Editor's note:Recently, the green space affiliated to the Dictionary Publishing House has been open to the public. This green space is located at No. 457 North Shaanxi Road, at the corner of Beijing West Road and North Shaanxi Road. This century-old building, which used to be the office of the Dictionary Publishing House, has been transformed into an art and cultural industry park. A century ago, it was the former residence of the famous Ho Dong.
Text|Xue Liyong
No. 457 North Shaanxi Road: He Dong's former residence
He Dong's former residence. According to the "Shanghai Street Directory" column of the Hong List of China, published in 1937, the heads of households at 457 Seymour Road were Sir Robert & Lady Ho Tung. Who is this Mr. Robert?
Registered in 1937. The residents of 457 Seymour Road are Mr. and Mrs. Robert Ho Tung.
In 1996, when the new Shanghai Museum located on People's Avenue was officially opened, there was an extremely precious new exhibit in the bronze exhibition hall - Wu Wangfu Chaxuan. This exquisite cultural relic has a history of more than 2,000 years, and was purchased by Mr. Ho Hongzhang, a "Justice of the Peace" of Hong Kong, from an auction in Hong Kong for 1.5 million Hong Kong dollars, and donated to the Shanghai Museum free of charge.
"He Hongzhang" is a very ordinary Chinese name, but at the donation meeting, people found that this Mr. He Hongzhang is tall, a blue-eyed, high-nose "foreigner", and when he gave a speech, the microphone came out of the authentic old-fashioned Shanghai dialect, no wonder a reporter's report at the time wrote: Mr. He Hongzhang is not Chinese, but a typical British gentleman. His English name was Eric Ho Tung, but he could speak the authentic Shanghai dialect and would never have guessed that he was a foreigner if he had heard him without hearing him.
Robert Hodon.
And Ho Hongzhang said this about his ancestors and his fate with Shanghai:
My great-grandfather was British, and my great-grandmother was from Suzhou, not far from Shanghai, and they gave birth to my grandfather, Robert Ho Tung, whose Chinese name was He Xiaosheng, in Hong Kong. My great-grandmother loved China, and her teachings influenced my grandfather's life. My grandfather later married my grandmother, who was also from Tianjin, China. Thus, our family began to have Chinese roots.
Probably shortly after the opening of Shanghai in 1843, the British merchant Jardine Matheson & CoHe Dong's father, who worked, came to Shanghai with a foreign company. While in Shanghai, Ho Dong's father married a Suzhou girl, and later they returned to Hong Kong for work, and in 1862 they gave birth to Robert Ho Dong and gave him an authentic Chinese name, "Ho Xiaosheng". When He Dong was a child, his father died, and the family was very difficult, but his mother still sent him to a private school to study. At that time, his mother could only earn money by sewing, and the food money she gave to He Dong every day was not enough to eat a full meal. The hardships of life have also tempered He Dong's character of being diligent and thrifty, hard-working.
In 1874, 12-year-old He Dong was admitted to the Hong Kong ** School, and after graduating in 1879, he entered the Guangzhou Customs through the introduction of an acquaintance, but the work has not been smooth. When a friend of his father's found out about this, he introduced him to Jardine Matheson. At Jardine Matheson, He Dong served as the deputy manager of China Bank, mainly engaged in the company's first-class business with China Commercial Bank. He Dong is a mixed-race child, who understands Chinese and foreign customs, is proficient in Chinese and English, and has a wealth of customs knowledge. In 1882, he was promoted to General Manager of the Bank of China for his outstanding work. Jardine Matheson was the largest British merchant at the time, and Robert Ho Tung naturally became a tycoon.
In 1888, Ho Tung resigned for health reasons and recommended his elder brother Ho Fook to succeed him, after which many members of the Ho Tung family held important positions in Jardine Matheson, and the Ho Tung family became a prominent family in Hong Kong.
After Robert Ho Dong left Jardine Matheson, he became a giant businessman in Hong Kong and Shanghai through ** investment, and the main enterprises he invested in were HSBC and Huangpu Dockyard Company (Shanghai). He also served as a director, chairman and general manager of the Hong Kong Electric Company, the Hong Kong Tramway Company, the Hong Kong Shipyard Company, the Hong Kong Property Company, the Hong Kong Reclamation Company, the Guangao Steamship Company, the Jardine Matheson Steamship Company, the Guangzhou Fire Insurance Company and the Hop Hing Machinery Company. At that time, someone commented: "Ho Tung is a wealthy man in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong businessmen all act in the words of Sizz." This shows his status and influence in Hong Kong.
It is very common in Western countries to raise funds to set up industries by issuing ** to the society, and the equity can be traded, so the ** exchange was created. After the First Sino-Japanese War, the Treaty of Shimonoseki signed between China and Japan stipulated that the Japanese could set up factories in China's treaty ports, and according to the principle of "most-favored-nation treatment", any country that signed a treaty with China received this preferential treatment at the same time. As a result, the "Treaty of Shimonoseki" became a watershed, and the economic exchanges between the West and China began to change from commercial to direct investment, and the sharp increase in foreign investment in China stimulated the development of Shanghai's first trading business.
