Who was Arbuthnot Road named after? | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Who was Arbuthnot Road named after?

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Submitted by David on Thu, 2013-03-14 15:07

Arbuthnot Road runs downhill from Caine Road to Wyndham Street / Hollywood Road, running in front of the Magistracy.

Wikipedia says:

It is likely that it was not named or created until the 1850s or later; it was named after George Arbuthnot.

Wikipedia also has an entry for George Arbuthnot:

George Arbuthnot (20 November 1802, Norbiton, Surrey - 28 July 1865) was a distinguished[1] member of the permanent British civil service. He worked in the Treasury at the Colonial Office in Hong Kong when the HSBC charter was first drawn up; Arbuthnot Road, Hong Kong was named after him.[2]

The problem is that the road already appears, named Arbuthnot Road, on the 1845 map of Hong Kong. Any connection with Hong Kong and the HSBC charter wouldn't have been until much later in the 1860s. Did George Arbuthnot have earlier connections with Hong Kong, or was the road named after a different person?

Wikipedia gives this book as the source link ing the road to George Arbuthnot:

Frank H. H. King (January 1988). The History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation: Volume 1, The Hongkong Bank in Late Imperial China 1864-1902: On an Even Keel. Cambridge University Press. p. 107. ISBN 0-521-32706-7.

I see the public library has a copy so I'll check that out. But if you know anything about this I'd be interested to hear from you.

Regards, David

PS Searches for Arbuthnot in HKGRO and the online newspapers didn't return any results older than the 1970s.

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Submitted by philk on Fri, 2013-03-15 23:39.

You may find some answers here (or perhaps not): http://www.kittybrewster.com/h.htm

and http://www.kittybrewster.com/members/i.htm

George is listed in the Table I, but it just repeats the same thing you have found:

George Arbuthnot of Farm Hill. Born Norbiton, Surrey 20 November 1802. Died 12 Uxbridge Road, Surbiton 28 July 1865. Formerly in the Treasury and Private Sec to Sir Robert Peel, Bt and subsequently to Sir Charles Wood, later Viscount Halifax. Arbuthnot Road, Hong Kong was named after him. Note: private secretary to several chancellors, permanent secretaries and to the Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel ‎[I16880]‎ - relation between Peel and Arbuthnot - ­http­://­goo­.­gl­/­ABZuB­ ; conservative opponent of the Civil Service reforms proposed by his superior, Sir Charles Trevelyan ‎[I11893]‎ - relation between Trevelyan and Arbuthnot: ­http­://­goo­.­gl­/­ZBF0N­. Married first, 29 April 1829, Augusta Amelia Adolphina Papendick (born 1804; died 5 February 1853), youngest daughter of Christopher Papendick of Kew and Charlotte Louisa Henrietta, née Albert.

But there are a bunch of relatives who served in "East India" who preceded him. It could be he had a noteworthy forerunner who has since been overlooked once people latch onto his HK connection.

Submitted by 80sKid on Sat, 2013-03-16 10:56.

George's dad had a pretty good heritage too: as seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Arbuthnot
he was in charge of the army in ceylon around the time the street was named in HK, so the link is possible

Submitted by C on Sat, 2013-03-16 11:48.

Is there any mention of these streets in Frena Bloomfield's "Hong Kong's Street Names and Their Origins"?

Submitted by David on Mon, 2013-03-18 14:48.

I contacted the kittybrewster website Phil mentioned, and received the reply:

I haven't seen the book but I was given that reference by a HK speciallist and can't see which other Arbuthnot it might have been named after.

I followed up with a trip to the library, and found the mention of George Arbuthnot is a single sentence on page 107 of the Frank H H King book, in the passage about HSBC applying for its charter:

After informal correspondence between the Colonial Office and the experienced George Arbuthnot in the Treasury, the latter decided to send the relatively new charter of the Asiatic Banking Corporation as a model, stating that its provisions 'would of course be unobjectionable'. It has already served as a model for the proposed Bank of China charter.

So George Arbuthnot worked in the Treasury in London, not Hong Kong, and as far as I can tell he only had this one brief contact with Hong Kong, in 1865. I can't see any reason he'd have a road named after him. (I also found a slightly more detailed account of his life, at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Arbuthnot,_George_(DNB00)).

I agree his father Robert looks like a better possibility, but can't see the connection yet.

Regards, David

PS If anyone has the book C mentioned, please could you let us know if it has any information about this?