People · Mixed Court magistrate, tax official
Guan Jiong
关炯Guān Jiǒng · 1879–1942
Chinese magistrate of the Shanghai Mixed Court who handled the 1905 Mixed Court riot case, the 1913 Song Jiaoren case and the May Thirtieth detainees.
Guan Jiong (关炯, Guān Jiǒng) was a Chinese judge of the Shanghai Mixed Court, the court in the International Settlement where Chinese magistrates sat with foreign assessors, and he presided in several of its best-known cases.
A native of Jingzhou, Hubei, he became a Mixed Court magistrate in 1903. In December 1905, in the case known as the Mixed Court riot, the gazetteer says he resisted pressure from the British assessor to force a result. After a spell as a county official and the 1911 Revolution he returned to the court and in 1913 dealt with the case of the murdered politician Song Jiaoren, transferring the suspects and evidence promptly. In 1925, during the May Thirtieth Incident, he rejected the Municipal police’s charges and released arrested students.
He resigned in 1927, when China took back the court. He then held tax posts, ran a Buddhist children’s home at Dachang from 1933, helped with refugee relief in 1937 and, the gazetteer says, refused office under the occupation. He died in 1942.