As early as 1891, there was a trading agency called "The Shanghai Sharebrokers Association" in Shanghai, which was called "Shanghai Brokers Association" by Shanghainese, and was a commercial institution for foreign transactions. When a large number of foreign capital entered the Chinese market, the number of foreign companies in China increased significantly, so the broker association was reorganized, and in 1905 it was registered in Hong Kong, under the name of "The Shanghai Stock Exchange" (Shanghai Zhongye Company) officially listed for business on Nanjing Road in Shanghai (the original site is now the Xinkang Building). In addition to the **foreign** business, it mainly operates the listing and trading of foreign-funded enterprises in China (equivalent to today's "B shares"), which has a very close relationship with Hong Kong**. It was through the acquisition of ** that he became a director or other director of the Shanghai-based British Bank of China, Jardine Matheson Steamship Company, Huangpu Dockyard Company, Shanghai Tramway Company, Wheelock Company, and he is also a principal director of Shanghai Zhongye Corporation.
In 1914, the First World War broke out in Europe, and foreign investment in China changed due to the war, and when the war ended in 1918, foreign investment in China increased rapidly. So, Robert Ho Dong sent his son He Shijian (es.k.Hoteng) returned to Shanghai and set up "He Shijian ** Brokerage Office" in Xinkang Building, Nanjing Road.
He Dong and He Shijian.
He Shijian has been engaged in Hong Kong trading for a long time and has accumulated rich experience, he is not only proficient in English, but also fluent in Cantonese and Shanghainese, which has also brought convenience to his career development. "He Shijian" and "Kadoorie" have become two well-known ** brokerage firms in Shanghai.
When He Shijian arrived in Shanghai, he lived in a rented garden house, and with the development of his career, settling down in Shanghai was on the agenda. In 1924, He Shijian bought the property at the corner of Ewenyi Road, Seymour Road, and built his residence in Shanghai.
The original design of Ho Tung's residence.
Ho Tung Residences is owned by American businessman Kelly & Co. (Ra.Curry Architect), the Hungarian architect Hudak was an employee of Klee & Co., and many people thought that the garden house was Hudak's work.
Hudak was an employee of Klee & Co.
Ho Tung Residence covers an area of about 1130,000 square meters, south of Aiwenyi Road, east of Seymour Road, the gate is open at No. 457 Seymour Road. The main building is a two-storey masonry building with an English façade.
The south façade of Ho Dong's former residence.
The main façade faces southeast and is designed with four eaves supported by Ionic columns that lead to the second floor. The balcony on the roof is designed as a glass canopy, through which the light shines gently into the house, which is rare in old buildings in Shanghai.
The escalator of He Dong's former residence.
The east façade is semicircular and is also supported by Ionic columns that lead to the second floor, giving the building an elegant and luxurious appearance, with the demeanor of an English gentleman.
The balcony on the south side of He Dong's former residence.
Ho Hongzhang is the son of Ho Shijian, born in Hong Kong on June 8, 1926, and moved his family to Shanghai after the completion of Ho Shijian's residence in Shanghai. Ho studied at St. Francis' College in Hongkou (now Beihong Senior High School, a church school founded by the French Catholic Church) until 1947, when he went to the United States. After graduating, he returned to Hong Kong to carry on the business of his ancestors. So he can speak fluent Shanghainese, and it was a pure Shanghainese from decades ago.
After the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, the property rights of Ho Tung's private house were changed. After the liberation of Shanghai, it was taken over by the Shanghai real estate department.
Map of Shanghai in 1947 (detail). Ho Tung Residence covers a large area, about 1130,000 square meters.
In 1957, Chairman ** accepted Mr. Shu Xincheng's proposal to revise Cihai and handed over this task to the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China. The following year, Zhonghua Book Company established the Cihai Editorial Office in Shanghai, and He Dong's former residence became the location of the Cihai Editorial Office, where Shanghai's cultural elites often gathered. In January 1978, the original Cihai Editorial Office was renamed Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House, which was the first professional reference book publishing house in China. In October 2021, He Dong's former residence bid farewell to the Dictionary Club and welcomed new residents.
Photo by Shi Danni, a green space affiliated to the Dictionary Publishing House.
Xue LiyongXue Liyong, a well-known expert in Shanghai history, is the editor-in-chief of "Dictionary of the Origins of Shanghai Culture" and "Dictionary of Shanghai Legends", and has published more than 60 books, including "History and Architecture of the Bund", "History of Shanghai Concession", "Shanghai Ocean Field", and "Xue Liyong Says Old Shanghai Series". At present, he is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Shanghai Municipal Planning Commission, a member of the Expert Committee for the Reconstruction of Old Towns in Shanghai, a member of the Shanghai Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee, and the vice chairman of the Shanghai Geographical Names Society.
Bronze medal of historical architecture art on North Shaanxi Road.
Editor's note:
This column** was launched on February 8, 1994 as a supplement to Jing'an Daily. On the WeChat platform, "Paramount Gate" will be presented to readers in a new form. Regular push every week to read Jing'an from a different perspective. Submissions can be sent to jinganbao2016@126com
Author: Xue Liyong**: In addition to the signature**, "The Biography of North Shaanxi Road (Seymour Road), a Famous Historical and Cultural Street in China", Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House Editor: Shi Danni Column Editor-in-Chief: Shi Danni.
Source**: Pictorial Biography of North Shaanxi Road (Seymour Road), a famous historical and cultural street in China, edited by Shanghai Jing'an Investment (Group), written by Xue Liyong, published by Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House.
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