfather. There were two separate oral traditions relating to what John 1 did in Hong Kong.

The first said he was a successful well-off engineer who was responsible for all the drains in Hong Kong, and who also built Happy Valley racecourse. (Jennifer Maslen nee Olson, daughter of Hugh Olson)

The second said he was well off, and that he built 21 houses on the Peak. (Jill Fell, granddaughter of Hannah Olson)

Both Jennifer Maslen and Jill Fell gave me this information before they met each other in January 2005, which indicates family oral history was not too different until it is realised that Jill Fell did not know that her great grandfather was named John until she contacted this writer. Until then there seems to have been a smokescreen surrounding him as, in her family, he was named as Alfred and was thought to have ended his days in England. This story even extended to identifying a complete stranger – a Godfrey Olson who lives in Chandler’s Ford, Hampshire - as his son. (Mr Olson confirmed to me he was no relation and his family had never had any connection with Hong Kong). For reasons unknown there was a very thick smokescreen put up by Jill Fell’s family, the Warrens, to cover a simple sailor from Sweden.

One thing is for sure. There was never any mention in either family of John 1 being involved in the drink trade or hospitality industry though his career as a cook at sea might have given him some training. And, as a former sailor and a one time resident of Karlshamn – which was famous for distilling liquor – he may have had some other qualifications!

John 1 may also have had property interests. An examination of Olson family movements within Hong Kong shows they moved from house to house on an almost random basis which suggests that they may have been using property owned by him as and when it became available. On at least one occasion a daughter and husband and children - Hannah and Charles Warren - move out of John 1’s home for a time and locate elsewhere and return a year or so later to take up residence again complete with their children. (Research by Brian Lewis, grandson of Hannah (Olson) Warren)

To back this up there was certainly land still belonging to the Olson family in the Colony up to 1970.

This question of land leads to another strange and it seems insoluble mystery which needs a little exploration.

It is possible John 1 may have owned a substantial amount of land because the death certificate of his first child and the birth certificate of his second (1879 and 1880) show him declaring himself to be a Farm Keeper by profession though when they were born we know he was also running, or owned, the National Tavern, which he had first had a licence for in 1866, and it is doubtful if there were any farms as we know then on Hong Kong Island.

Later, on another birth certificate in 1886 he describes himself as a landowner. Such a career progression was evidentally not unusual in some cases because it was related to the opium trade. There is no proof but there is a possibility that John 1 was an “agent” for a Government licensed opium “farmer” as they were known. There was no prohibition in the sale of opium in early Hong Kong and many a great fortune - and indeed knighthoods and other honours - were bestowed by the Colonial power on those “farmers” who imported and exported the drug.

It was also practice that appointed “farmers” - who seem always to have been Chinese on the documents I have seen - sold opium on to their agents who also exported or sold the drug. It is also speculated that often those involved ended as claiming a profession of Landowner simply because they had made enough money to be just that.

It is just speculation to say that John 1 dealt in opium. There is no proof. However, he had ready made outlets in his various drinking establishments where it could have been sold as easily as tobacco and alcohol. If he was involved in this trade it would go some way to explaining how he lived between 1892 and 1918 when he apparently was not involved in any gainful employment.

It is interesting to note that David Bellis (gwulo.com) has discovered in the 1876 Census (the two birth certificates with ‘Farm Keeper’ on were issued in 1879 and 1880) there is a page listing occupations, and how many people were employed in the opium trade.

The Census figures show the following:

108 x Opium Boilers
65 x Opium Dealers (prepared)
41 x Opium Dealers (unprepared)
1 x Opium Farmer

Clearly the opium farmer was at the top of the heap.

This is again demonstrated in later census figures which I have looked at where there is a slight increase in the first three “occupations” but still only one “farmer”.

As for Jons Jakobsson aka John Olson having a ready market for the drug, we don't know if opium was popular among western sailors at that time, or if they stuck to beer and spirits. It is not recorded. More tellingly perhaps is that the in list of occupations in various returns examined by David Bellis and myself none have an entry for ‘Farm keeper’, or ‘Farm’ anything.

While it is perhaps too strong to say that the balance of probabilities points to John 1 dealing in opium in some form or other, it is fair to speculate that he may have been connected to the trade in some way.

Further, such financial opportunity may explain the part of his Will, made in 1890, which states: “And I also declare that all moneys liable or directed to be invested under this my will may be invested in or upon any stocks funds or securities of or guaranteed by the Government of the United Kingdom or of any British Colony or Dependency (including the stocks or securities of any railway or other company in India or elsewhere having a fixed rate of interest thereon as aforesaid) or stock of the Bank of England or the debentures or debenture stock or guaranteed or preference stock or shares of any railway company in Great Britain incorporated by act of Parliament or Royal Charter or in or upon real securities in England or leasehold securities in the colony of Hong Kong.

And in lending money on any mortgage security my trustee may accept whatever title or evidence of title shall appear to him sufficient. And in particular may in the case of leasehold securities waive the production of the lessor's title without being answerable for any loss arising thereby.”

This sort of knowledge seems to indicate an understanding of handling money in sizeable amounts which is way removed from a ship's cook who arrived in Hong Kong virtually penniless. The mention of India is also interesting as that is where the opium was imported from. It was not unusual for an officer to bring in a number of “illegal” opium balls for a private client and be well paid for his trouble.

It is also possible that if John 1 was involved in the opium trade that this was, another reason, apart from producing an Eurasian family, why his descendants subsequently tried to write him out of their history.

In short it may not have been illegal but, without the trappings bestowed by Empire, it may have been seen as even less than socially acceptable and thus needed to be hidden deep.

However, this speculation aside, it is clear that if John 1 built a fortune of any kind, the core of it probably lay in his pub or drinking establishment and hotels in downtown Hong Kong.

The Jury Lists of 1868 to 1871 show John 1 as an “Innkeeper” at 292 Queens Road the site of the National Tavern but we do not know when he actually became the owner for it is not until January 28, 1870 that there is a mention of him in the Daily Post as being the licensed owner of the National Tavern. In the same newspaper in December, 1875 there is a mention of “John Olson, a Swede, proprietor of a beer shop known as National Tavern”. (Carl Smith Archive)

Through these years there are mentions of John and Olof in newspapers such as the Daily Post and Daily Advertiser in relation to the National Tavern.

In July 1872, John 1 is also mentioned in the Advertiser as proprietor of the National Hotel in Queen’s Road. The thoroughfare is pictured here in 1905. Previously, in November 1871 the same paper records he had a spirit licence for the National Tavern. And, for further confirmation of his involvement with the National Tavern, in October 1887, the Daily Post names him again as the proprietor of the business.

This business seems to have been his base of operation at the time as there is another mention in the Daily Post on January 8, 1873 of John 1 offering furniture, plant and fixtures from what was another public house called the “Old House at Home” which he “had taken possession of under a bill of sale”.

In what looks like an advert it is unclear whether this means he was selling on goods he had purchased or was acting as an agent or auctioneer for the goods. The entry states: “Offers for purchase received”. It could also indicate that he had bought the premises and was refurbishing. We don’t know whether he ever owned the Old House at Home and he is not listed as owner in any presently available archive.

Today, the site of his original business, The National Tavern at 292 Queens Road West, is now actually at 338 Queen's Road, Central, thanks to time, redevelopment and city planning down the years. The site is occupied by a block of serviced apartments known as 338 Apartments and is pictured here. (Research David Berris, gwulo.com)

These luxury air-conditioned homes are a far cry from what must have originally been a rough and tough public house that served grog to 19th Century sailors from the seven seas.

John 1 also appears to have also owned the Star Hotel, which he appears to have been involved in around 1877. The Star was at 200 Queen's Road, Central.

He was also probably the owner or lessor of the Stag Hotel up until 1892 as there is mention in the Daily Post of him applying to transfer the hotel at 148-150 Queens' Road to a William Walters. To this day the building on the site is known as the Stag Building.

John 1 was certainly heavily involved in the hotel business and in the jury lists of 1875-1885 is listed as proprietor of the National Hotel, Queen's Road, and Central. Whether this is the National Tavern under another name is not clear. To confuse things a little The Daily Post records brother Olof, as being the late manager of the National Hotel when noting his death but the Jury List for 1879-1880 shows him as the manager of the National Tavern.

So John 1 was involved in three hotels and a public house between 1867 and 1892 when the last mention of his involvement in this area is made in the Carl Smith Archive. This shows him as applying to transfer the Stag Hotel to William Walters.

But what did he do to turn a penny from then on?

The short answer is that we don't know. But it is possible that he sold the businesses or leased or rented them out to other businessmen or perhaps he sold off parcels of land for building from any land bank he may have had as a “Farm Keeper”. We have three addresses for establishments he was linked with. They are: 292 Queen's Road, 200 Queen's Road, and 148-150 Queen's Road. All were and still are prime downtown sites in Hong Kong and, if he owned Crown leases on any of them he may well have sold them on and lived on his capital.

Given that he seems not to have left the hospitality business finally until 1892 it looks as if John liked to have a foot in both camps!

Amazingly, given his previous history, the Jury List for 1888 sees him as the manager of a Temperance Hall! This was situated in Ladder Street Terrace and it was at 1 Ladder Street Terrace that both his daughter Ellen (Nellie) Kirston (sic) and his youngest son Charles William were born in 1886 and 1888. Strangely, John gives his profession as Landowner in the case of Nellie and Temperance Hall Manager in the case Charles. Ladder Street Terrace is still there today but there is no trace of a Temperance Hall.

THE CHINESE CONNECTION

John 1 had a relationship which yielded children with at least two Chinese women, one of whom he married. Despite great efforts by some of his descendants and their offspring to deny all knowledge or simply blank out the reality, birth certificates show that John had the following family by these two women. In a relationship with a Chinese woman named Kum Yau he had two children.

These were:
John
Born on January 29 1879. Died on April 5 1879.
His death certificate says he died of laryngitis at Queen’s Road Central. John 1 lists his profession as Farm Keeper on the death certificate. The baby is buried in Happy Valley.

Hannah Mabel
Born May 6 1880. Died July 2 1966.
Hannah’s birth certificate shows she was born at Queen’s Road, Central where again John 1 listed his profession as Farm Keeper. Hannah lived a long life and died in the Queen Victoria Hospital, Picton, NSW, Australia in 1966.
There is no other information on the relationship between Kum Yau and John except that it did not endure.

But she was clearly not merely a concubine as he gave her his name, and included her - albeit somewhat mysteriously - on the headstone he erected for their firstborn. It says:

Sacred to the memory of John
Infant son of J and Y Olson
Born 29 January 1879 died on April 5 1879

We have no idea what happened to break up this relationship. But end it did and very quickly John met the woman he was going to spend almost the rest of his life with. Her name was Ching Ah Fung and the picture on the left is the best image we have of her.

Nothing about her now remains in the family memory, though there are some other blurred pictures, such was the apparent wish to airbrush her out of history. However, she must have been a very important part of John’s life because their relationship lasted 34 years and she lies buried beside him in Happy Valley Cemetery. That was no mean achievement for a woman who must have begun her relationship with him on, to say the least, an unequal footing.

In the finality of her death John honoured her with this gravestone:

Ellen Olson
Died 20th October 1915
Aged 61 years
Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life

So this was probably as much of a love match as could be expected for the time and the circumstances.

Ah Fung (Ellen) had four children with John.

They were:

Ah Fung was christened on September 20, 1891, by the Rev John Ost of the London Missionary Society while she and John 1 were living at the Stag Hotel on Queens Road. In the Register of the London Missionary Society’s Chinese Congregation on September 20, 1891 there is a mention of Mrs Olson at the Stag Hotel being baptised by Mr Ost. It also says that she has five children. So it seems that Hannah, although not her daughter was living as a member of the family which may indicate that Kum Yau died shortly after Hannah’s birth and Ah Fung brought her up.

John Browne Ost came from Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. He was born in 1848 and was ordained as a priest in May 1881 by the Bishop of Mid-China and was a member of the Church Missionary Society. In March 1891 he returned to England and was transferred to the Mid-China Mission in Chu-ki the following year. Unfortunately there is no baptismal certificate extant in any of the remaining records of the Church Missionary Society and that year Mr Ost failed to file an annual report, which might have mentioned the event. This is probably because he returned to England in March 1891.

Ah Fung’s relationship with John 1 probably began in 1881 given that Elizabeth was born on August 2, 1882. She was 25 at the time of Elizabeth’s birth and would give John 1, who was 43 when they began their relationship, three more children and be his partner for 34 years. The timing here perhaps gives us an insight into John 1’s love life because Elizabeth and John 2 were born at the same address as their half sister in Queens Road, Central and whatever happened to Kom Yau it was barely a year after Hannah was born that John 1 began his long term relationship with Ah Fung.

One thing is clear about the relationship of John 1 and Ah Fung. It was public and he clearly was well established enough for it not to affect his businesses. There was also no hiding or disadvantaging of the children. Records in the Carl Smith Archive show Elizabeth and Hannah on the Register of the Diocesan Girls’ School in 1889. And John 2 and Charles were at the Diocesan Boys’ School both being there in 1896 where a 12-year-old John is noted as a day scholar in the fifth form having attended for seven years. Whether he completed his education is not known but it seems likely he did, as we have no indication of his working until 1904 though he may of course have worked for his father.

John 1 must have been ambitious for his children for he chose a good school for them. The Diocesan Boys’ School has a long history with origins in 1863. Then the fees were HK$10 per month and the total enrolment was less than twenty. As a result, only the richest people in the colony could afford to send their children. The school soon got into financial trouble and in 1869, it was taken on by the Anglican Church and the objective became to: “receive children of both sexes, be they European, Chinese or half-cast, to board, and learn with a view to gain industrial life and Christian Faith according to the Church of England.”

The school, which then had its name changed to Diocesan Home and Orphanage, was one of only a few English schools at that time. In 1891, it changed its name to 'Diocesan School and Orphanage' (DSO) and was regarded as the best educational establishment in the Colony as the century drew to a close.

