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[Identification of item], H. J. M. Shaw diary, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
The H. J. M. Shaw diary were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library as a purchase in January 2009.
Processed by Bob Malme, June 2012
Encoded by Bob Malme, June 2012
Accession(s) described in this finding aid: 2009-0026
Descriptive sources and standards used to create this inventory:
This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.
H. J. M. Shaw (b. 1876) was an English mining engineer and businessman who spent much of his time in China between 1902 and 1909. He was often accompanied by his wife, Eva. He appears to be an employee of a large mining works in the Henan province of China during this time.
This collection consists of the diary of H. J. M. Shaw (b. 1876), an English mining engineer and businessman. The diary covers the period 1902-1909 (predominantly the last 2 years) and its entries provide insight into the life of a turn-of-the-century business and vacation traveler. The diary entries are typically brief day-to-day accounts of location, weather, and people met. There are occasionally longer anecdotes regarding stories he's heard or that were related to him, meetings with Chineses government officials, and reactions to events in the news. There are also a couple drawings where Shaw attempts to show what is causing his dental problems. The diary can be seen as two distinct parts. In the first part, entries commence on June 21, 1902 during the start of a trip to China and describe events while travelling across the Atlantic to New York and then North America by train across Canada to Vancouver. Shaw then travels abord the Empress of China to Yokahama, Japan and then on to China. The second part starts with entries in April 1908 while Shaw is travelling in a houseboat along the Hsun Hsien River in China with friends. The diary then describes Shaw's trip back to England with stops in Japan and Canada along the way. When back in England, entries describe his subsequent vacation trips to visit friends in Worcestershire and taking a vacation in Ireland. Entries from October to November 1908 describe his trip back to China this time through France, Italy, Egypt, Singapore and Hong Kong. The remainder of the diary describes his daily activities in Weihan, China which typically included work in the morning, a visit to the library to meet his Chinese teacher or to a golf club in the afternoon, and dinner with his wife and friends in the evening. The diary also contains two draft letters. The first is a letter dated June 18, 1903 to the chief engineer of the Henan mining works describing how he was treated during his visit. The other is dated June 9, 1904 regarding the return of books from the mines to the Tientsin Municipal Library. There are also two newspaper clippings; one describing an explosion within the city of Canton, China and a letter to the editor response to an article in the China Times on Missionaries in China.
These are searchable subject entries for this collection. Performing a search on these subjects in the Duke University Libraries online catalog will bring up other related research materials.