Annual submission date of names and addresses in Hong Kong | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Annual submission date of names and addresses in Hong Kong

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Submitted by jill on Sat, 2020-03-07 07:13

Do we know by which date names and addresses had to be submitted for publication in the Jurors Lists and the Ladies Directories and who to? It would be useful to know how and when this was done in order to track people's movements more precisely.

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General
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Jurors List
Ladies directory
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Submitted by David on Wed, 2020-03-11 14:19.

The Jury Ordinance of 1887 has these notes about how the lists were drawn up:

7. —(1) The Registrar shall, on or before 1st February in each year, make an alphabetical list of all persons ascertained by him to be liable to serve as jurors, setting forth the name and surname of each at full length, together with his profession, business, or occupation and place of abode, and shall cause a copy of such list to be posted for the term of one fortnight at the chief entrance to the Court.
 
(2) Any person may apply by notice in writing to the Registrar requiring that his name or the name of some other person may be respectively either added to or struck off from the list; upon cause duly assigned in such notice; and the Registrar, immediately after the expiration of the time for posting the list, shall forward the same and. such notices as may be so served on him to the Clerk of the Councils.
 
(3) The Legislative Council may strike off from or add to the list such name or any other name as to the Council may appear fit, and shall mark off not less than 24 of the names to be formed into a separate list which shall be designated the “Special Jurors List,” and all other names contained in the list shall be designated the "Common Jurors List".
 
8. The lists, when finally settled, shall be returned to the Registrar and shall be brought into use on 1st March next following and shall continue in force for one year.

Submitted by jill on Thu, 2020-03-12 20:33.

Thanks for digging out this information, David. The Registrar must have had access to an up to date list of Europeans in Hong Kong at any one time, even if newly arrived and living in a hotel. Perhaps Chinese New Year was the moment for drawing up the new Jurors Lists rather than 1st January. As to the Ladies Directories that appear as a part of the South China Directory, I wonder if there was some sort of postal reminder asking people to update their name and address and whether the submission date was synchronised with the date for drawing up the Jurors Lists. Were there also annually published telephone directories printed in English? If so, have examples been kept?