Today the school continues to operate and has moved to Kowloon. Its gives as its mission the provision of a liberal education based on Christian principles and says:” Our prime concern is to help students equip themselves with sound knowledge, essential qualities of good character, and social and technical skills to meet challenges, so that they would be creative and dynamic to achieve success in this rapidly advancing pluralistic society.” (www.dbs.edu.hk)

A DAUGHTER MARRIED

Hannah Olson, John 1’s oldest surviving child, married Charles Warren who was the seventh of eight children born in Denford, Northamptonshire, England, on March 29, 1872. He had arrived in Hong Kong via South Africa where, according to the Warren family he had worked as a baker. (Research by Brian Lewis, grandson of Hannah Olson)

The date Charles arrived in Hong Kong, like John 1’s, is not certain. The research by Brian Lewis has it sometime before November 1899 because he had his first child with Hannah on 26 August 1900. But other information shows that he was in Hong Kong about 1894 according to papers produced by the Catholic authorities in Hong Kong for his eldest grandson, Geoffrey Warren. (Jill Fell, granddaughter of Hannah Olson cousin of Geoffrey Warren)

No marriage certificate has been found for the union of Hannah and Charles (pictured left) and on his arrival in Hong Kong it seems likely he worked for the Public Works Department in some capacity. We do know for certain that in 1900, the year his son Leslie was born, the 28-year-old Englishman was employed by the Hong Kong Sanitary Department as a Second Class Inspector of Nuisances at a salary of HK$960 per annum. This is recorded in the Hong Kong Blue Book of 1900-1901.

This marriage saw the arrival of three more children following Leslie in 1900. Evelyn was born in 1902, Arthur in 1906 and Reginald (the father of Jill Fell) in 1909.

So, here are four more cousins and a great aunt (pictured right in around 1918/19 as is the picture above) and great uncle that my generation of Olsons – all born in England - never knew about.

Quite how long Charles worked for the Hong Kong Sanitary Department is not known, but he was soon to set up in private business. The South China Directory for 1904 shows: Wah – Lun Kung – Sze (Cantonese) Warren and Co. C.E. 30, Des Voeux Road, Central. Personnel are named as: C.E.Warren, J.Olson, F.X.Souza, overseer. The entry goes on: Sole Agents for Taiwan Stone and Shell Lime Co. Macao. (Research Brian Lewis)

So now the Olsons and the Warrens are tied together both in marriage and business with the inclusion of John 2, just nineteen years old in the new venture. He did not know it then but he stood on the threshold of being a central character in a family mystery that has endured for more than 80 years.

But first, let’s return to the marriage of Charles and Hannah. In 1904 they were living at 33 Caine Road, which is on the mid levels, up from Central and below the Peak. They appear to have been sharing the house with Hannah’s stepmother Ah Fung and father John 1, and her half sister Elizabeth. (Research Brian Lewis)

This was a strange ménage indeed and it is difficult not to suspect that Ah Fung may have found it a problem to have Hannah, who was not her daughter, living with her newly acquired English husband. Add this to the fact that it must have been very difficult to sustain an interracial marriage or relationship in those times and it is not hard to imagine there may have been some tensions.

In the Hong Kong of the 19th and the early 20th century racial discrimination was rampant. Residential areas were divided by race: for example, it was decreed in 1888 by the Legislature that only European-style houses might be built in areas above Caine Road, and only British were allowed to build houses and live in them. All this was thought natural at the time, even to the extent that the British authorities imposed curfews on Chinese areas. These curfews, and other extraordinary ordinances such as a noise control measure which stated the times Ma Jong could be played in certain areas, continued on and off until into the early 20th Century.

As Caine Road, the area is pictured right in 1905, was in the mid-levels it is interesting to speculate how Ah Fung lived there at all. But it must be she who is mentioned in the South China Ladies’ Directory of 1904 which shows a Mrs Olson at 33 Caine Road, a Miss L.Olson (daughter Elizabeth?) and a Mrs C.E. Warren (step-daughter Hannah). (Research Brian Lewis)

Perhaps some of the living restrictions had been lifted. Maybe John 1 was respected and powerful enough to ensure no awkward questions were asked. We don’t know, but can be sure that such a union, and the children of it, were not accepted in the best society. This also meant that Charles Warren risked putting himself beyond the pale in marrying a Eurasian woman such as Hannah.

Whatever the difficulties of this mixed race ménage on Caine Road, Charles was clearly not prevented from building a successful business. We do not know what role John 1 played in setting up C.E.Warren and Co., but it is likely that he had a financial input. He was certainly an established businessman by the time that Charles Warren arrived in Hong Kong let alone married his daughter.

It seems likely - and quite natural - that John 1 bankrolled the business his son-in-law set up. It would be a normal thing to do and he might even have seen it as something of a payback to Charles for making this somewhat dangerous marriage. It also provided John 1 with an opportunity to put both his sons in a position to grow a business and make a good living.

It was a big change for a man who left Karlshamn as a ship’s cook.

Whoever bankrolled the business gave it a hefty injection of cash because it had a very healthy start with an office and showroom in Des Voeux Road which was right in the heart of the commercial area of the rapidly growing colony. This was not a cheap end of the market start. It was prime business property – the first tram in Hong Kong, apart from the Peak tram, which opened in 1888, ran on this thoroughfare in 1904 the year the business started and is pictured above – and, interestingly, the company stayed at this address until 1921 when the building, which had grown to encompass numbers 31 and 32 was sold.

Charles Warren could not have had capital to allow for such a start up. He had arrived in Hong Kong probably around 1894 and we know that in November 1897 he applied to transfer from the status of Provisional Overseer to the permanent establishment after the expiry of the three-year term of his provisional appointment. (Jill Fell)

We also know from Brian Lewis’s research of the Warren family in England that he did not come from a background of wealth. His work as a baker in South Africa before journeying on to Hong Kong was unlikely to have accumulated a large bank balance for him and it is likely he had only his salary of HK$960 per year from the Colony.

To get an idea of the value of this salary it is interesting to look at the 1900-01 Blue Book list of Sanitary Department staff, where, after several years employment he was one of the junior Europeans when it came to salary. He is HK$1,740 behind his immediate superior and HK$2,160 behind the secretary of the department. All but one of the other employees is Chinese.

It is hard to quantify these salaries. Brian Lewis in his research states that that in 1921 one British pound was worth HK$6. I have been unable to find any reference to this figure but at that time the Colony was still on the Silver Standard as was China. The Colony did not move to a standard Sterling exchange rate until 1935 and I have been unable to find any official record of exchange rates of Hong Kong dollars to British pounds.

However, I have found figures for the rate between HK dollars and US dollars and US dollars to British pounds. Conversion through this method probably skews the picture somewhat. Nevertheless using available figures for the ten-year period from 1916 to 1925 the average is 7.77 Hong Kong dollars to the British pound.

Using the 7.77 figure to get a fix on Charles’s salary can only give us an approximation, as the year we are interested in is 1900-01. However, it is worth noting that there was great stability in exchange rates up until 1919. Up till then the pound was generally valued at around US dollars 4.90. In 1920 it fell sharply to 3.66. But by 1925 it was back at 4.83. In 1900 the rate had been 4.87. (Economic History Services; see also note about calculations )

Therefore it seems that using 7.77 as the HK dollar rate against the British pound is a reasonable compromise.

So Charles and Hannah married before the century turned and had their first child, Leslie, in 1900. At the time Charles was earning HK$960 which equated to approximately British £123.10s.0d per year. Not a king’s ransom, but certainly enough to begin married life on in the Crown colony. In England at that time the annual income for a “low paid government servant” was £72.5s.0d. (Williamson 1982. The structure of Pay in Britain 1710 to 1914)

John 1 probably saw Charles, who was eight years older than Hannah, as a very good catch. Apart from being pleased enough to have his daughter, a Eurasian, marry this young Englishman in the climate of establishment-backed racism, I also suspect that John, who must have appreciated the business opportunities of the particular period, would have been happy to have a new son-in-law who was working for the Sanitary Department. This was a time of development both on the island of Hong Kong and on Kowloon side where the New Territories had just been acquired.

Supplying water and sanitary services was a priority following the outbreak of plague in 1894 that was at the forefront of everybody’s mind. There were still outbreaks of the disease each year thus much emphasis was placed on water supply and sanitation. Minutes of the Legislative Council for the time show concern for sanitary facilities throughout the Colony.

Here is the Acting Colonial Secretary Sercombe Smith in October 1898 speaking to the Legislative Council: “With regard to the sanitary department, there is a difference in the estimate for 1899 and that for 1898 of $8,000. I believe no member of this Council will dissent from the view that it is absolutely necessary in the interests of the sanitation of the colony to increase our sanitary staff. It is in order to meet that increase that an extra expenditure for 1899 is essential and that you are asked to vote it. In 1898 we had one senior inspector and 12 other inspectors. For 1899 it is proposed to have one chief inspector from England, five first class inspectors, six second class inspectors, and six third class inspectors, a staff which I believe is about equal to the staff employed in England at Newcastle-on-Tyne, a town where the population is less than that of Hong Kong, and where the habits of the people and the nature of the climate render it not so necessary to have so big a staff as in Hong Kong. “

Money was being spent. So a son-in-law on the inside of a developing area was a plus for John.

Another indication of the financial position Charles was in at the time of his marriage to Hannah is that he lived in John’s house and continued living with them for five years after his marriage, during which his first two children, Leslie (1900) and Evelyn (1902) were born. (Brian Lewis research)

John 1 (pictured left as a young man) had been in the Colony more than 30 years in 1900, and family oral history says he was successful. Also, he would have had many contacts. Remember, too, that as far back as 1880 he had been able to pay HK$950 – just short of a year’s salary for Charles – for a memorial to his brother. So he probably had the capital and it would have made sense for him to invest in his son-in-law’s future, particularly as it would also mean he could place his sons in the business as well.

Thus, it seems very unlikely that Charles Warren had anything but a minority interest in the new business of C.E.Warren and Co. Such a business start-up would have needed significant financial backing, and it would have been quite natural for a father-in-law to contribute heavily in such circumstances. And, with two sons to place in careers, it would also have made excellent sense.

But Charles was certainly a most valuable part to the enterprise. He would have been an excellent front man and one whom John 1, former ship’s cook, former farm keeper, former beer seller, hotelier and perhaps latterly a somewhat rough and ready landlord and provider of mortgages, would have been glad to have. Much more importantly Charles would also have brought a book full of contacts to the new business from his days with the Sanitary Service of Hong Kong.

There is another view. Dealing with this period Brian Lewis has the following to say in his research document: “Geoffrey Warren (grandson of Charles Warren) recalls it was often said that when Charles married Hannah he married the entire family. This suggests that to some extent the Olson family was increasingly dependent on Charles Warren’s prosperity”.

There is simply no logic or evidence to back this. In fact, later in his research, Brian Lewis contradicts himself and says: “Clearly the family all lived together at 33 Caine Road as a start up. It would have been unlikely that Charles Warren would have made enough to set up house”. This seems much nearer the mark than Geoffrey Warren’s view which ignores the fact that John 1 was well established long before Charles even arrived in the Colony. The picture here shows the view over the harbour in 1905 from the mid-levels area where Caine Road was situated.

On balance, and allowing for the bitterness that polluted judgments of the period that followed, it is unlikely that much credence was given to fact even if it was clearly evident and unambiguous. The hostility between the Olson family and the Warrens which turns this family story into a mystery and drama is a sad comment on the false trails deliberately laid by all our forbears.

For reasons, which will be explored later in this narrative, what were quite false positions were taken and, in some cases, unwarranted promises extracted. Both sides did this for reasons of self-aggrandisement or simple malice and certainly managed to muddy the waters wonderfully.

Obviously with the passage of time and no documentary evidence available it is impossible to know with certainty who or what lay behind the setting up of the company which bore Charles Warren’s name.

But, if the scenario I have outlined is correct even in part, and logic says it is the most likely way that the business got started, it goes some way to explaining the upheavals which would follow.

I have found no other documentary proofs so must rely on the most likely scenario as an explanation of the trauma which engulfed the family of John 1.

GROWING FAMILIES AND GROWING EXPECTATIONS

Now let us return to 1904 when C.E.Warren and Co was set up. Thanks to Brian Lewis we also know that John Olson 2, who was then 19, and his brother Charles Olson then 16, were there from the start.

We have seen that John 2 received his education at what was regarded as one of the best educational establishment in Hong Kong at the time so it is reasonable to suppose his father was not about to waste that investment.

The years that followed were good for the new company which showed steady growth according to Brian Lewis. In 1906 the Ladies’ Directory shows Mrs C.E. Warren (Hannah) living at Observatory Villas, Kowloon, and in the business directory it is clear that Charles Olson has left the company, as he is listed as an Assistant at the International Banking Corporation based at 9 Queen’s Road, Central. (Research Brian Lewis)

For John 2 1906 was a landmark year for he married the 17-year-old Annie Louisa Moore Burke. Like so much of this story we are short on facts and know little about Annie Louisa’s early life. The couple are pictured here, he in a slightly later picture, and Annie Louisa around the time of her marriage and perhaps wearing her wedding dress from that day in St Joseph’s Church, Kowloon.

Annie Louisa was the daughter of James Moore and Maria Aloysia Fitzgerald who were married in St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Hong Kong, on May 29, 1885. According to records in the Carl Smith Archive, Maria was born in Foochow the “daughter of a certain Fitzgerald” and was living at the Italian Convent. James was said to be 25 and Maria 26 years old at the time of their marriage. The name of Maria’s mother is not known.

James must have died very early in the 1890s after the birth of their third child, Annie Louisa, because we find Maria Louisa Moore, widow of James Moore, and Edward George Burke child of Edward John and Emilia Dyer (Dwyer?) of Dublin, marrying on February 11, 1893 again in St Joseph’s Church. He is said to be aged 30 and she 29. (Carl Smith Archive)

As Maria was 26 in 1885 at the time of her first marriage she is doubtless invoking a woman’s prerogative! We do not know what profession or trade James Moore followed but Edward George Burke is noted as being a timekeeper at the Taikoo Sugar Company in Quarry Bay between 1901 and 1902.

This then explains the odd surname of Moore Burke. Annie Louisa and her sister Clara Mary Beatrice styled themselves thus, but their brother Patrick William used only Moore, his father’s name.

Clara was the eldest child of Maria Louisa’s first union. She was born in 1886 and died in 1912 in Singapore of a pregnancy related disease. She had only been married a few months. She is pictured here with Annie Louisa and her son Ernest in Singapore at the time of her wedding. Clara is on the left.

Annie Louisa was born June 9, 1889 and died in Hong Kong on January 17, 1966 when visiting her son Ossie and his wife Dorothy who lived there between 1958 and 1970. We have no date of birth for Patrick William and do not know where or when he died. But we can assume that he was born between the two girls, probably in 1887.

The information that Annie Louisa’s mother was living at the Italian Convent is of interest because family lore has it that Annie Louisa was married directly from the Italian Convent. (Dorothy Olson widow of Ossie Olson; Aileen Olson, widow of Tubby Olson, to the author)

The Carl Smith Archive casts doubt on that story.

