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William Donald Spence was Acting Consul for the Taiwan-fu Consular
District from 22 December 1884 until 28 February 1886. Spence took over
charge of the Consular District from the officiating Consul
William Gregory, and handed over charge in 1886 to Second Assistant
Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser.
William Donald Spence was born on 2 December 1848
at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, the eldest son of Alexander Spence, a Stocking
Cotton Manufacturer & Hosier, and Agnes Morrison. William Spence was
educated at the University of Aberdeen, where he obtained a Master of
Arts with Honours in Science and won the Natural Science Honours Prize
in 1868. The University nominated Spence for the competitive
examinations of 1868, and he was appointed a Student Interpreter in
China on 24 February 1869.
After completing his Mandarin Chinese classes at
the British Legation in Peking under Thomas Francis Wade, the then
British Chargé d’Affaires at Peking, William Spence was posted to
Shanghai, where he was promoted to Third Assistant on 10 June 1873.
Thomas Wade, who had been appointed the British Minister at Peking on 22
July 1871, had clearly marked Spence out as a highly capable officer for
he seconded Spence to serve as his Private Secretary and to accompany
him to London in 1875, where Wade received his knighthood in November
1875, and William Donald Spence entered as a Law student in the Middle
Temple, London, and took an extended Home Leave. On his return to
Shanghai Spence served as Acting Vice-Consul at Shanghai from January to
June 1877, and was promoted to Second Assistant on 1 April 1878.
Two years later, on 1 May 1880, William Donald
Spence was promoted to First Assistant and posted at Ichang [宜昌],
serving as Acting Consul from 10 October 1880 until 3 June 1882, apart
from an emergency transfer up the Yangtze river [揚子江] to be temporarily
the British Agent at the strategically and politically important outpost
of Chungking [重慶] in the latter half of 1881. The journey up the Yangtze
took Spence 58 days from Ichang, and though only going there for a few
months took with him a great number of tinned and bottled stores, which
included, as recorded by Coates, ‘jam, marmalade, butter, coffee beans,
baking and curry powder, two casks of Apollinaris Water, and nine dozen
bottles of wine and spirits’. Coates also relates how much Spence
enjoyed Ichang, with its delightful countryside and the quiet, studious
Church of Scotland missionaries. Although Ichang’s accommodation was
deplorable, being a dark shed surrounded by a filthy city, the idleness
enforced by the non-existent trade at Ichang led the energetic and able
Spence upon his return from Chungking in February 1882 to ask for Home
Leave though he accepted a June 1882 transfer back to Shanghai, where at
least he could serve in an active capacity.
Spence’s Home Leave was eventually granted almost
immediately he arrived in Shanghai in June 1882. Shortly thereafter, on
14 August 1882, Sir Thomas Wade retired from his post as British
Minister at Peking, leaving behind a chaotic office of often highly
important despatches that had lain unanswered for years. In his latter
years Wade had lost his will to work at Legation matters and had found
it hard even to concentrate on reading a book. Since Spence was familiar
with Wade and already in England, the Foreign Office asked Spence to
find out what reports and documents Wade had brought back to England,
and extended his Leave to pursue this matter. However, even the
energetic Spence could extract nothing from Wade. At least Spence’s
extended Leave enabled him to complete his legal studies for he was
called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1883. Upon his return to China
in 1884, Spence was appointed to Formosa.
William Donald Spence was Acting Consul for the
Taiwan-fu [臺灣府] Consular District from 22 December 1884, taking charge
from the officiating Consul William Gregory. Upon arrival in
Formosa from Amoy aboard H.M.S. Champion on 19 December, Spence
reported back to Sir Harry Smith Parkes, the new British Minister at
Peking, that the French Blockade of South Formosa had been de facto
raised. In fact, the southern section of the French Blockade, which ran
from Yenshui Port [鹽水港] to the South Cape, or Oluanpi [鵝鑾鼻], was not
officially lifted until April 1885. The Circuit Intendant [分巡道], or,
colloquially, Tao-t’ai [道臺] during this period was Liu Ao [劉璈] who was
initially disinclined to issue a proclamation to disassociate the French
from other foreigners, who were subject to much suspicion and sundry
assaults by the local populace; however, Liu Ao did eventually issue
such a proclamation and received a letter of gratitude for his
protection during the Blockade, signed, according to Spence, by ‘every
member of community’ at the end of April 1885. Acting Consul Spence’s
actions during the French naval blockade and hostilities, which had
caused many British residents to leave the island, were warmly praised
by Nicholas Roderick O'Conor, the Chargé d'Affaires at the British
Legation at Peking following the death of Sir Harry Parkes in March
1885, and much appreciated by Robert Cecil, the Marquess of Salisbury,
the British Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister.
