Ferdinand Bernard (Frits) s'Jacob (1872, Rotterdam-1941, London) was one of the founders of the company which employed Charles, Holland-China Trading Company (HCHC).
<a href="https://old.gwulo.com/%3Ca%20href%3D"http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/bwn2/jacob">http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/bwn2/jacob" rel="noreferrer nofollow">resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/bwn2/jacob</a>:
Born from an originally Normandy family, his father worked in the Netherlands East Indies and the Netherlands. At the age of 19, Frits s'Jacob went to London to learn the trading profession. Early 1897 he started in Hong Kong as a merchant and in 1898 he went to Shanghai. [There is a detailed description of his activities in Shanghai in the 1898 financial statements of the joint venture "Hotz, s'Jacob & Co.", Kien family archives].
1 October 1903, he established Holland-China Handelscompagnie (HCHC), together with J.H. Collignon and S.J.R. de Monchy jr. Willem Kien became the company's representative in Shanghai [for the official deed, please see <a href="https://old.gwulo.com/%3Ca%20href%3D"https://www.flickr.com/photos/161392673">https://www.flickr.com/photos/161392673@N02/40003353243/in/dateposted-public/">www.flickr.com/photos/161392673@N02/40003353243/in/datepo...</a>}
After leaving HCHC in 1917, in 1918 he became Trade Representative for the Netherlands in London, which he continued to be until his death in 1941.
Frits Kien, being sent from Shanghai to London in 1940 after the outbreak of war in the Netherlands, met with Frits s'Jacob.
“I had great support from the introduction letter by the Dutch Trade Representative in London. This Trade Representative had started in Shanghai in 1898 and had started our firm. When I visited him in his office he said to me: “I still have a special place in my heart for the firm which you work for. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need assistance with anything, and we’ll see what needs to be done.””
Google Books: Treasures of the Yenching: Seventy-fifth Anniversity of the Harvard-Yenching Library (2003)
An 1892 dated reverse of a portrait photo is shown, identical to this photo.
University of Bristol, Historical photographs of China:
<a href="https://old.gwulo.com/%3Ca%20href%3D"https://www.hpcbristol.net/photographer/ying-cheong">https://www.hpcbristol.net/photographer/ying-cheong" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.hpcbristol.net/photographer/ying-cheong</a>
YING Cheong was a Shanghai artist, photographer and miniature painter on ivory and canvas. He advertised as a group, portrait and architectural photographer. He seems to have started his business in Shanghai in the 1870s. In 1906 his studio was listed at 1 Canton Road (now Guangdong Lu), Shanghai, opposite to Messrs Mustard & Company (source: Terry Bennett History of Photography in China – Chinese Photographers 1844-1879, page 136).
Courtesy Kien family archives, De Jong family archives