There were in fact two Italian convents. The "Italian Convent" Free School, as it is styled in the Hong Kong Catholic Church archives, sounds as if it may have been an orphanage alongside the more prestigious fee-paying convent. That is certainly a convention that existed in the Catholic Church in Ireland up until the early 1960s, so there is reason to believe it was practice for some orders of nuns.

Family legend is that Annie Louisa was an orphan in the care of by nuns. However, this must now be in doubt because we now know at least one of her parents was alive in 1902 and also because of the circumstances of her marriage and that of her sister Clara. Both married well, though Annie Louisa married an Eurasian, and it may simply be that they went to school at the Italian Convent. She may very well have been educated by nuns as she was a remarkable needlewoman, whom my mother, (Aileen Olson who was married to Annie Louisa’s son Tubby), always said could only have learned her skills from nuns. As Aileen went through the convent system in Ireland she certainly had an eye for such detail.

Annie Louisa’s lineage means she had not a drop of English blood in her though she was a British citizen by birth in a British Colony. Her mother, who was born in Foochow in 1859 with a father named as “a certain Fitzgerald”, may have been of mixed race. We do not know. But Irish blood predominates thanks to the marriage of her mother to James Moore. Annie Louisa’s marriage to John Olson, a British citizen by birth but who was half Swedish and half Chinese by blood means that their sons, Ernest, Hugh (who bore the Fitzgerald name in memory of his maternal grandmother), William (Ossie) and Charles (Tubby) were Chinese/Swedish/Irish. Of course all took, and were entitled to, British citizenship because of their birth in a British colony.

We know Annie Louisa was a practising Catholic because I have a copy of the ‘Promises to Be Signed before Marriage’ that were demanded by the Catholic Church at the time. These promises bound the non-Catholic party to bring up any children as Catholics. The document is signed by Annie Louisa as the Catholic party and John 2 as the non-Catholic.

Hers is a somewhat childish hand, not surprising as she was 17 when she married, and his is neat and competent and of the time. The document is dated September 28, 1906 and witnessed by a priest with a signature that may be John O’Grady at the Holy Rosary church in Kowloon on October 1, 1906. This also indicates that she was not in the care of the nuns who were based in Caine Road on Hong Kong Island – just a few doors away from the Olson household.

The marriage may well have been a real love match. Recent research points to John 2’s mother Ching Ah Fung being a committed Christian and we also know that he, along with his siblings, was sent to the Diocesan School. Given the times and the state of inter-church relations, mixed religion marriages were not encouraged. In fact they were often actively discouraged. So we can speculate that this marriage was a love match which took place despite the impediment of different religions.

And it was probably because of those restrictive times that the following letter to Ah Fung was written. It comes from the Rev Thomas W. Pearce and was accompanied by a copy of the bible which was inscribed:

John Olson - 1 October 1906
TWP and MAP

Psalm 127 'Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it'

The letter, which is dated 1.10.06 on London Missionary Society notepaper, reads:

Dear Mrs Olson,
Mrs Pearce and I having in mind the wedding this morning of your son, and much regretting that we cannot be present at the ceremony and subsequent reception - beg your son's acceptance of a small marriage gift in the form of an English Bible.
Will you be good enough to convey this gift to your son whose career we shall continue to watch with great interest and for whom and for his bride we pray every blessing from Almighty God.
Trusting that the events of the day may be as you all desire.
Believe me. With the congratulations and good wishes of us both.
Yours very truly,
Thomas W Pearce

As a member of the London Missionary Society in those days before ecumenism the Rev Pearce would have not wished to cross the Catholic threshold and would equally have not been welcomed by the Catholic clergy. It seems that his only way of being able to mark the event was the letter and gift he mentions. Strangely he dates the wedding as being October 1 whereas we know from the records at St Joseph’s Church, Kowloon, on September 28, 1906. Perhaps the typhoon played a part in this confusion.

That aside, clearly both Ah Fung and her son John had made an impression on Thomas Pearce. And John kept the bible and the letter. I have it today.

The letter also gives us an insight into the character of Ah Fung and serves to dispel any doubts about her conversion to Christianity and baptism in 1891. It might have been thought that she did this in order to please her husband and in some way ensure her succession and the succession of her children. But clearly this is not the case as, 15 years later she has formed a friendship with this clergyman and his wife which points to her practicing her religion with continuity and commitment.

And there is another coincidence concerning religion.

Charles Warren converted to Catholicism as a young man. It is not known when or where, but Warren family lore says he was a very devout member of that Church and donated large sums of money to it.

It is because of this that we have an idea of the date Charles arrived in Hong Kong from South Africa. The Catholic authorities in Hong Kong were able to produce for Geoffrey Warren, eldest grandson of Charles, “memoranda of promotions” relating to Charles dated 1895-6, which puts him in the Colony earlier than Brian Lewis thought.(Jill Fell, granddaughter of Hannah Olson)

Remarkably, this means that two of John 1’s children married Catholics and Hannah would have also have had to sign the promise to bring up their children as Catholics. Whether this had any bearing on future events we do not know but, as we will see, it would create some mysteries that cannot be answered.

What we can be certain of though is that Charles Warren was a good businessman because the company grew at a very fast pace.

By 1908 Charles, according to the Society of Genealogists, is styling himself as Warren C.E. Architect and Civil Engineer, (he held no qualification in either discipline), 30 Des Voeux Road, Central. And the company is called C.E.Warren and Co Building Contractors, Sanitary Engineers, Tile Manufacturers. 30 Des Voeux Road, Central, Director: C.E.Warren. John Olson is listed as an assistant and is also listed as a foreign resident of Hong Kong. (Research Brian Lewis)

And this research by Brian Lewis now produces another nugget. The South China Ladies’ Directory of 1908 shows Mrs C.E.Warren living at 52 Caine Road together with a Mrs Olson and a Miss Olson. So Charles, who is now 36, is again living with the in-laws, together with his three children, Leslie now 8, Evelyn 6, and Arthur 2. This is a different house in Caine Road. But with three extra children maybe they needed more space!

It would also be interesting to know why they moved back to Hong Kong from Kowloon. Whatever the reason, they were back in Kowloon the next year because the youngest son, Reginald, was born in Nathan Road according to his birth certificate. So the move back to the in-laws was seemingly temporary.

The same directory says Annie Louisa and John 2 are living at 22 Morrison Hill Road together with a Miss Olson. So we know that in 1908 there were two Olson households on Hong Kong Island. One housed the newishly weds John 2 and Annie Louisa and their first child Ernest, and the other the grandparents, John 1 and Ah Fung, step-daughter, son-in-law and three children. That two Miss Olsons are mentioned is incorrect as by this date Elizabeth would have become Mrs Warnes.

John and Annie Louisa, who lived close by, presumably had a quieter time and Annie Louisa may even have had a sister-in-law, Nellie, to help look after the infant because she was almost certainly pregnant again with Hugh. Today, Morrison Hill Road in the Wanchai is a busy thoroughfare, and a hotel stands on the site of the house that Annie Louisa and John made their first home.

But there is no doubt that the young Olsons were beginning to reap the rewards the new company created.

In 1910 we know there was a major family social event as many of them decamped to Singapore for the wedding of Annie Louisa’s sister Clara.

It is not known whether John 1 went but we know from pictures that Elizabeth went as did John and Annie Louisa and their sons Ernest and Hugh. Clara married well. The picture here shows her leaving the Anglican Cathedral in Singapore in some style with new husband Charles Rowe, a rubber planter, on her way to the reception which was held in the city’s Masonic Hall.

As the business grew, so the families of Charles and John 2 grew. Ernest, as already mentioned was born in 1907 and Hugh came along in 1909, the same year that Reginald, the last child of Charles and Hannah, was born. William Oswald, known as Ossie, was born in 1910 and Charles, known as Tubby, came in 1913.

So, by 1913 Charles and Hannah and John and Annie Louisa had produced eight children between them since 1900 and, as the company grew more prosperous they might have been forgiven for looking forward to an ideal and golden colonial life.

The year 1913 was something of a landmark for all concerned. Charles Warren and Co bought two lots of land at auction for HK$7100 (Sterling £160,000 at today’s values). On the second lot it was, according to the South China Morning Post, “the intention of Messrs Warren and Co., Sanitary Engineers, tile makers etc., to build…a modern tile factory, equipped with up-to- date plant, in extension of the factory which they built a few years ago and which has already become inadequate for their business”. The second lot was at Wongneichong Road overlooking Happy Valley Racecourse, which later became Broadwood Road. (South China Morning Post. Research Brian Lewis)

The picture here is in all probability one of those factories and was found in the collection of Hugh Olson. Business must have been very good, and the clouds of war in Europe were not darkening the horizon in Hong Kong, for not only was the company intent on increasing production with a new factory at the Tai Hang Village lot, but according to the research of Brian Lewis, Charles was either planning to build, or had commenced building, on the Wongneichong Road lot.

He also began building a very large family house called The Towers here and a bungalow at 20 and 21 Broadwood Road, which Brian Lewis suggests were completed by the end of 1916 or early the following year. But in his document it is not clear as to whether this development was of just the ostentatious family home, The Towers, and a bungalow, or whether it was also a commercial development of other houses. There is no documentary evidence available at the Land Registry in Hong Kong so family oral history must be the source.

Brian Lewis says: “The fact is this was a lovely location overlooking Happy Valley Racecourse but it was not on the fashionable Peak side. Geoffrey says it was not Charles’ way to live in the fashionable areas. I am sure he was quite right and it may well have given him quiet satisfaction to see his house dominating the hill view from the racecourse.”

Whatever about not wanting to live in so called fashionable areas, Charles built himself a very large house which is dubbed “a castle” which overlooked Happy Valley Racecourse in a book on the history of Hong Kong horse racing. (Helen Lee, Archivist, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Archives)

From the picture here it is not hard to see why it was so described.

Even though the big house would not be completed until 1916/17 already some of the trappings of high living colonial style were evident.

Leslie, the eldest son of Charles and Hannah, was sent to Montreal to school with the Jesuits in 1908 -1909. Why he only spent a year there is not known, but he then went to St Joseph’s College, a Catholic School run by the de la Salle order in Hong Kong, until 1913. Then, just before war broke out in Europe, he and his sister Evelyn went to England to be educated. Leslie entered Churchers College, Petersfield, in September 1913 and stayed there until July 1917 when he returned to the family business in Hong Kong. Evelyn was sent to Upper Chine in Shanklin, Isle of Wight. A sister of Charles, Rachel Cave, also lived in Shanklin, so this made sense. (Research Brian Lewis)

Brian Lewis’s assertion that Hannah brought the two to England is open to question. Jill Fell says she stayed with Brian in 1992 and went through what he had written in great detail with him. At that time she and Brian knew nothing of Hannah but had three photos he thought were her. She now knows none of them were of Hannah and adds: “I'm not saying that Hannah didn't bring the children to England butI know that Brian had no specific evidence ofthat.”

No matter who brought the children to England, sending his son to Churchers and a daughter to a school called Upper Chine, a non-Catholic establishment in Shanklin, Isle of Wight, was a strange decision by Charles, given his alleged devout adherence to Catholicism. Brian Lewis speculates that Charles’s sister Rachel, who lived in Shanklin, may have influenced him. Nevertheless, if the Warren family is correct about the commitment that Charles had to Catholicism there must have been another reason for his decision for it was a complete break with the “terms and conditions” which applied to members of that Church at that time.

However, whatever the reason, the two younger sons went the same way. In Hong Kong Arthur went to St Joseph’s College ( Catholic) between the ages of seven and ten, and Reginald went the French Convent school, aged six, in 1915. The two boys were then sent to University School, Mount Tolman (sic), Vancouver Island in 1917-1918, and in September 1919 they followed their elder brother to Churchers. (Brian Lewis research)

The two boys were actually sent to University School, Mount Tolmie on Victoria Island. This was a recently opened school and according to the founders it was intended “to establish a school which shall maintain the best traditions of the English Public Schools; at the same time keeping in view the special needs of Colonial life.” This school was not Catholic, and amalgamated with another on Vancouver Island in 1971. Today it is known as St Michael’s University School.

This move is especially puzzling because St Joseph’s College where Arthur had been was a highly successful educational establishment in Hong Kong with a broad and diverse pupil base and was the school all the Olson cousins went to.

In those days it was based at Robinson Road just around the corner from Caine Road and clearly had an influence on the future of John 2’s sons, as it almost certainly lead to the choice of school they were sent to in England when it came to their turn to follow the colonial path. St Joseph’s was run by the de la Salle Order of Catholic religious, and they must have recommended that John 2 and Annie Louisa send their sons to another de la Salle run school, St John’s College, Southsea in England.

At that time St Joseph’s in Hong Kong was a substantial force in education in Hong Kong with nearly 500 students. The three higher classes prepared their students for the Oxford University Examinations, namely Senior, Junior and Preliminary, and it was quite usual to see St. Joseph's College heading the results’ list, both in quantity and quality. Today the school has moved campus to Kennedy Road where 4,300 pupils attend. (See www.sjc.edu.hk)

So we are left to wonder what happened to make Charles send two small boys across the Pacific to a relatively unknown school which would not teach them the faith he is said to have devoutly espoused.

Stranger still this decision resulted in a close knit group of cousins being split apart. The reason could not have been a lack of facilities in Hong Kong and in 1917 there is no hint of the drama that was to split the families. We are left to speculate whether the reason lay in the relationship between Charles and Hannah which seems to have been difficult according to Warren family lore.

Therefore, at this juncture, with the two youngest Warren children being sent away to school in 1917, in the light of the events that were to follow, it is worth examining what we know of the position of both John Olson 1 and John Olson 2.

In the case of the senior Olson we know nothing except that by now he had lost Ching Ah Fung after a relationship which had lasted 34 years. She died in October 1915 and he must have been very lonely as he approached his 80th birthday. Whether he was still active in business we do not know, but he was at least available to advise both son and son-in-law if advice were asked.

He had lived long enough to see his daughter and son-in-law living an ostentatious lifestyle in an imposing, well-situated house, complete with servants’ quarters and two tennis courts. Here we see him here sitting proudly with seven of his grandsons, standing at the back are Ernest Olson and Arthur Warren. The middle row from left is Reggie Warren and Hugh Olson. The bottom row is Charles (Tubby) Olson, Sonny Boy Melcher and William (Ossie) Olson.

It was a long way from the day he stepped ashore on the island and he was still living in downtown Hong Kong at 98 Wanchai Road, close to the harbour side where he first landed on the island.

And what of John 2’s career? In various directory entries researched by Brian Lewis, he is noted as an employee of the C.E.Warren company but in 1917 he is listed as a partner for the first time. This is recorded in the 1917 Directory of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where C.E.Warren and Co are listed as Sanitary Engineers, Tile Manufacturers, Granite and Marble Merchants and Monumentalists.

