The History of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service (1854 - 1949)
"Building on earlier collaborations with historians at Cambridge University and the Second Historical Archives of China, this 2003-07 AHRC-funded project is designed to further understandings of the modern Chinese state, British imperial history, and the history of modern globalization in China, by focusing on the role the Chinese Maritime Customs Service and its staff played in these historical processes. The first step was to produce a new catalogue of the 55,000 files that make up the archives of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service held at the Second Historical Archives at Nanjing" (from project web site; please see for more details).
Project
Academic field
Affiliation
arts-humanities.net
Principal investigator
Professor Robert Bickers
Principal project staff
Professor Robert Bickers
Start date
Wednesday, October 1, 2003
Completion date
Monday, October 1, 2007
Era
Place
Source material
"The Catalogue
There are 55,000 items in two main series at the Archives in Nanjing. Series 679, with sub-series 1-9, and Series 2085. Series 2085 contains records described as being from the collaborationist Customs, 1941-45, when the Service was run by the Japanese Inspector-General Kishimoto Hirokichi. However, in great part the 679 series contains the records of this period as well, as the central institutions of the Service, notably the Inspectorate, fell under collaborationist and Japanese control.
Some raw datasets will be placed online as and when completed. When the digitisation of data is completed, a fully searchable amalgamated version will be produced and placed online.
Historic photographs digitised and placed online at http://chp.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/ 'Historical photographs of China'.
Publications
All listed on https://www.bris.ac.uk/history/customs/customsbibliographies/publications