Another outstanding item of consular business
that Acting Consul William Donald Spence had to deal with was obtaining
compensation for the looting of the wrecked British schooner Beta
which had foundered on the West Coast of Formosa near Lukang [鹿港] in
September 1884. Though this had occurred during the time of
officiating Consul William Gregory, Gregory had done nothing and it
was left to Spence to negotiate a settlement with Tao-t’ai Liu Ao. After
the ending of the French Blockade in April Consul Spence and Tao-t’ai
Liu Ao settled in about June on the payment of 10,000 Spanish silver
dollars in compensation to be paid to the owners and consignees of the
schooner Beta. However, as soon as the armistice that formally
ended the Sino-French War had been signed on 9 June 1885, Commissioner
Liu Ming-ch’uan [劉銘傳], who was later to become the first Governor of
Taiwan Province, set about making fiscal and administrative reforms: top
of his list was Liu Ao against whom he levelled such a host of charges
of treason, nepotism and corruption on 25 June 1885 that Liu Ao was
immediately removed from power and held under house arrest. With Liu Ao
removed the agreement over the Beta compensation was null, and
Spence had to start again with Liu Ao’s replacement as Tao-t’ai, Ch'en
Ming-chih [陳鳴志]. After negotiations with Tao-t’ai Ch’en had degenerated
into ‘haggling of a commonplace and undignified nature’ Acting Consul
Spence was forced to settle for 9,000 dollars.
There were also personnel matters for Acting
Consul Spence to deal with. First there was the case of Antonio
Alborado, who had been hired as the Consular Constable by Consul Robert
Swinhoe in April 1865. Alborado had received the same salary of 20
dollars a month for the past 14 years, and, finding this sum
insufficient for himself and his family to live on, he applied to
receive either an increase in salary or retirement on a pension. Spence
favoured Alborado’s retirement as he was then 62 years old, could
neither read or write, and spoke only ‘pidgin English’, yet it later
emerged that he was not eligible for a pension and he was still being
employed as Consular Constable at 20 dollars a month on 1 January 1896
as reported by Consul Richard Willett Hurst.
The second case concerned Pierre Frederick
Hausser who had been a Student Interpreter since 1878, and had been in
Formosa since 19 October 1880, serving almost constantly as Acting
Assistant. Both William Gregory and Pelham Laird Warren had spoken very
highly of him; he was an excellent Chinese scholar with a good knowledge
of the local dialect, the Amoy [廈門] vernacular; he was stationed alone
at Takow [打狗] throughout the French Blockade making decisions on his own
account; yet there is an ‘absence of any chance of promotion’ Spence
wrote in April 1885. Hausser was finally promoted to Second Assistant in
1886, but that was after eight years as a Student Interpreter.
The blockage in promotions was a serious problem
for both the Legation and the Foreign Office. Promotion was invariably
based on seniority not merit and even the most inept were allowed to
continue in high office. In 1885 Spence had received an offer from
Jardine Matheson to be a representative on a 6-year contract to
negotiate with the Chinese for them. On 1 March 1885 Spence, considering
that he had no promotion prospects for years to come, tendered his
resignation from the China Consular Service, but was persuaded by
Nicholas Roderick O'Conor, the British Chargé d'Affaires at Peking, who
regarded Spence as one of the best men in the service, to stay on for a
period while O’Conor arranged for Spence to be placed en
disponsiblité, so that he should retain his position in the service
and his eventual pension rights but receive no pay. As a result Spence
stayed on another year in South Formosa and on 28 February 1886,
officially posted to Shanghai, handed over charge to Second Assistant
Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser, for the two months prior to the arrival
of the new Consul, Pelham Laird Warren, on 21 April 1886.
In working for Jardine Matheson, William Donald
Spence was based in Tientsin [天津], but his work took him to Formosa, for
dealings with Governor Liu Ming-ch’uan and Dodd & Co., to Foochow [福州],
to Hongkong, and ultimately to Peking. In Peking Spence was involved in
important negotiations, possibly with the Nei Wu Fu [內務府] a department
of the Imperial Household, which had extensive dealings with Jardine
Matheson and issued bonds through them. So important were Spence’s
dealings in Peking that, suffering from malarial fever, he ignored
medical advise to return home immediately and determinedly concluded his
negotiations.
William Donald Spence returned home in 1890, but
died almost immediately, aged only 41, on 25 June 1890 at a private
nursing home at 152 Harley Street, London. |