He must have been the beneficiary of the success of Charles Warren and the firm of C.E.Warren and Co. But we know nothing concrete of where he, Annie Louisa and the family lived at this time and neither do we know the style in which they lived. We can also only guess at his family circumstances, though it is pretty sure that his three eldest sons were well established at St Joseph’s College on Robinson Road, so it is likely they would have been living close by. It is a fair guess to say they were living at 98 Wanchai Road which seems to have been associated with the Olsons for many years.

But there is also evidence of an Olson establishment close to The Towers.

  

The picture above shows Ethel, wife of Charles Olson, on the terrace of her home in Happy Valley and The Towers can be seen clearly in the background.

Alongside is a contemporary postcard which was sent to John 2 in England from a friend in Hong Kong in 1923. On it the two houses are marked and I have arrowed them. The friend reminded John 2 of the good times they had in these houses and gave a date that he was arriving in England.

But those good times were about to change dramatically.

END OF AN ERA

As the First World War drew to a close, Leslie returned to the Colony from school at Churchers near Petersfield in Hampshire, England. He probably made his first appearance at C.E.Warren and Co around September or October 1917 and, according to Brian Lewis’s account, it is likely he worked for the company until shortly after his birthday in August 1918, when he volunteered for the Royal Air Force Cadet Wing, in which he served in England from 1918 to 1919.

Brian Lewis in his research assumes John 2 was a Swedish citizen and therefore a neutral and not obliged to volunteer for service, as all under 40 were required to do if they did not wish to be conscripted. In this he is incorrect. In law John 2 was a British citizen by virtue of his birth in a British Colony or Protectorate and a picture in the family archive shows him in uniform with other members of the Hong Kong Volunteer force. Nothing is known of Charles Warren’s role but he would probably have been too old to volunteer.

There is no evidence of John 2 having any other involvement in the war, except a mention in the South China Morning Post in November 1918 of him supplying a quantity of reading matter to the troops. (Research Brian Lewis)

There is little anecdote to cover the years from 1913 to early 1918. Certainly the war in Europe occupied many column inches of space in the Hong Kong newspapers and, at the same time, war in Europe or not, business boomed for C.E.Warren and Co. For Charles Warren The Towers provided the outward show of that business success.

Brian Lewis also mentions in his research that the company had a godown (factory and distribution centre) at 98a Wanchai Road, and that the company headquarters at 30 Des Voeux Road had, by 1917, become a four-floor office and showroom, extending from numbers 30 to 32. But Brian Lewis’s assertion on the Wanchai Road address is unsourced and there is a strong likelihood that it is incorrect. The address is given as the birthplace of my father, Charles (Tubby) Olson, in 1913, on his birth certificate and is also the place where Ah Fung died according to her death certificate. It is also given as the residence of John 1. John 1 also died there at 98b. He had also lived in 98a because that is the address he gives on Ah Fung’s death certificate. Also in the 1917 Dollar Directory, Charles Olson pops up as working for Thoreson and Co, Shipping Agents and living at 98b Wanchai Road. (Research Brian Lewis)

All of this makes it look as if the Wanchai Road address was an Olson campus and was probably part of John 1’s property/business portfolio.

Despite these good years, as the war clouds cleared in Europe, they appear to have been gathering over C.E.Warren and Co. And we do know some of the events of 1918 that may have had a bearing on what was to follow.

First, at the end of May, John 1 died. He was 80 years old and had lived a long and fruitful life. He had buried two brothers and a first-born infant son named John as well as his grown-up daughter Elizabeth at Happy Valley Cemetery. He had also buried Ching Ah Fung as Ellen Olson in Happy Valley. When he died of throat cancer on May 25 1918, he was buried beside her the next day.

John’s death was the end of an era.

Sadly it seems that his legacy was turmoil and the beginning of a family split which continued for more than eighty years. Whatever the reasons were, matters were afoot that were to see a break up of the partnership and, by oral tradition in the Warren family, the ruining and eventual early death of Charles Warren.

A close-knit family split irrevocably, and my generation of Olsons were never told of the existence of Warren cousins. They were told the Olsons existed but instructed never to contact their cousins.

THE ANATOMY OF DISCORD

So what happened after John 1 died to cause such a severing of family relations?

First let us look at what Brian Lewis has to say.

He states he found John 2’s name as a partner in the company in an advert in the South China Morning Post as late as August 1918 but that this is not supported in an entry in the China Directory issued at the end of July, which shows C.E.Warren styled as proprietor and a staff of L.B.Warren and J.Olsen (sic).

He writes:

“John Olson is not mentioned as partner (in the China Directory) and this causes me to speculate that this was the beginning of the split because as we will see below in the next entry in the China Directory for 1919 John Olson has gone and Leslie is away on active service.

If John Olson had a major disagreement this could have flowed from a concern that the Warren children would dominate the company in the future. Maybe that concern was reinforced if Leslie was offered a partnership thus diluting the Olson share. This is speculation and I have nothing to prove it but I now believe that Olson wanted to take his share out of the business while it was intact and Charles Warren may have felt that this was also in his long-term family interests.

Diana (Leslie’s daughter) indicated John Olson had been embezzling money so it is possible that the opportunity was taken to hush this up and remove him discreetly from the company.

I have to say again that this is speculation because there does not appear to have been any publicity either formal or official announcements of company changes or in press coverage. It is perfectly possible that the blanket coverage at the end of the First World War and the aftermath was more important. However changes in company management tended to be clearly announced in the press and this was not”.

There, in four paragraphs, lies the dispute as handed down the Warren line. For my generation of Olsons born in the England all this was totally unknown.

But Lewis was missing some vital parts of the jigsaw and was also being selective in his use of information.

His biggest problem is that he did not know of the existence of John 1 and so did not know he had died in May 1918.

He also ignores his own evidence culled from the 1917 Directory of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, which shows John 2 as a partner and bases his admitted speculation on the fact that the China Directory of 1918 does not mention John 2 as a partner.

Finally, despite the doggedness of some of his research, he never once asks the hard question of how Charles Warren could have gone from being an obscure colonial civil servant to a man of wealth in just fourteen years (1904 to 1918).

But knowing nothing of John 1 is the biggest shortcoming of the research Brian Lewis did. It meant he never looked for or saw John 1’s Will. In fact so completely had the Warrens scrubbed the Hong Kong memory that John 1 does not figure at all and, as previously mentioned, an Alfred Olson was invented. So the person who researched the Warren family history in Hong Kong was without perhaps the most crucial piece of information. If he had known of John 1 he would have guessed that he was a man of some substance and that might have prompted him to ask more questions about the origin of the business which carried the Warren name.

It is inexplicable that John 1 should never have been mentioned. Some of his Warren grandchildren are pictured with him at The Towers, as shown in this document, so it cannot have been a question of their not knowing he existed. For whatever reason a cover up was devised and he was erased from history and a completely false trail laid. There must have been a reason for such an extraordinary action.

In all probability the terms of John 1’s Will lie at the heart of the mystery.

If it is accepted that John 1 played a role in setting up C.E.Warren and Co then the Will, the original of which I found in the Public Records Office of Hong Kong and the beginning of which is shown here, overturns the speculation of Brian Lewis that the split was caused by John 2’s fears that his share of the business might be diminished by Leslie being offered a partnership by Charles. The reverse is was more likely for if Charles had only a minority interest in the company then such an appointment would not have been within his personal gift.

The situation is made starker because John 1’s Will leaves his whole estate to Ching Ah Fung and thence her children. Hannah therefore, not being Ah Fung’s child, was effectively disinherited. Thus, if John 1 was the beneficial owner of the majority share of the business the scenario of John 2 being threatened by having his share diminished is not possible.

On the balance of probability because of the Will’s terms the real situation was the exact opposite of Brian Lewis’s conclusion. But the situation was even more complicated. Ah Fung was dead and, under the terms of the Will the estate was left to her surviving children John, Ellen (Nellie) and Charles and the three children of her eldest child, Elizabeth, who had died in 1917. If you read the Will it can be seen that John 1 went to some length to ensure the rules of succession to the extent of cutting Ah Fung out if she remarried. The inheritance was for his children by Ah Fung and their children. Nobody else.

Thus, Charles Warren was more likely the person who would have felt threatened and desperately let down. He was middle-aged and had worked hard to build a successful business. He had climbed up a very slippery social ladder and now led an ostentatious and very expensive life with a huge house, servants, a string of racehorses and children at school in England.

He now faced the prospect of suddenly being a junior shareholder in the enterprise he had fronted and built thanks to John 1’s Will. It would have been a cruel blow both to his pride and his pocket.

But, as in much of this story, nothing is simple and the Will raises more questions.

For a start it was twenty-eight years old and there were no codicils. John 1 made it in February of 1890 when his youngest child by Ah Fung, Charles, was already two years old and Charles Warren had not even arrived in the Colony.

The Administration Bond granted to probate the Will is dated June 20, 1918, less than a month after John’s death. And that bond, entered into for HK$32,000, (this approximates to Sterling £4,150 at that time) is granted to John Olson and Charles Warren, both stated to be merchants, who both give their address as 30-32 Des Voeux Road, Central Victoria, which was the headquarters of C.E.Warren and Co. So the company seems to be the financial guarantor of the probating of John 1’s estate which also points to the fact that Charles was a minority shareholder in the operation.

This Administration Bond was required because the original executor appointed, Wilhelm Petersen, had died in 1896 and John 1 had not replaced him. It is not clear how the figure of HK$32,000 would have been reached and what relationship it bore to the estate. I consulted the solicitors who handled the granting of the original bond, Johnson Stokes & Master, Prince's Building, 10 Chater Road, Hong Kong, who are in business to this day. I asked if they had records going back that far and how the $32K would have been arrived at.

Mr Jacklyn Ng, a Partner in the company, said: “I regret to say that we do not keep records of files of those days. However, an administration bond is required nowadays by the Probate Registrar of the High Court of HK for the gross value of the estate in HK in respect of applications made by non-HK residents or lawful attorney of those entitled to a grant for administration to an estate in HK.”

It is possible that the figure was an estimate of the estates liability before disbursement or it may be that the surety demanded was to protect the interests of the three Warne children who were minors. There are examples of this. Until recently sureties and bonds were required in, for example, New South Wales. The Supreme Court there required them to provide suitable protection for the interests of “disabled persons, minors and incompetent persons”.

Such a bond was an undertaking on oath by an administrator to properly perform his or her obligations in the administration of an estate with the sureties guaranteeing to pay to the court the amount of the bond in the event of the estate not being properly administered. In New South Wales two sureties were required to the bond except where it was given by a guarantee company authorised by the court. As much colonial law was similar – originating as it did from London – it is likely that the News South Wales legislation mirrors what was the case in Hong Kong early last century.

Interestingly both Charles Warren and John Olson 2 signed as sureties to John 1’s will.

We do not know what the final value of the estate John 1 left was as there are no further documents in the Probate Registry in Hong Kong relating to John’s estate.

But we can make two guesses as to its gross value. The first using $32,000 as the gross value of the estate means it is worth £860,000 at today’s values.

The second assumes that $32,000 represented the estimated quarter share due to the Warnes children so the gross figure rises to £3.44million.

From these figures we can see that John 1 was certainly comfortably off and might have even been wealthy by the standards of the day. But we are left with two further problems.

The first is a figure of HK$480,000 calculated from information in a letter written by Reginald Warren in 1980 describing the financial cost of the break up of the partnership. (This letter is examined later in this narrative) If Reginald’s account of the Olson share in the partnership is accurate then neither of the figures I suggest for John’s estate can be remotely near the reality as they are far too low.

The second question is why did Charles act as a surety for the Administration Bond if John 1 and his siblings were the beneficial owners of the majority share of C.E.Warren and Co and he (Charles) knew the terms of the Will? Could it have been that he did not know the content of the Will at that stage? Or could it be that, knowing the content of the Will he realised he had no option but to sign as he had lost control of the company but hoped to make the best of a bad outturn?

On balance, I think the likelihood is that Charles knew the content of the Will and realised that it would be fruitless to try and oppose the bond guarantee. This is really the only logical answer to why Charles witnessed the bond. He may have hoped that being supportive in the matter of the Administration Bond would help smooth any forthcoming negotiations which might arise.

Whatever the reasons behind these actions the only logical reason for Charles subsequently raising funds to pay off the Olsons as is stated by Brian Lewis, was that they were the beneficial owners of the majority of the company. There can be no other reason for him to have taken such desperate measures and, if the Olsons had been minority shareholders, he would have been able to stall any payments and construct a properly ordered buy out strategy which would have placed the minimum strain on the company.

The scenario of Charles finding himself as the minority shareholder following the death of John 1 is the only logical one at the present time. The Warren suggestion that Charles paid John 1 off because he was embezzling company funds is clearly balderdash. Why would Charles almost bankrupt the company to get rid of a thief? It is inconceivable.

What is almost certainly correct is the Warren view that the Olsons, for reasons we do not know, decided they wanted their share of the company and there certainly must have been long and difficult negotiations. It is also possible that the nature of John 1’s Will which meant there were several beneficiaries militated against a slow withdrawal of Olson support for C.E.Warren and Co. People wanted their inheritance.

We have no record of what went on but it cannot have been pretty. But, thanks to the Hong Kong Company Office, it is possible to assume a time window in which it all happened. It seems that sometime between the granting of the Administration Bond on June 20, 1918 and December 7, 1918, when C.E.Warren and Co was registered as a limited company, the knives came out and there was blood on the floor.

One of the main difficulties in putting together any scenario to explain these events is that both the Olsons and the Warrens of the Hong Kong generations decided either to pass on no information or to edit, invent, embellish or simply lie.

Thus to the Warrens the Olsons were the ogres who stole their family fortune by forcing Charles Warren to pay them vast sums of money. This was passed to the next generation. To the Olsons it was altogether different. The Warrens did not exist, and if there were any whiff of scandal it attached to Charles Olson reputed to have run off with a large sum - HK$96,000 - of John 2’s money and certainly known as a playboy. John 2, so the family line went, had made his money and retired young and left Charles to oversee his business interests in Hong Kong while he concentrated on bringing his sons up in England!

But we now know both sides were economical with the truth and in order to try and work out why and what happened we must first look back again.

HOW THE SEEDS OF DISASTER WERE SOWN

We have nothing but a few pictures, the knowledge of his background in Sweden and the Will to tell us anything about John 1. But we can make some educated guesses about his character.

Knowing the background he came from he must have been an exceptional man considering the enormous changes he lived through and adapted to.

Here was a man who spent more than 50 years in Hong Kong absorbing two alien cultures, that of China and Britain. He certainly had to learn English and may also have picked up a working knowledge of Cantonese.

