|
Archer Rotch Hewlett first came to Taiwan [臺灣] as an Interpreter and
Acting Consul on 20 January 1870, taking over from Acting Consul William
Marsh Cooper. Hewlett remained at Takow [打狗] until 30 November 1871,
when he departed leaving Pelham Laird Warren, the Third Assistant, in
charge of the consulate until the arrival of Acting Consul William
Gregory on 1 March 1872.
Hewlett returned to Taiwan on 9 November 1877 as
the first full Consul on the island after Robert Swinhoe. In point of
fact, Walter Edward King had been appointed the Consul on 20 October
1876, but there is no evidence that he ever proceeded to Taiwan to take
up his post. Consul Hewlett remained at Takow, overseeing the
construction of a new Consular Residence and Offices, until 25 February
1880, when Consul George Phillips took over.
Archer Rotch Hewlett was born on 15 May 1838, the
third son of Thomas Hewlett, a Surgeon, and his wife Rosetta Whitfield,
at Harrow-on-the-Hill, Middlesex. He was probably educated at Harrow
like his brother Richard Whitfield Hewlett, and both of them attended
King’s College, London. In 1858 Archer Rotch Hewlett was nominated by
the China Class at King’s College and joined the China Consular Service
as a Student Interpreter. Upon arrival in China, Hewlett was first
posted to Ningpo [寧波] in January 1859 and was then shuffled between
Ningpo and Foochow [福州] as a Student Interpreter until 31 March 1861,
After a month in Amoy [廈門] as Third Assistant he was promoted and moved
again to Ningpo as Second Assistant and Acting Interpreter on 7 May
1861. In 1862 Hewlett was attached as Interpreter to the Royal Naval
forces engaged against the Taiping forces during the Taiping Rebellion
[太平天國之亂] and witnessed the retaking of Ningpo in May 1862. He remained
at Ningpo as Acting Interpreter until May 1863 when he was moved to
Foochow as Acting Interpreter, and promoted to First Assistant in July
1863. Hewlett remained at Foochow as Acting Interpreter and First
Assistant, also as Acting Consul from 1 February 1864 to April 1866,
until 29 November 1866, when he was promoted to Interpreter. Shortly
thereafter Hewlett took Home Leave.
In 1867 Hewlett was back at Harrow-on-the-Hill
with his family, and soon became engaged to his cousin, the daughter of
his mother’s brother. On 18 January 1868 Archer Rotch Hewlett married
Rose Whitfield, the daughter of Richard Gullett Whitfield, the
Apothecary of St Thomas’ Hospital, and Charlotte Warneford Willson, at
St Paul’s Church, St Mary Newington, Surrey. Archer Hewlett, and his
bride Rose Hewlett, returned to China in June 1868 to resume his duties
as Interpreter at Foochow. Then tragedy struck as Rose Hewlett died at
Foochow on 9 December 1868, aged 28 years; Archer Hewlett took her
remains back to England and she was buried at St Mary’s churchyard at
Harrow-on-the-Hill. It appears that the bereaved Hewlett did not return
to China until 1870, for, although he is recorded as still being
Interpreter at Foochow until 1872, he is marked as absent from his post
for the whole of 1869.
On 20 January 1870 Archer Rotch Hewlett was sent
to the Taiwan British Consulate as Interpreter and Acting Consul, and
remained at Takow and Taiwan-fu [臺灣府], now Tainan, until 30 November
1871. During his tenure the efficient Hewlett arranged for the
construction of the Foreign Cemetery at Takow, as had been originally
proposed by Sir Rutherford Alcock. Hewlett organised a public
subscription for the necessary funds required; and successfully sought
the permission of the British Minister at Peking [北京], Thomas Francis
Wade, for the transfer to the foreign community of a part of the site
that Robert Swinhoe had purchased in 1864 for construction of a
Consulate. Permission to build the Consulate on the site had never been
given and had been emphatically denied by Alcock in 1867. Acting Consul
Hewlett’s second item on the agenda was to curb the excesses of the
local British merchants, particularly with regard to the camphor trade.
