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People · comprador, steamship manager, mining manager

Tong King-sing

唐廷枢Táng Tíngshū · 1832–1892

Interpreter who was Jardine Matheson's Shanghai comprador from 1863 and in 1873 took charge of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company.

Black-and-white portrait of a man with a moustache wearing a skullcap and a dark silk jacket with toggle buttons.
Tang Tingshu (Tong King-sing), North China Herald, 24 November 1893.Image: North China Herald, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Tong King-sing (唐廷枢, Táng Tíngshū) was the best-known comprador of Jardine, Matheson & Co. (怡和洋行) and the man who turned that training into a Chinese-owned steamship company. A Guangdong native with a missionary-school English education, he worked as an interpreter for the Hong Kong government and the Customs service before joining Jardine’s in 1861.

Yen-p’ing Hao, the standard scholar of the comprador class, dates his Shanghai comprador post to 1863-1873. In 1873 Li Hongzhang chose him to run the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, the first modern Chinese steamship firm, which later bought Russell & Co.’s Shanghai holdings. Sources differ on when he left it: one gives 1884, another 1885. He then devoted himself to the Kaiping coal mines in Zhili, where he was general manager until his death in 1892.

The company’s Bund head office, China Merchants Steam Navigation Building, dates from 1901, after his death.

Timeline

  1. 1832Born in Xiangshan, Guangdong1
  2. 1861Joins Jardine Matheson1
  3. 1863Becomes the firm's comprador at Shanghai2
  4. 1873Appointed to run the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company1
  5. 1878Kaiping mines formally set up2
  6. 1892Dies on 7 October1

Connections

  • Jardine, Matheson & Co.怡和洋行Comprador of Jardine, Matheson & Co. at Shanghai, 1863-73
  • Xu Run徐润Led China Merchants from 1873; Xu Run was appointed as his deputy
  • Black-and-white full-length photograph of an older man in a long dark gown standing on garden steps, with Chinese calligraphy written over the picture.Zheng Guanying郑观应Fellow Guangdong comprador who reached Shanghai in the same period; later colleague at China Merchants

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Stories

Sources

  1. 1.Tong King-Sing (Wikipedia) (Tong King-Sing), Wikimedia Foundation — Tong King-Sing, infobox; Tong King-Sing, career section; career sectionwikipedia
  2. 2.Tang Tingshu (Chinese Wikipedia) (唐廷枢), Wikimedia Foundation — 唐廷枢, dates; 怡和洋行 section; 招商局 section; 开平煤矿 sectionwikipedia
  3. 3.A 'New Class' in China's Treaty Ports: The Rise of the Comprador-Merchants (A 'New Class' in China's Treaty Ports: The Rise of the Comprador-Merchants), Yen-p'ing Hao, Business History Review 44(4), pp. 446-459, 1970 — fns. 21, 64; fn. 64article