Here is a man not afraid of change but who was certainly ill equipped for the future when he landed on the island.

Here is a man who seems to have pursued several careers ranging from farming to managing a Temperance Hall with many things in between.

We can guess he was probably unscrupulous in the free-for-all of Hong Kong’s early business development. It was survival of the fittest and he was nothing if not a survivor

We are entitled to think he was unscrupulous sexually. Victorian Hong Kong was renowned for a laissez faire attitude to sex as long as it was Europeans using Chinese women. And they did that with great energy. In John’s case we know he did not settle down and have children with one woman until he was in his 40s which gives him almost twenty years of sowing wild oats.

We know he probably fell in love with Ching Ah Fung who may well have brought valuable Chinese contacts to his life and business. He married her according to the statement in his Will and buried her in the European Section of Happy Valley. He was also open about his two known fruitful relationships with Chinese women and in being so bucked the social mores of the time.

We know he lived relatively simply in downtown Hong Kong and never moved more than a mile away from where his first business had been on Queen’s Road, Central.

We can assume he believed strongly in family loyalty for he was determined to see that his children and their children were well looked after.

He seems to have passed that quality on to John 2 who valued loyalty to family above all and so instructed his four sons. This is demonstrated in a letter written by Ossie Olson to his brother Hugh Ossie part of which states:

“Before starting out for my first job in the City, Pater (John 2) briefed me on the three most important principles to follow:
1: Loyalty at all times
2: Never humiliate others
3: Never owe money
But overriding all this is loyalty to family and to parents”

So, with all this in mind, it seems unlikely that John 1 would have approved of his family being torn apart and he would certainly not have planned it.

To help make a judgment on this and, in order to see him more clearly, we need to look at the only voice we have directly from him. No letters or other documents from him remain except his Will which he made in February, 1890. And, despite the fact that it is written in the legalese of the time, it is an insight into the mind and morality of the man.

Here are some extracts.

In trust for all my children by the said Ching Ah Fung Olson whether born before or after wedlock both classes being hereinafter included in the terms child and children who being sons shall attain the age of twenty one years or being daughters shall attain that age or shall marry in equal shares and if there be only one such child the whole to be in trust for that one child it being my will and intention that my said wife’s benefit and interest under this my will shall absolutely cease and determine in case she shall remarry after my decease.

But I wish it to be distinctly understood that I make this provision not because I entertain any objection to my widow remarrying but because I consider justice to my children demands this course.

And here is how he was able to visualise the future of his descendants:

Provided always that if any child of mine shall die in my lifetime leaving a child or children who shall survive me and being a son or sons shall attain the age of 21 years or being a daughter or daughters shall attain that age or marry then and in every such case the last mentioned child or children shall take equally between them the share which his her or their parents would have taken of and in the residuary trust funds if such parent had survived me and attained the age of twenty one years.

And I declare that my trustee may with the consent in writing of my said wife and after her decease at the discretion of my trustee raise any part or parts not exceeding in the whole one moiety of the expectant share of any child or grandchild under this my will and apply the same for his or her advancement preferment or benefit my trustee with such consent or at such discretion as aforesaid shall think fit.

And here is an indication of his interest and business acumen:

And I also declare that all moneys liable or directed to be invested under this my will may be invested in or upon any stocks funds or securities of or guaranteed by the Government of the United Kingdom or of any British Colony or Dependency (including the stocks or securities of any railway or other company in India or elsewhere having a fixed rate of interest thereon as aforesaid) or stock of the Bank of England or the debentures or debenture stock or guaranteed or preference stock or shares of any railway company in Great Britain incorporated by act of Parliament or Royal Charter or in or upon real securities in England or leasehold securities in the colony of Hong Kong.

This does not sound like the voice of a man who cares little for what he leaves behind.

Rather it shows he intends to leave a monument to himself through his family.

Yet, on February 13, 1890, just days before his 52nd birthday John 1 sat down in the offices of Messrs Caldwell and Wilkinson, Solicitors, Hong Kong, to sign a will which was going to stand unchanged for 28 years.

Though of course he could not know it, with that signature he in effect set the fuse that led the family to explode. What his motives were in cutting out Hannah we will never know but it seems out of character for this man who clearly embraced family values when it came to succession.

It is suggested by Jill Fell that he took the Chinese view that girl children did not matter. But that is not consistent with his deliberately specifying that his daughters by Ah Fung, and their children if need be, must inherit. We also know that he treated Hannah equally as she grew up and have a record of her being at the Diocesan School together with her sister Elizabeth in 1889. Nevertheless he still disinherits her in 1890.

It may be that his action was linked to the background of Ching Ah Fung. We know there were many wealthy Chinese families and she could well have belonged to one which could bring pressure on John 1 to ensure the future of Ah Fung and her offspring.

When he made his Will John 1 had been living with Ah Fung for probably nine years – Elizabeth his eldest child with her was born in February 1882 - and from the Will it is clear he married her sometime before making it in 1890. What sort of a marriage it was we do not know. No record can be found in the Public Record Office in Hong Kong and the relevant years in the archives of St John’s Cathedral did not survive the Japanese occupation.

We can work out that Ah Fung’s relationship with John 1 probably began in early 1881 given that Elizabeth was born on February 2, 1882. Ah Fung was then 25 and would give John, who was 43 when they began their relationship, three more children and be his partner for 34 years. This also gives us an insight into John 1’s love life because it also shows that whatever happened to Kom Yau it was less than a year after her daughter Hannah was born that John entered into his long-term relationship with Ah Fung.

It is fair to assume John 1 went through a form of marriage with Ah Fung because he calls her his wife in the Will and also includes her children born in and out wedlock which indicates some of the four were born following the marriage. Given that John made his will in February 1890 and more than a year later Ah Fung became a Christian and was baptised by a clergyman of the evangelical persuasion it seems unlikely that they were married in the Anglican Church which we can assume John 1 had links with as both his brothers appear in the St John’s burial registry.

What we do not know is whether this Will came as a surprise to John 2. Would he have been privy to his father’s actions which had taken place when he was just eight years old? We do not know what his relationship with John 1 was like though we can infer he learned the value of family loyalty from his father and that he was close to his mother as is shown by the letter she received from Rev Pearce.

BATTLE IS JOINED

We will never know John 1’s motives in the disbursement of his estate. But, whatever they were, the terms brought about the dissolving of the partnership between Charles Warren and John 2.

The action that set the pattern of secrecy and deception for years to come was probably compressed into the gap between the granting of the Administration Bond on June 20, 1918 and December 7, 1918, when C.E.Warren and Co was registered as a limited company.

In those 170 days the protagonists reached a solution which saw John 2 bring his family to England and live there for the rest of his life, and Charles Warren fighting a rearguard action in order to keep his company solvent and his lifestyle intact. It was a battle that the Warren family felt may have been responsible for his premature death.

The rest of the Olson family to one degree or another quickly left the place of their birth. Nellie was certainly in Shanghai with her husband and son in 1919 and, as far as is known, never lived in Hong Kong again. There is evidence too that this might have been a sudden move – perhaps because of her husband’s business - as there is a series of sad postcards from Sonny Boy, Nellie’s child, to his Olson cousins and his Uncle John (John 2) pleading to return to Hong Kong.

In late 1919 he wrote from Shanghai to his cousins, care of the legal firm in Bishopsgate, London, which represented John 2 in England. Annie Louisa had just brought the boys to England to enter their boarding school and their cousin was clearly upset. Sonny Boy says: “Dear Ernie, Hugh, Ossie and Tubby Please come back to Ah Wong. I miss you all. I want to go back to Hong Kong. I send you plenty kisses. From your little cousin-brother. Sonny Boy” This was a little boy whose world had fallen apart and though we do not know for sure who Ah Wong was it is likely that she was his amah.

But how do we know these 170 days were so vital?

Research in the Company’s Office in Hong Kong shows that C.E.Warren and Co was registered as a limited company on December 7, 1918.

Let us first go back to Brian Lewis. He says, after recording the information that the advert for the company on December 13, 1918, in the South China Morning Post used the style Ltd.:

“I take the view, unsupported by more evidence that the partnership broke up in late 1918 with Charles Warren and his company required by the partnership agreement to pay John Olson his share. This John Olson wished to take in cash.

Charles Warren, seeking to avoid exposing himself, company and family to any future unlimited liability immediately formed into a limited company.

The amounts involved were very substantial and probably the subject of heated disagreement and an increasing hostility between the Warrens and the Olsons.”

This claim that cash was required has no basis in fact and is unlikely. However, Lewis is probably right when he says Warren was trying to protect his family by forming a limited company and it is probable that part of the final agreement was the registering of C.E.Warren as a limited company.

We have no records of what the terms of settlement were and no contemporaneous evidence. But we do have part of a letter written by Reginald Warren, father of Jill Fell, to his niece Diana the daughter of his brother Leslie. It is the only written evidence that refers to a specific figure of settlement.

In this letter written on November 6, 1980, nearly sixty years after the events, Reginald said, referring to the parting of Charles Warren and John Olson:

“Everything cracked and the family broke up and we all had to suffer. The other side had to be paid off which bankrupted the Warrens while they prospered . . . the Olsons and descendants live in the Romsey area. They are judge, lawyers, one is Sheriff of London. I remember seeing a statement recording the vast sum that my father had to pay monthly when he bought them out. About $20,000 monthly for two years. This crippled him and broke him”.

It may be a case of parsing a phrase too heavily but it is surely telling that Reginald said: “The other side had to be paid off ”. The implication is that the Olsons were entitled to the payment yet this does not square with the official Warren line which at the very least suggests that something underhand occurred. His reference to Romsey is incorrect and there were no judges and lawyers but his cousin Hugh Olson did become High Sheriff of London.

But the real interest lies in the figure of $20,000 per month he mentions. We must remember that Reginald is writing at a distance of 60 years so perhaps there can be doubt but, if he was correct, it makes the settlement worth approximately Sterling £62,300 at the time which is £12.9 million at today’s rates.

This is simply staggering. The figure is almost four times the highest estimated value of the total estate of John 1 if the HK$32,000 Administration Bond is used as 25 per cent factor in the total figure as already discussed.

There are other clues. Consider what Brian Lewis says when quoting a South China Morning Post report in 1921.

Under the heading of Local and General News he found:
“The four storeyed (sic) building in Des Voeux Road Central previously owned by C.E.Warren Company has been sold to a Chinese syndicate for $130,000. At about the beginning of this year the same building was purchased by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce for $80,000.”
He continues:
“I saw no comment on the January 1921 sale of the headquarters in the South China Morning Post but the sale was clearly a forced sale at low price and fits the picture of a major cash need being met by liquidation of assets to fulfil the Olson settlement.”

If the Des Voeux Road offices were sold for HK$80,000 using the same methods applied to Reginald’s figure this equates to £2.15 million in today’s money. As the leaseholder of the premises in what was a premier piece of Hong Kong real estate this was probably one of the largest assets the company possessed. But where was the equivalent of another £10m was to come from?

Reginald’s recollections must be called into question. Such a payout would have meant that each of the groups benefiting from John 1’s Will would have pocketed the equivalent of £3.25 million in today’s money. There is simply no evidence that this sort of wealth existed in the Olson family.

Nevertheless, Charles obviously paid a huge price in order to gain control of the company. The prestigious headquarters went, The Towers was sold and his son Leslie, who ran the company after his death, had to bid at auction for contents of his family home. Charles died in 1923 clearly leaving a business in crisis and it is suggested that at this stage the company was under some form of administration, as we would know it today, or perhaps trusteeship. (Jill Fell)

Quite why Charles allowed the company to be brought to the verge of bankruptcy in buying out the Olsons we do not know. Brian Lewis suggests that there was a strong demand for money from the Olson side. He may well be right as there was more than one voice to be heard. But it seems strange that Charles Warren, who must have been an astute and quick witted businessman to have been part of building such an operation, should have had his judgment desert him at this vital stage and overextend the company in such a way.

A real contributory factor may have been that John 2, as representative of the Olson family, had an enormous majority interest in the company through John 1’s initial investment. We can only guess at this because there are no records of any agreements or articles of association regarding the setting up of C.E.Warren and Co in 1904. This in itself may have been part of the problem. Brian Lewis speculates on a 60/40 split of the company in favour of Charles Warren but this would mean it was worth £32.50 million at today’s prices, if the Olson payoff was £12.9 million. This is so unlikely it is hardly worth considering for, like the Olsons, there was no evidence of great wealth in the Warren family after leaving Hong Kong.

Importantly though, Lewis’s suggestion indicates an acceptance that there was a substantial Olson interest in C.E.Warren and Co and he also notes that John 2 appeared as a partner in 1917 though he says he may have been one earlier. Whatever the date of his appointment, he started with the company in 1904 as a 19-year old who was surely placed there by John 1 so, if he was not immediately in partnership, as seems likely, is can be assumed that John 1 was a “sleeping” partner with a watchman on the premises.

Because of this, Charles Warren probably found himself trying to buy eighty or ninety per cent of the company. Clearly he could not raise all the money by way of loans and new backers and so the sale of assets took place and ultimately the company suffered. Whether John 2 forced him into this position or whether it was his pride that made him act as he did we do not know.

Neither do we know why John 2 and the Olsons allowed Charles Warren to go so far. From a business point of view it might have made more sense for John 2 to maintain an Olson interest in what was a successful company. There is no evidence that John 2 needed money as he had other business interests in Hong Kong, and certainly visited them up to 1926 so it is probable that John 2 was under pressure from his siblings to settle matters.

At this distance we know nothing of John 2’s mood or reasons for pressing home the deal. Olson family lore has it that he and Annie Louisa left Hong Kong in order to give his four sons a better start in life as young men in England, as they felt the problem of their being of mixed race would be mitigated in a less claustrophobic society. That may be correct in part but it does not seem enough to have caused such a rapid and dramatic disengagement.

Finally, in dealing with John 2 and the settlement it is worth remembering that, while he and the family lived very well in England there was no evidence of the sort of extreme wealth that a £3.25 million share of John 1’s estate would have created immediately after the First World War. To all intents and purposes they lived solid middle class lives though John 2 is said to have made Annie Louisa a monthly allowance of £100 for herself between the wars. (Information from Vera Olson wife of Hugh Olson)

This is an extremely large allowance (using 1930 as a comparator) it would be worth around £23,000 per annum in today’s money. But this is the only hint of serious wealth. John 2 certainly travelled a great deal and in style. He also had four sons who cost him money to educate but when he died in 1951 he left £3,766.10.11 in England. This was topped up by an estate in Hong Kong which, according to the Probate Registry there amounted to HK$74,100 which was comprised of shares and a land holding in the New Territories valued for probate at HK$1,637. This added to his English estate brings the total to approximately £11,150 giving equivalence in today’s value of approximately £740,000. It was not a great sum by any standards though it did not include the value of 11 Duke’s Avenue, Chiswick.