An opportunity arose when William Alexander Pickering and Randall Howell
Pye of Elles & Co., John Christie Masson of Tait & Co., and four Malays,
all bearing arms, went up the coast to recover a British consignment of
camphor that had been plundered from a wrecked boat and had returned to
Tainan with the alleged two main ringleaders of the wreckers to bargain
for their camphor. This was clearly an illegal action that should have
been referred to the Chinese authorities. Hewlett had the abduction
party arrested by the Consular Constable, Antonio Alborado, and brought
before him at a hastily-arranged Consular Court in Tainan. Hewlett tried
and judged the party, fining the three British traders amounts of $2,000
and above, and fining the Malays $100 each. It caused a sensation, but
emphasized the rule of law. The effect however was subsequently ruined
when the Chief Judge at the British Supreme Court for China and Japan
[按察使衙門] at Shanghai [上海] overturned the verdict, on the seemingly
spurious grounds that allowance should have been made for the extreme
tardiness of the Chinese authorities in taking action. Wade and Hewlett
were horrified at this decision, that even seemed to exonerate the
actions of John Gibson.
On 30 November 1871 Archer Hewlett left Taiwan
for a posting as Acting Vice-Consul at Shanghai. During 1872 Wade
summoned him to the British Legation in Peking to act as Assistant
Chinese Secretary, a position reflecting the high esteem that Wade held
for Hewlett and which Hewlett seemingly held until 1877 when he was
promoted to Consul and posted back to Taiwan.
Consul Archer Rotch Hewlett arrived back in
Taiwan on 9 November 1877 with the intention of erecting a new British
Consulate. Up to this point, both the Tainan Consulate and the Takow
Consulate were in leased properties: the Tainan Consulate was old and
becoming extremely unhealthy; the Takow Consulate was also decrepit and
unhealthy, moreover it was at Chi-h’ou [旗後], which lay on the southern
and opposite side of the lagoon from the Imperial Maritime Customs with
whom most business was transacted. In 1871, when Hewlett was last in
Taiwan, most of the traders had lived on the northern side of the
lagoon; however, with the advent of steamers and a lack of dredging at
Takow, most traders had since moved up to Anping [安平], the port of
Tainan, where the Circuit Intendant resided. The local advice was
therefore to build the new Consulate at Anping. However Consul Hewlett,
with the support of the British Minister Thomas Wade, insisted on Takow.
Two sites were duly found: on the hill at Shao-chuan-tou [哨船頭] for the
Consular Residence; and below, adjacent to the Imperial Maritime Customs
for the Consular Office. Hewlett straightened out the convoluted
leasehold rights, and the new British Consular Residence and Offices,
which still stand today were constructed in 1878-1879. With everything
settled to his satisfaction Consul Hewlett duly left the island on 25
February 1880 to take up his new posting at Canton [廣州].
Canton had long had a fractious relationship with
its neighbour, the colony of Hongkong [香港], which had exasperated both
Hewlett’s long-standing predecessor at Canton, Consul Daniel Brooke
Robertson, and the previous British Minister, Sir Rutherford Alcock. The
heart of the problem was that Hongkong, as a colony, should not deal
with the Chinese authorities in China except through the local Consul,
and thus usually Canton, or through the British Legation in Peking.
Wade, in appointing the ‘amiable and conscientious’ Hewlett as successor
to Consul Robertson, considered that it would be impossible for any
member of the Colonial Government of Hongkong to quarrel with such a
good-natured man as Hewlett. However it was not long before relations
between John Pope Hennessy, the Governor of Hongkong, and Archer Rotch
Hewlett became fractious, with complaints from each about the other
being sent to Wade at the British Legation. Within two years Hewlett was
taking sick leave in Japan, and within four years Hewlett was sent home
to recuperate from an evident nervous breakdown. Returning to China in
May 1885 after almost two years’ recovery, Hewlett was still in such bad
shape that he was sent home again after just one month. Archer Rotch
Hewlett retired from the China Consular Service due to his ill-health on
1 July 1885.
Archer Rotch Hewlett returned to England to live
with his widowed 80-year-old mother, Rosetta Hewlett, and three of his
sisters at Harrow-on-the-Hill. In the 1890s Hewlett went to live at
Bellegarde-sur-Valserine, Département de l'Ain, France, about 40
kilometres west of Geneva, Switzerland, where he acted as Consul from
1894 to 1898. Hewlett returned to England in 1901 and died, aged 63, at
Fayremeade, Furze Platt, Maidenhead, Berkshire, on 9 February 1902. He
left his residual estate to the two young daughters of Louise
Terraillon, then of Lyon in France: Adèle Claudia Terraillon and
Marguerite Marie Terraillon.
Archer Rotch Hewlett was buried beside his wife,
Rose Hewlett, in St Mary’s Churchyard, Harrow-on-the-Hill, Middlesex.
|
