Former British Consulate-General

The Former British Consulate-General (原英国驻沪总领事馆, Yuán Yīngguó Zhù Hù Zǒnglǐngshìguǎn) at 33 Zhongshan East 1st Road is the oldest surviving Western-style building on the Bund. The main block dates from a rebuilding in 1872–73, but a British consulate had stood on this plot since 1849. It is now part of the Bund Origin (外滩源, Wàitān Yuán) complex and goes by the name Bund Origin No. 1 (外滩源壹号).

The site lies where Suzhou Creek meets the Huangpu River. Britain’s first consul in Shanghai marked out a plot of 126 mu here in April 1846, on a former village site then outside the British settlement. His successor won approval to build on it, and the settlement boundary was extended to take it in. The consulate moved in on 21 July 1849. It was rebuilt once, in 1852, before a fire destroyed it in December 1870. Sources give the day as the 24th or the 28th.

The new building went up on the old site from 1872 and was finished in 1873. It was built on the old foundations, which London preferred largely because that was cheaper. The gazetteer credits two Britons whose names it writes 克罗斯曼 and 伯依斯. English Wikipedia names Robert H. Boyce of H. M. Office of Works as architect, and Room for Diplomacy describes Boyce as the assistant of William Crossman, the surveyor the Treasury sent out in 1866. English Wikipedia adds that the British Supreme Court for China also used the compound.

The main block is two storeys of brick and timber in English Renaissance style. A five-arch arcade runs along the ground floor, and a covered verandah on the upper floor shades the rooms. The hipped roof is laid with small grey Chinese tiles, and the building stands on a raised plinth because the Bund ground is low. A separate two-storey residence for the consul stands to the north, joined by a corridor. The gazetteer dates it to 1882 and the zh Wikipedia infobox to 1884.

The British post was raised to a consulate-general in 1880. Japanese forces ordered it closed after the Pacific War began in 1941, and it reopened on 10 September 1945. In 1954 China and Britain exchanged chargés d’affaires, and a British office worked from the old consulate. English Wikipedia says it closed again in 1967. A new Consulate-General opened in Xuhui District in 1985, and this building passed to municipal offices. According to zh Wikipedia, it was renovated and reopened in 2010 as Bund Origin No. 1.

The building is on the second batch of Shanghai Outstanding Historical Buildings (1994) and is a national-level site as part of the Bund Buildings group (1996). The main building now hosts art exhibitions, talks and small concerts, and a sun room and exhibition hall are open at set times, according to a recent article from the Shanghai housing authority.