And here there is another mystery. The house at 11 Duke’s Avenue, Chiswick, became Annie Louisa’s but the conveyance shows it was transferred from one John Morduant Foster not John Olson. Who Mr Foster was we do not know. I suspect this was a device not unrelated to tax avoidance.

When Annie Louisa died in 1966 she left £26,416.10.0 thanks mainly to astute investment by her son Hugh Olson who managed her affairs. Strangely, in today’s terms this is the equivalent of £743,000. Again this is not a great deal of money, especially as this figure included her home at Hampton-on-Thames.

So if the payout by Charles Warren was as huge as is suggested by his son Reginald Warren’s letter what happened to all the money?

(Where I have calculated sums of money into today’s value as I have in these sections I have used the database of the Economic History Association at Wake Forest University, North Carolina and Miami University in Ohio using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the base for calculation.

GDP is the most comprehensive comparison measure as it is the total output of the economy and as a measure yields the second-period value that retains the first-period share of GDP accounted for by the specified amount. In that respect, GDP is a measure that is logically applicable to monetary amounts of all types – commodities, income, wealth, expenditures, etc. Its accuracy as a measure lies in the fact that the share of GDP, whether small or large, is maintained in the second period, so relative value is generated. Note that the year used for today’s value is actually 2002. Earlier in the main body of text I have explained the conversion method of the HK dollar to Sterling.)

THE FALLOUT

Whatever the real figures attached to the deal and the motives that lay behind the disagreement we will never know them. But we do know for a fact that the effects were traumatic on what was a close-knit family group.

That this was a homogenous group can be seen from pictures of all the children taken on the terrace at The Towers on Broadwood Road probably around 1917. The picture above shows, from left: Ernest Olson, Iris Warnes, Arthur Warren, Hugh Olson, Majorie Warnes, Ossie Olson, Cyril Warnes, Reggie Warren, Tubby Olson and Sonny Boy Melcher. This is the complete set of John 1’s grandchildren minus Leslie Warren and Evelyn Warren who were at school in England at the time this picture was taken.

There are many other such pictures including a shot of John 2 and Charles Olson on the terrace which is in the possession of Jill Fell. They look very much at home on what was clearly the family’s chosen spot for pictures. Oddly though, Charles Warren only appears in three pictures I have seen taken at The Towers and neither are on the terrace and only one is with his wife Hannah.

Certainly the children would have been close. Arthur Warren was born in 1907 as was Ernest Olson, and Reginald Warren was born in 1909 the same year as Hugh Olson. Jill Fell is clear that her father Reginald (Reggie) knew both Hugh and Ossie, born 1910, because he mentioned them to her. Oddly he never mentioned Ernest or Tubby though in the picture above he is holding Tubby’s hand.

But the friendship with Hugh and Ossie must have meant something for in later years there were two attempts to contact Reggie. Jill Fell recounts Hugh Olson writing to her father after he retired to England from Sri Lanka in 1964 but her father did not reply. Also Ossie Olson went in search of Reggie at his tea plantation in Sri Lanka in 1955.

His wife Dorothy who was with him says in a 1981 note in her handwriting: “When we visited Ceylon 1955 we tried to look up Reggie Warren (father partner with Pater) unfortunately he was on leave but saw around the tea plantation” She told the author she did not know who Reggie was except that he “was some sort of a cousin”. The Pater referred to is John 2.

But evidently there was such a sundering of relationships that in 1919 two Warren boys and four Olson boys journeyed separately half way across the world to England to begin school. Sadly it is pretty certain that they never saw each other again. Brian Lewis records that Arthur and Reginald Warren travelled with their father to England, and were placed in Churchers College. This information comes from the South China Morning Post and the Churchers school magazine.

That same September the register of St John’s de la Salle College in Southsea, Sussex, records the admission of Ernest, Hugh, Ossie and Tubby Olson and we know that Annie Louisa brought them. So, six boys, cousins, playmates and friends, made the journey to England without their parents cooperating in the enterprise or the boys enjoying each others’ company.

John 2, it seems stayed in Hong Kong. He was certainly nearby at the end of August that year which makes it most unlikely that he went with Annie Louisa to England. We know this from a postcard sent from Macao on August 31, 1919, when it looks as if Charles Olson was doing his best to lead his brother astray!

It shows the Post Office and Macao Hotel on Praya Grande and on it is scrawled with what may be alcohol fuelled fervour: Having one H--- of a good time here. Love from Charlie. Then follows John’s neat signature, a Major with an indecipherable name, a L.W.Mak and another indecipherable signature. It is sent to Mrs J Olson care of the legal firm in Bishopsgate, London that they used and is forwarded to c/o Mrs Tacchi, 13 Northern Parade, North End, Portsmouth. So Annie Louisa was close by the boys while John played the tables in Macao.

The journey Charles Warren made to England to place his sons at school may have been forced upon him by Hannah’s absence. In those days the return trip took a minimum of 40 days travelling which was a long time to be away from a business, which must have been fighting for survival and the prospect of the journey must have been daunting. That he made it serves to strengthen the theory that the family split was unbridgeable at this early stage.

We know he went thanks to Brian Lewis’s dogged search of the columns of the South China Morning Post. He also states that when Charles Warren returned - probably in October 1919 – that there was a new company called Lyson Co in direct competition with Warren and Co and advertising in the South China Morning Post.

There is, Lewis says, no evidence that John 2 had anything to do with Lyson, whose directors were all Chinese. The first advertisement appeared in the South China Morning Post on July 29, 1919. Lewis may be correct in saying there was no evidence that John 2 was involved in this enterprise but in the Olson family picture archive there are pictures of Ethel, the blonde and obviously fun loving wife of Charles, with a Mr and Mrs Lyson at their bungalow.

Ethel captioned many of the pictures of herself and the name Lyson appears in her hand on the back of three pictures. Of course this is proof of nothing and is probably coincidence as the man shown is European and Brian Lewis says that the directors of Lyson and Co were Chinese. But it does add more spice to an already bubbling pot. And there was that period of at least 40 days when Charles was out of the Colony and John 2 remained. He may have got up to more mischief than going to Macao.

He was in Hong Kong for Christmas 1919 for there is a coloured postcard of Morrison Hill Road - where he started his married life with Annie Louisa - and which was sent in an envelope because it has no stamp. It is addressed to Masters Olson, 43 Granada Road, Southsea, Hants, England.

It reads: To dear Ernie, Hughie, Ossie and Tubby, With love and good wishes for a jolly Christmas. From Daddy Hong Kong 8.11.19.

Whether his being in Hong Kong when Charles was away in England is of any relevance we do not know. No records exist to show what he was doing and we can only assume he was tidying up business interests in between having a good time with the boys.

Annie Louisa stayed on in England after enrolling their sons at St John’s in September 1919 and did not head back to Hong Kong until late June or early July 1920. By that time John 2 had travelled to England to see the boys and accompany her back to Hong Kong.

Annie Louisa was away from the Colony for the best part of a year and we do not know what she was doing. Is it fair to speculate that John 2 wanted her away from the battle that was going on with Charles Warren? Or is the answer a simple and practical one. Perhaps she simply wanted to be near the boys in their first months at this new school? This is the likely answer and we know from the Macao postcard that she was living close by the school. She may also have been looking for a permanent home in England.

Neither do we know when John 2 arrived in England but he and Annie Louisa certainly returned to Hong Kong at great leisure which can be taken to mean that they were at peace with the world and all that was in it. In other words the deal was done and John was able to relax.

Their journey back began on the SS Minnedosa (right) of the Canadian Pacific Line that took them from Liverpool to Montreal, from where they went south to New York where they stayed for some time. They then went back to Canada and through the Rockies to Banff where they also spent time and thence to Vancouver where they boarded the Empress of Asia to Hong Kong. For reasons I do not know, they took Tubby out of St John’s, where he had been enrolled the previous September and brought him back with them. Perhaps he was just too young to leave behind at eight years old.

It can’t have been much fun for the three boys who remained in England and their parents must have known that because today we still have some of the postcards John and Annie Louisa sent them.

On July 9, 1920, from New York to Master H. Olson: Dear Hughie, We leave here today and have had a nice time so far. Hope you are enjoying the holiday. With love from Mum, Dad and Tubbie.

On July 17, 1920 from Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies to Mr E. Olson: We are staying here a few days before leaving for Vancouver. The scenery is beautiful. Hope you are all well. With love. Mum, Dad and Tubbie

Then an undated card written by Annie Louisa from the Hotel Vancouver, probably sent in an envelope with others. It is addressed to Master E. Olson and says: Dear Ernie. We arrived here on the 20th this is a very nice place. We went on board the Empress (pictured on right) and saw Uncle Johnson. He has a very nice little boy. Don’t forget to write every week. With love Mum, Dad and Tubby.

If the three eldest boys were left out on this occasion they were well used to travelling and Hugh, in later life had fond memories of what may have been a business trip on which he accompanied John 2 to Kobe in Japan. Annie Louisa also reminisced to the writer of returning home following a long trip with the boys to be told by Hugh that he much preferred hotels to home!

LAST DAYS IN HONG KONG

A settlement such as described by Reginald Warren was massive by any standards. And, even if it was not of such an order, the upshot seems to have been that to pay for it Charles liquidated company assets – some at poor prices – and he must also have used day-to-day income to achieve the repayments. (Brian Lewis Research)

Strangely though there is no evidence that lack of money affected his life style. Indeed his social life seems to have gone on apace with frequent running of his race horses at Happy Valley. Brian Lewis’s research shows he had a string of horses in training which all had names ending in Tile. Thus Mosaic Tile, Ridge Tile, Ceramic Tile etc and Brian Lewis’s research in the South China Morning Post turns up mention of races and horses through 1920, so one can assume that Charles was simply trying to keep up appearances amidst a gathering financial crisis.

His lifestyle is confirmed in Pow Mah (Racing in Hong Kong), by Henry Ching, published by the South China Morning Post Ltd, 1963, though he got his dates wrong. It says in this translation from the Chinese:
"In 1921 entered Mr C.E. Warren, plumber, who, many years before, had built the castle that used to be so prominent a landmark on Broadwood Ridge overlooking the Racecourse. It became a school and was demolished only recently: A block of flats now occupies the site. Mr Warren's racing name was Mr Towers and his ponies were all "Tiles". (Helen Lee, Archivist, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Archives)

In actual fact, in 1920 The Towers on Broadwood Road was put on the market twice and twice withdrawn. No reason has been found for this. Then, apparently in early 1921, the company headquarters in Des Voeux Road was finally sold. This only came to light from a report in the South China Morning Post on July 1, 1921 in the Local and General News section, which is quoted earlier. (Brian Lewis Research)

But it does point to Charles having to find a constant stream of capital presumably to meet his payment agreement with the Olsons.

The company stayed in Des Voeux Road until the end of the year when the new owners took over and Charles Warren moved the business to 98a Wanchai Road. This must have been part of whatever deal was worked out between Charles and John 2.

Whatever the state of Charles Warren’s finances, it still did not stop him often running horses at Happy Valley and no more evidence is extant as to how the business was faring. We do know from entries in the Business Directory that John 2 was no longer mentioned in lists of personnel, but we have no idea what he was doing until a note in the South China Morning Post on November 11, 1921 says:
“Leaving by the Atsuta Maru today are Mr and Mrs J.Olson and Mr C.W.Olson”.

The ship, which is pictured here, was bound for London via Singapore, Penang, Colombo, Port Said, Marseilles, so this was probably the final farewell for John and Annie Louisa.

Presumably, if they were bringing furniture and chattels – and I remember a dining room full of Chinese furniture and artefacts in the house in Chiswick, London, where they settled - they would have had to ship it the long way, and not via Canada which in those days was the quick way to England.

The records of the NYK Line or Japanese Steamship Co. show that this ship plied a regular round the world route from Yokohama to Yokohama calling at Kobe, Moji, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Penang, Colombo, Port Said, Marseilles, London and Antwerp. The journey to London from Hong Kong took approximately 40 days.

The South China Morning Post does not record that they had their son Tubby with them. But I think they did. They had returned with Tubby from England in August 1920 and it is unlikely that they returned him to England during the remaining months they spent wrapping up their life in Hong Kong. This conclusion is backed up by one of John 2’s precisely written postcards that he sent on a trip back to Hong Kong in 1923. And this is a trip we will hear more of.

This postcard is dated June 28, 1923. It was posted at 6.30pm from Gare du Rhone, Marseille and shows Le pont transbordeur – the transhipping bridge. Addressing the card to Master T.Olson at 11 Dukes Avenue, Chiswick, London, John 1 writes: Dear Tubby This place is still here. Do you remember this bridge? Love from Dad.

John 1 must be referring to the trip from Hong Kong to Europe on the Atsuta Maru in November 1920 which would have included calling at Marseille.

Brian Lewis reports that a Mr Olson arrived in Hong Kong on the Empress of Russia on June 9, 1922 according to the South China Morning Post and speculates that this is Charles Olson returning from his six-month vacation with brother John and Annie Louisa. It is also noted in the China Directory that C.W.Olson is now joint manager of Thoresen and Co.

Charles Warren apparently continued to live a public life and sometime in 1922 he also went to England. Brian Lewis speculates that he went to visit his eldest son, Leslie, who had been studying to become an architect, and his fiancée who were about to be married, and to see his two sons, Arthur and Reginald, who were still at Churchers College. He arrived back in Hong Kong on the Empress of Russia on September 28, 1922.

Brian Lewis also speculates that Charles Warren may have been tying up loose ends with John 2 over the settlement. He relates that Lyson and Co, who had become serious competitors of C.E.Warren and Co, ceased trading three weeks after Charles arrived home and speculates that, though he could find no evidence of John 2’s involvement in this firm, this was an odd coincidence. He does not quote a source to support the closure date but he may well be right.

Despite all the traumas and difficulties, for Charles Warren life still seems to have rattled along and he had five runners in the Derby meeting of February 28, 1923.

Then at the beginning of June 1923, Leslie, now a newly qualified architect, and his new wife, Cicely, arrived in Hong Kong from England. They were only just in time for Charles died at The Towers, aged 51 on June 9 1923. According to Brian Lewis he had been ill for some time and contracted pneumonia. He was buried in the Catholic section of Happy Valley Cemetery in grave number 4379. (Brian Lewis research)

Whether his eldest son Leslie was aware of the state of his father’s health at the time and was summoned to Hong Kong is not known, and neither do we know whether he was privy to whatever had happened between his father and his uncle, John 2. But it is likely he knew more than anybody else.

Evelyn, his sister, must also have had more than a passing knowledge of what happened because she was in Hong Kong for some of the crucial time that the drama played out.

She shared her father’s love of horses and was very close to him. She returned from school to Hong Kong in 1919 with her father, after he had brought Arthur and Reginald to Churchers. But, while her son Brian Lewis has produced remarkable research, a first hand account by her is not evident.

Charles was given a fine funeral and a long obituary appeared in the South China Morning Post that shows his wife Hannah was not among the mourners but that she sent a wreath. In fact there was no Olson presence at all at the funeral. We now know that Hannah was in England at the time Charles died and only returned to Hong Kong in August/September, 1923.

This is proved beyond doubt by three postcards she sent to the Olson boys in Chiswick. They are coloured views of Port Said which she must have bought when the ship called there but were posted in Colombo and all are dated August 1, 1923. One is addressed to Master E. Olson, One to Master H. Olson (pictured here) one to Masters O and S Olson and C. Warnes (Cyril, son of John 2’s dead eldest sister Elizabeth). All the cards are addressed to 11 Dukes Avenue, Chiswick. The messages are of no import for they make no mention of the purpose of her trip but it can be assumed that she was returning to Hong Kong having heard of the death of her husband.

Whether Hannah was estranged from Charles Warren at the time of his death we do not know but it does seem likely. Brian Lewis in his research finds her in the Ladies’ Directory in 1908, and says she took her children Leslie and Evelyn to school in England in 1913 though he does not back this up with any evidence. She then disappears until 1921, when Brian says she was at The Towers, though again he produces no evidence in support of this. However, the picture here with her son Leslie on left and half brother Charles Olson on the right certainly proves she was at The Towers as she is seated on the steps leading down from the terrace. But this is well before the 1921 date given by Lewis.

This is certain because Leslie did not return to Hong Kong until late 1917 and then went back to England in 1918 so this picture must have been taken between those dates. He did not return to the Colony until 1923 just before the death of Charles Warren and it is highly unlikely Charles Olson would not have been at The Towers then because of the split between the families.

The non-attendance of Olsons at the funeral of Charles Warren signifies that the rift in the family was full and final. Charles Olson could have been there as he was in Hong Kong at the time. The China Directory of August, 1923 lists him as a director of Thoresen and Co. but there is not even mention of a wreath being sent.

But this story could not let the occasion of Charles Warren’s death pass without another little mystery.

Just days after Charles died in Hong Kong John 2 left Chiswick on his way to Hong Kong. We don’t know why.

A postcard from him with Paris postmark dated June 27, 1923 to Annie Louisa at Dukes Avenue says:

Paris, Arrived safely after not very rough passage. Off to Marseilles where will write. Love to all. Johnnie.

Then all the boys get postcards from him from Marseilles dated June 28, 1923. Two of these cards – to Hugh and Tubby – make mention of their having been there before which indicates another trip either to or from Hong Kong in earlier years.

After these cards the trail goes cold and we are left wondering about the purpose of his visit particularly as this would not have been his chosen route for a speedy journey. It was not unusual to cut the sea time short by travelling to Marseilles or even Brindisi by train and then shipping out through the Suez Canal. But the quickest way to Hong Kong was across the Atlantic, the Canadian Trans-Pacific railroad and thence by one of the Canadian Pacific Line’s Empresses. This journey could be made in less than 20 days if connections worked.

And why was he travelling separately from Hannah?

However, John 2’s absence from the Colony, and the absence of all the Olsons except Charles, does seem to give the lie to the story Jill Fell was told which involved the Olsons descending on The Towers and digging the garden up in search of buried Warren wealth!

At best John would not have arrived until late July or early August and whatever his business it hardly involved digging up the back garden. He may well have made the journey to ensure that there were no last minute hitches in the payment schedule, if such a thing existed, caused by the death of Charles Warren. He may also have wanted to be on the spot in case there were any surprises in Charles’s Will. Or he may have already arranged a business trip which happened to coincide with the death of Charles Warren.

But it seems John 2 need not have worried. Brian Lewis states that Charles may have died intestate and searches for his will and any other documentation relating to him in the Hong Kong Public Record Office I have undertaken have been unsuccessful.

In fact his name seems only to appear on records relating to Olson family members in any files of databases I have accessed. If Charles did die intestate this may have had a bearing on the restructuring the C.E.Warren and Co and have led directly the appearance of an accountant named John Fleming which is examined in the next chapter.

THE DIASPORA

It is worth remembering that the roots of this story stem from the heyday of the Victorian era in a freebooting and far-flung outpost of British Empire. There can be little doubt that some of our relations were not the nicest of people. They had to be tough to survive in an environment such as Hong Kong. They had to be even tougher to have the sort of success they attained.

But what happened to them all?

As we know very quickly after the death of John Olson 1 the family scattered across the globe.

The deeper you delve the more bitter the split seems to get.

The rest of Hannah’s life is shrouded in mystery. Geoffrey Warren, now living in Canada, says his grandmother was taken into a Catholic home in Hong Kong and that Charles left a great deal of money to the Church. Reginald Warren, the son of Charles, said that the Olsons abandoned Hannah. (Jill Fell, daughter of Reginald Warren)

There is no evidence for these claims. They seem somewhat unlikely as Charles Warren can hardly have been a wealthy man following the split with the Olsons and, if died intestate, there could not be a bequest to the Catholic Church. Further, the responsibility for Hannah fell to her children as her immediate family so Reginald Warren’s statement is, to put it kindly, superfluous.

In fact the Olsons and the Warnes looked after Hannah. She is pictured in the Chiswick home of John 2 and Annie Louisa around the time of Charles Warren’s death and ended her days in Australia and was in touch with her half sister Elizabeth’s children.

Brian Lewis in his research states that as late as 1938 Geoffrey Warren and his sister Diana, who were living in England, “did not recall her but believe she was in a home in Hong Kong being cared for,” as she was suffering from severe mental illness. However, earlier in the report of his research Brian Lewis says:

“Our grandmother, never mentioned in any publication since 1908 and only by picture in my possession in England in 1913, was not well. We believe it was a mental health difficulty of split personality (schizophrenia). The clash surrounding the break up of the partnership may have been more hurtful to her than anyone else”.

Again no evidence though there is a firm diagnosis of her medical condition even though the pictures he thought were Hannah were in fact not of her!

As already touched upon it is also in the Warren family memory that Hannah parted from Charles and sided with John 2 at the time of the split. Again no evidence and the Will can hardly have made her feel a close part of the Olson family. Brian Lewis’s surmise that she might have been badly hurt by the break up is most likely correct. She would not have been human not to have been hurt by the happenings.

It is possible that she did not return to Hong Kong after bringing Leslie and Evelyn to school in England in 1913 if indeed she did that. She may well have been trapped there because of World War 1. Also in the Warren family memory was that she ended her days in Australia where she lived in an institution, having been taken there by her half-sister Elizabeth Warnes and her two daughters, Majorie and Iris. (Jill Fell, daughter of Reginald Warren)

In this the Warren memory is partly correct. Elizabeth was of course not involved as she died in 1917 but the recent discovery by Jennifer Maslen (daughter of Hugh Olson) of the first page of a letter to Annie Louisa on the death of John 2 in 1951 - probably from Margery, second daughter of Elizabeth – shows Hannah did go to Australia and that she was in touch with her nieces. The letter says:

My dearest Aunt Annie
I have just received Ossie's letter giving me the sad news. Please accept our deepest sympathy. I know how very much attached you were to each other. I do wish you were not so far away and I could do something for you.

I will write to Aunt Hannah and find out how she is, and if she is alright I will break the news to her. I have not heard from her for a few months. She lives quite far from us, and finds it too much of a strain to visit us and I am not too keen to go to her place it is in such a mess and smells of stale milk. I try to clean it, and tidy up the room, but it seems a hopeless task.

We are all well. The girls and I have just come back from a week’s holiday halfway to Canberra. They had a great time as the place was full of youngsters. Sally is still going to business college and will start working next year. It will be a help to us. Daphne is doing ever so well at millinery. She has such good taste as well. She is so..............

It is dated June 21, 1951 and is from 14 Caledonian Street, Bexby, Sydney. It shows Hannah almost certainly did not live in an institution – “…finds it too much of a strain to visit us” – and also that the Olson side of the family took care of her in some way.

Hannah died in Picton, New South Wales, which is south of Sydney on July 2, 1966 in the local Queen Victoria Hospital. Her death certificate shows Iris, whose married name was Gaby, witnessed the death certificate and also states her only living child, was Reginald and gives his age as 55 years which also points to contact. It also states that she had lived in Australia for “about 25 years” which would mean she arrived in Australia in 1941 the year the Japanese invaded Hong Kong.

The death certificate also names her father as John Olson with an occupation of Hotel Keeper and her mother as Yan Hume. This, despite the incorrect name for her mother Kum Yao seems to indicate that Iris and Majorie were aware of Hannah’s birth details. Thus it is likely that others of that generation knew as well.

Hannah had certainly travelled. Apart from England she had also spent some time in Shanghai because we have a picture of her taken there by a Shanghai photographer who went to the trouble of embossing his name and the name of the city on the print. We do not know the date but it was before the pictures of her at The Towers. The Olsons had homes in both Shanghai and Canton, according to Annie Louisa, so she may have been their guest. In mid 2008, Jennifer Maslen talked with a friend of her father, then aged 97 but since dead, who knew John 2 well and he, without prompting raised the issue of the Olson homes in these two cities and said he had been shown pictures of the gardens of the house in Canton by John 2. When queried that it must have been Hong Kong he was adamant it was Canton and said they also had a house in Shanghai.

We do not know what happened to Hannah after she returned to Hong Kong in 1923 after the death of Charles Warren but we do know something of what happened to the company that bore his name.

His eldest son Leslie had, as already mentioned arrived back in Hong Kong just before his father died, and the task of running the business fell to him. Less than a year after Charles died, the contents of The Towers were auctioned off following the sale of the house. Geoffrey Warren says that Leslie had to bid for any item the family wanted. Certainly 1924 was a bad year for Leslie and the sale of the contents of The Towers has the sound of a receiver about it. (Brian Lewis Research)

In his report on his research of the year 1924, Brian Lewis says:
“. . . the company had to run down the 98a Wanchai Road operation thus adding to the distress and the urgent need to raise funds,” and on June 6 in the South China Morning Post a notice appeared saying that the company had moved (“this day”) to 31d Wyndham Street (Opposite the Dairy Farm).

Leslie was successful in rebuilding the business in the late 1920s, and it became more prosperous in the 1930s. The China directory for 1938 shows a branch opening in Macao, and headquarters at St George’s Building in Chater Road. But it seems it never scaled the heady heights of the First World War years.

No records of the C.E.Warren and Co Ltd's financial performance exist in the Company’s Office in Hong Kong. But the company was not dissolved as a trading entity until February 17, 1956. Yet another mystery.

Geoffrey Warren, the only son of Leslie Warren who ran C.E.Warren and Co Ltd from the time of his father Charles’s death in 1923 until 1941, is named by Brian Lewis as the source of information regarding the liquidation of the company in late 1941, just before the Japanese occupation of the Colony. Jill Fell also mentions Geoffrey as a source.

She says Brian Lewis’s son Tim, who lives in Belfast, has a photocopy of a newspaper tear sheet dated April 10, 1940 that Geoffrey Warren heads "Final Ignominies" about C.E.Warren and Co advertising A.R.P. equipment, Respirators, First Aid Outfits, Sealing Tape. Glass Reinforcing Parchment Paper. Black Out Reinforcing Paper. She also says that in effect Leslie was working for an accountant named John Fleming as the company was a trust which he was responsible for or administered. But there is no evidence and no memory of a trust beneficiary.

The likelihood is that Fleming was in fact the official receiver and was pushing Leslie to pay the creditors left by Charles Warren by trading through the problem. Trusts are more complicated and if one existed it is unlikely that Leslie would have been able simply to liquidate the company.

John Fleming is also mentioned as a chartered accountant listed as being part of the company in Brian Lewis’s research into the business following the split with the Olsons.

This man was senior partner in Lowe, Bingham and Matthews from 1924. Jill Fell recounts that he was said to be a hard taskmaster for Leslie who seemingly reported to him. Fleming grew what was Hong Kong’s original chartered accountancy firm into an extremely large concern which had amongst its clients many of Hong Kong's leading businesses including China Light & Power, Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, Hong Kong & Whampoa Dock, Jardines and Hong Kong & China Gas.

Expansion came to an abrupt halt at Christmas 1941 with the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong but Fleming managed to hide away safely many of the firm's books before he was interned at Stanley Camp. At the end of the war, he recovered the records and reopened the practice! He was an extraordinary man.

Today Lowe, Bingham and Matthews have morphed into Pricewaterhouse Cooper. They say they have no records of C.E.Warren and Co.Ltd.

Jill Fell says it is Geoffrey Warren’s view that the voluntary receivership of the company in 1941 was not recorded because of the sudden war and that: “He (Geoffrey) believes the Japanese invasion simply prevented records being taken in the normal way andthat the record of the dissolution was not entered until 1956, which does not mean that it happened in 1956."

But who took the decision to wind company up in 1956 and why?

As war looked more and more likely Leslie had sent his wife and two children, Geoffrey and Evelyn back to England. Tragically, he never saw them again. Just before the Japanese invaded the Colony on Christmas Day of that year, Leslie left for Malaya where he worked for a time before joining up in April, 1942 in Singapore and was involved in the defence of the island. He escaped to Batavia, and thence to Ceylon, (Sri Lanka), where he met with his brother Reginald, who was a tea planter there. From Ceylon he went to India where he joined the Royal Engineers, but died of enteric fever at Meerut on May 5, 1943.

The other dramatis personae of this story:
Evelyn Warren married a career naval officer, Arthur Lewis, whom she met in Hong Kong. She had three children, Brian the researcher of the Warren family history in this narrative, Peter and Guy. She died in 1954.

Arthur Warren, born in 1907, never married and did not enjoy robust health. He returned to Hong Kong in 1924 after leaving Churchers College, and in 1926 the China Directory shows him at Warren and Company, with Leslie styled as Director of the company. But Arthur had tuberculosis and returned to England, where he died in Southampton Isolation Hospital on April 21, 1930.

Reginald Warren left Churchers College with his brother Arthur, but there was not sufficient money to employ him at C.E.Warren. He was just 15 and was initially sent to Malaya to learn rubber planting, but moved to Ceylon aged about 18 and became a trainee tea planter. He had a successful career, and married Barbara Legg in 1946. He retired to England in 1964 and died in 1991. (Research Brian Lewis and Jill Fell daughter of Reginald Warren)

Charles Olson was the more flamboyant of the two Olson brothers. He worked for Thoresens until 1926 but after that there is no information about him but that he died in Nanaimo, British Columbia in 1966. He did marry and his wife Ethel was described by the family variously as a “good time girl” or “a chambermaid at the Strand Palace hotel” or a “barmaid”. She certainly looks like a wild child in many of the pictures which remain and apparently enjoyed life to the full. She also performed a useful function by taking the trouble to caption most of her pictures. The union with Charles did not last, but judging by the captions of some of the pictures in the family archive that Charles sent to John 2 from Canada, his eye for the ladies was not dimmed by the loss of Ethel.

Ellen (Nellie) married Evert Melcher, a Dutch citizen, who worked for the Dutch East India Company. They had one child named Sonny Boy and spent many years in what is now Indonesia before returning to Holland before the Second World War. Nellie spent the war in Nazi-occupied Holland and met her nephew, Hugh Olson, a Colonel in REME following liberation in 1945. She visited Dukes Avenue around 1949 /1950 and is remembered there by Jennifer Maslen and the author. Later it is thought she went to America where she died, though no date or place is known.

John 2 never worked again in the sense of going to the office or managing a company. He did though remain active in business and before World War Two had strong links with Japan. He also had interests in Hong Kong and Singapore. Family lore says he lost a great deal of money - HK$96,000 - because his brother Charles failed to look after the business in Hong Kong and John had to rush out in 1926. There is evidence that he did this in the form of a surviving postcard to Ossie dated December 2, 1926. It says: Love and Remembrance for Xmas and New Year from Dad. Singapore 2.12.26. And, practical as ever John 2 adds: Hope you like Latin and make good progress.Then on January 14, 1926 there is another card this time from Macao. John 2 again writes to his son: Hope you enjoyed your Xmas holidays and that you have had a successful term making good progress in Latin. I am leaving here next week for HK and in about three weeks time will leave for home. Love from Dad.

Despite such alarms the family at Duke’s Avenue hosted a stream of Chinese graduate students mostly studying law in London before returning to practice in the Colony. One such, CY “Georgie” Kwan, was later to become Sir George Kwan and a member of the Hong Kong Legislature. His company handled the Hong Kong probate for the Will of John 2 in 1952 and family memory is that he also looked after the business interests of John 2.

He remained close to the Olson family particularly Annie Louisa to whom he always sent a Christmas present. He was also well known to Hugh Olson, who, as High Sheriff of London entertained him on official visits to London and retained his legal practice to settle John 2’s affairs in Hong Kong.

John 2 was also said to have had significant business interests in Singapore. They may well have been looked after by his brother-in-law Pat Moore and may have been the reason for his stopping off there on his 1926 journey. This was a long trip away. His passage to Singapore would have taken three to four weeks and overall he must have been away from home for nearly four months.

What John 2’s interests in Singapore were we do not know as indeed we do not know what business he left behind in Hong Kong for Charles to manage. On his death certificate under the heading occupation, it says “Independent Means”. This is a good description of the man. He devoted his time to educating and bringing up his sons, family life and travel. The Second World War severely depleted his wealth. He was known to his peers as an honourable and unassuming gentleman and as a kindly grandfather by those of us who remember him. An inveterate smoker, he died of lung cancer at 11, Dukes Avenue, Chiswick, London on April 5, 1951 with Annie Louisa and his son Hugh at his bedside.

Annie Louisa lived another fifteen years and died on January 17, 1966. She was a tough lady who spoke as she saw fit and took no prisoners. She was also a loyal friend to some of us, and an unforgiving woman to others. Strangely, she died in Hong Kong on her first visit back since leaving in the 1920s. She had gone to stay with her son Ossie and daughter-in-law Dorothy and became ill and died during the visit. She always avoided talking of her past even when asked direct questions.

By the time she died in Hong Kong the only remaining evidence of Olson business in the Colony was a parcel of land in the New Territories at Taipo close to the Anglican Diocesan orphanage, St. Christopher’s Home. This land was donated to the orphanage by Hugh and Ossie Olson in memory of their mother Annie Louisa in July 1969.

The land, which according to the late Dorothy Olson, who died in July 2009, had originally been owned by John 2 was the last tangible Olson link to Hong Kong and it was fitting that in the end it went back to the less fortunate of the Colony's citizens.

Today the orphanage has moved and information regarding the land is hard to come by. It seems a deal was done between the orphanage and the local council for a land swap to aid road building and that the plaque, pictured here, was destroyed or lost.

Today the area is known as Deerhill Bay and there is an exclusive a gated residence on the site. That particular development set a sale record for Tai Po in 1998 which was at the height of the property boom.

I am told the land - on Tai Po Road between Tai Po and Sha Tin -  became part of a deal with Li Ka Shing whereby he would build "Deerhill Bay" on it, and the Anglican Church would get some money ($300 million) and some units in the development.

The land was vacated in 1993 and the development came on the market in 1998.

Ernest Olson, pictured right from a group picture taken around 1919 in England, with his brothers, the eldest of the sons of John 2 and Annie Louisa was an accountant and businessman. He married Jill O’Neill and they had two daughters, Elizabeth and Juliet. Ernest was very badly burned in a plane crash in Belfast during the war and this contributed to his early death in 1950. Jill died in 1993.

Hugh Olson, from the same picture, was an electrical engineer and had a highly successful career in business. He married Vera Fleck and they had three children, Jennifer, Ian and Neil. Hugh, one time High Sheriff of London, died in 2000. His wife Vera died in 2008 having lived with their daughter Jennifer in Gloucestershire for some years.

William (Ossie) Olson, from the same picture, had a career in the airline industry, culminating with ten years in Hong Kong with British Airways. He married Dorothy Preston. They had no children. Ossie died in 1992. Dorothy died in a nursing home at Hampton-on-Thames, Middlesex, in July 2009.

Charles (Tubby) Olson, from the same picture, worked for Unilever on the Gold Coast (now Ghana). He married Aileen O’Connor who was born in Cashel, Co.Tipperary, Ireland. Tubby was killed in action in the RAF in 1943 when his Lancaster was shot down by a German night fighter near Raalte on the way back from a bombing raid over Bochum, Germany. Aileen died in 1984. They had one son.
He is John 3.

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CONCLUSIONS

This tale has many turns. Its telling is marked by mysteries, cul de sacs and speculation. All these years away from whatever blew this family apart we need to consider why our generation was effectively kept in the dark about the family’s past.

There is no doubt that the Warren side of the family had a version of the story which painted the Olsons dark, dark black. In seeking to almost deify Charles Warren it is often short on fact and unquestioning in speculation. It is incredible for example that John Olson 1 – the very progenitor - was written out of their record.

But that is no more incredible than the Olsons writing out all evidence of Charles Warren and the business that bore his name as well as their half sister Hannah from my generation. How could that have happened? What were those responsible thinking of?

The ends that both sides went to in spinning the story are breathtaking.

The Warrens were brought up to believe there was a huge court case over the split. One of the reasons that Brian Lewis undertook the mind boggling task of going through six year’s South China Morning Posts was that he was looking for references to this case! Not surprisingly he found no references because no court case took place. It was a figment of somebody’s imagination that became an accepted fact.

A search I had done of the Hong Kong Law Reports for the years 1915 to 1925, which are held by Sweet and Maxwell, Legal Publishers, Hong Kong, shows no record of a case of any sort involving a John Olson, a Charles Warren or C.E.Warren and Co during those years.

And what of the bitterness in the accusation that John 2 embezzled company funds. To quote Brian Lewis quoting Diana Warren, “the opportunity was taken to hush this up and remove him discreetly from the company.” It is risible to think that Charles would have beggared himself, the company and his family in order to get rid of a partner who was a thief.

And why did John 2 extract from his sons a promise not to discuss their background in Hong Kong? We know he did this (Dorothy Olson wife of Ossie Olson told this writer her husband told her this) and they went to their graves without breaking that promise. Some facts were grudgingly given up. But there was also deliberately misleading information. (Jennifer Maslen daughter of Hugh Olson)

The balance of probability says that both sides of this argument had things to hide and ghosts they could not or would not face.

Underlying everything is the issue of race. It was the root of the secrecy that surrounded the family’s past and the cause of so much hurt and unnecessary strife. Being Eurasian in Hong Kong in the first decades of the last century was no picnic. Marrying a Eurasian was not acceptable either.

Sadly, in the end not one of his immediate descendants could match the courage of Jons Jakobsson aka John Olson whose long journey from rural Sweden to a cockpit of Empire is a saga full of courage and character.

In the end they chose deception and self interest as a way of facing the family’s past.

Jons Jakobsson deserved a better monument to his life. The plaque on the grave at Trensum, not very far from where he was born and grew up reunites him and his Swedish family, and perhaps stretches out to his final resting place, pictured here in 2008, in Happy Valley Cemetery, Hong Kong.

The Will of John Olson 1

The will is signed and dated February 13, 1890 and is witnessed by the solicitors Caldwell and Wilkinson.

The front piece has this note: “In the Supreme Court of Hong Kong Probate Jurisdiction In the goods of John Olson deceased this is the will marked A referred to in the petition of John Olson sworn before me this 10th day of June 1918. The signature is illegible.

The Will states:
This is the last will and testament of me John Olson of Victoria in the Colony of Hong Kong hotel keeper and I hereby revoke every other will and testamentary disposition by me at any time heretofore made.

I appoint my friend Wilhelm Petersen of Victoria aforesaid Hotel Keeper (hereinafter called my “Trustee”) to be executor and trustee of this my will.

And I declare that authorities and powers hereinafter reposed and vested in my trustee may be exercised by his heirs executors or administrators or other the trustee or trustees for the time being of this my will.

And I appoint my wife Ching Ah Fung Olson during her life and after her death my trustee to be the guardian and guardians of my infant children.

I devise and bequeath all my real and personal estate of whatsoever nature tenure or kind wheresoever situate and whether in possession reversion remainder or expectancy unto my trustee upon trust that my trustee shall sell call in and convert into money the same or such part thereof as shall not (several unclear words) money and shall with and out of the moneys produced by such sale calling in and conversion and with and out of such part of my personal estate as shall consist of money and with and out of the income of my landed property pay my funeral and testamentary expenses and debts and such pecuniary legacies as I may bequeath by any codicil hereto and shall at his discretion invest the residue of the said moneys in and upon such securities as are herby sanctioned with power for my trustee from time to time at such discretion as aforesaid to vary such investments.

And shall stand possessed of the said landed property and (two unclear words on fold of document) residuary trust moneys and the investments for the time being representing the same (hereinafter called the residuary trust funds) upon the trusts following (that is to say).

In trust to pay the income of the said landed property and of the residuary trust funds to my said wife during her life if she shall remain my widow or until she shall re-marry and from and after her decease or re -marriage.

In trust for all my children by the said Ching Ah Fung Olson whether born before or after wedlock both classes being hereinafter included in the terms child and children who being sons shall attain the age of twenty one years or being daughters shall attain that age or shall marry in equal shares and if there be only one such child the whole to be in trust for that one child it being my will and intention that my said wife’s benefit and interest under this my will shall absolutely cease and determine in case she shall remarry after my decease.

But I wish it to be distinctly understood that I make this provision not because I entertain any objection to my widow remarrying but because I consider justice to my children demands this course.

Provided always that if any child of mine shall die in my lifetime leaving a child or children who shall survive me and being a son or sons shall attain the age of 21 years or being a daughter or daughters shall attain that age or marry then and in every such case the last mentioned child or children shall take (several unreadable words in brackets on fold of document) equally between them the share which his her or their parents would have taken of and in the residuary trust funds if such parent had survived me and attained the age of twenty one years.

And I declare that my trustee may with the consent in writing of my said wife and after her decease at the discretion of my trustee raise any part or parts not exceeding in the whole one moiety of the expectant share of any child or grandchild under this my will and apply the same for his or her advancement preferment or benefit my trustee with such consent or at such discretion as aforesaid shall think fit.

And I also declare that my trustee may let any hereditaments forming part of my estate for such terms or terms at such rents and subject to such constraints and conditions as he shall think fit and may accept surrenders of leases and tenancies effect alterations or repairs and generally may manage the same in such a manner as he shall think best.<<

And I also declare that all moneys liable or directed to be invested under this my will may be invested in or upon any stocks funds or securities of or guaranteed by the Government of the United Kingdom or of any British Colony or Dependency (including the stocks or securities of any railway or other company in India or elsewhere having a fixed rate of interest thereon as aforesaid) or stock of the Bank of England or the debentures or debenture stock or guaranteed or preference stock or shares of any railway company in Great Britain incorporated by act of Parliament or Royal Charter or in or upon real securities in England or leasehold securities in the colony of Hong Kong.

And in lending money on any mortgage security my trustee may accept whatever title or evidence of title shall appear to him sufficient. And in particular may in the case of leasehold securities waive the production of the lessor’s title without being answerable for any loss arising thereby.

And my trustee may release any part of the property comprised in any mortgage security if satisfied that the remaining property is sufficient security for the money owing thereon.

I declare that the power of appointing a new trustee or trustees conferred by Ordinance No 7 of 1873 of the Legislature of Hong Kong (several illegible words on fold of document) and executors shall for the purposes of this my will be vested in my said wife during her life and upon any appointment under the said statutory power the number of trustees may be altered.

And I also declare that such of the provisions of the said Ordinance No 7 of 1873 as are applicable and being not inconsistent herewith shall apply to and be considered as if expressly incorporated in this my will.

I devise all estates whatsoever vested in me as a trustee or mortgage under my trustee subject to the trusts and equities affecting the same respectively but so that the money secured by any mortgage shall form part of my personal estate.

In witness whereof I have here unto subscribed my name.

John Olson
February 13, 1890

The original document is in the Hong Kong Public Record Office where, with the permission from the Probate Division of the Hong Kong High Court, it can be seen or copies obtained.

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USEFUL LINKS

Swedish specialist genealogical site	www.swe-gen.se
Olson pictures from the above site	www.swe-gen.se
More detail from the Swedish site	www.swe-gen.se
Hong Kong Government — Record Services	www.grs.gov.hk
e-book of The Hong Kong Legacy available free from Hong Kong University Press	library.hku.hk
Gwulo: Old Hong Kong	gwulo.com
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Bound copy of The Hong Kong Legacy available	www.lulu.com

© John Olson 3. Dublin, Ireland, August, 2009. All Rights Reserved