Please Gwulo, could I once again ask for help?
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Six years ago I asked for help to trace the final voyage to Sydney of my grandmother Hannah Mabel Warren. Tony Banham hadn’t been able to find her on any of the evacuation ships and I have since assumed that she went at her own expense, unless she went via Manila, of which the manifests hadn’t been published. The frequent amazing detective work of annpake and just now eurasian_david’s on the Rollitts’ voyage to Sydney gives me courage to ask again - and hope.
Hannah was born Hannah Olson in Hong Kong 1880 to a Swedish father and Chinese mother. She married my English grandfather, C.E. Warren aged 17. The last reference to her being in Hong Kong was found by moddsey when she was living in Broadwood Terrace in 1926. There was no reason for her to leave Hong Kong till the war, as her grandchildren and her son, Leslie Warren and her friends were in Hong Kong. Leslie sent his wife and children back to England in 1938 after the invasion of Canton. Hannah thus may have gone to Australia any time between 1938 and 1941 – but as far as I know, she had no contacts there.
After 1926, the next news of Hannah was published in the SCMP 30 Sept. 1945 https://gwulo.com/node/13924 when she writes to a friend to tell her of her son, Leslie’s death:
HONG KONG MAN DEAD
Old residents who remember Mr Charles E. Warren and his son Leslie, will learn with regret that Leslie died in India in 1943 (...) Mrs H. Warren now in Sydney gave the news of his death in a letter to a friend.
Australian Immigration couldn't help me unless I know the name of her ship and the date of her arrival. That’s what I want to know!
I wondered if Hannah had travelled with her niece, Iris Gaby and her husband on leave from Amoy, who sailed on the passenger ship Changte from Hong Kong to Sydney on 12 April 1938, but she’s not on the passenger list. Iris herself, then resident in Australia, signed Hannah’s death certificate in 1966 and wrote 1941 with a question mark in the section for Hannah’s year of arrival to Australia.
Please can I throw this back into the pool of Gwulo’s expertise? I will ask again in five years if nothing comes up!
Female. Eurasian. Widow.
Female. Eurasian. Widow. Blank from 1926 (Hong Kong) -1945 (Sydney), which includes war years. I'm drawing a blank after a quick search. This is a tough one Jill! And you've been at it for years and seem to have gone down the usual conventional avenues with no luck. This will require a bit more lateral thinking.
One obvious question: Where and what was your father doing during this period and what do you recall him mentioning or saying anything about your grandmother Hannah during this precise period of time - which is a big chunk of time to draw a blank?
If you want you can answer me in private via David Bellis if it helps.
Missing grandmother
David, thank you for trying to find Hannah for me. I will ask David to put us in touch with each other. My father never mentioned his mother. He never wanted to talk about his past. It was taboo.
We need to re-examine the assumptions
“A PET’S MISCHIEF.
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MRS. WARREN BITTEN BY A MONKEY.
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ANIMAL GETS FREE.
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Mrs. C.E. Warren, residing at No. 19, Broadwood Terrace, was bitten yesterday by a pet monkey owned by Mr. McReynolds, who lives next door. She was treated by her private doctor.
The attack was made while the monkey got loose. Efforts made to recapture the animal proved unsuccessful.”
Source: The China Mail, page 1, 31st March 1926
“MONKEY BITE.
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EUROPEAN LADY’S MISHAP.
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Two persons were bitten, one by a dog and the other by a monkey, yesterday, according to reports made to the police.
In the first case, a dog, belonging to a Chinese named Chan Lai-chen, bit a Chinese boy, who was taken to the Government Civil Hospital. The dog has been sent to Kennedy Town.
Mr. Warren, of 19, Broadwood Road, reports that his wife has been bitten by a monkey, owned by Mr. McReynolds, a next-door neighbour. It appears that the monkey escaped and this morning was treated by a private doctor.”
Source: The Hong Kong Telegraph, page 7, 31st March 1926
Both newspaper reports cannot be correct.
The first newspaper report stated Mrs C.E. Warren. The assumption is it’s Hannah Mabel Warren, the wife of deceased Charles Edward Warren. But the second newspaper article said that Mr. Warren’s wife got bitten. But Mr Warren was already deceased! Clearly it’s Charles Edward Warren’s (1872-1923) son, Leslie (1900-1943)
FACT: Mr Leslie Beal Waren and his wife Cicely Beatrice Dangerfield Warren (née Taylor) lived at 19 Broadwood Road from 1924-1938, which covers the period in question.
The second report stated “…his wife…”. If it was his mother, he would have said his mother got bitten, but he didn’t because it wasn’t his mother who got bitten, but his wife Cicely. Leslie Beal Warren took over the family business in 1923 after the death of his father Charles Edward Warren. The company, called “C.E. Warren & Co. Ltd” was correctly run by a Mr Warren (ie. Leslie) in 1926, so the reporter clearly made the wrong assumption that Mr Warren’s wife was therefore “Mrs C.E. Warren”. In addition, the second report stated it was a “European Lady’s Mishap” (Cicely)…not a “Eurasian/Chinese Lady’s Mishap” (Hannah).
So Hannah went off-grid really from 1923 after the death of her husband until 1945.
When Leslie evacuated his wife and children from Hong Kong to the UK in 1938, there was no mention of his mother Hannah. Because Hannah was not in Hong Kong. You’d think she would be with her son’s family and grandchildren. Hannah was not in the UK in the 1939 census.
Did Hannah Mabel Warren get re-absorbed into the Olsen family after the death of her husband in 1923? Leslie’s (1900-1943) army records mentioned he was the son of Charles Edward Warren and Hannah Mabel Warren yet it was his wife’s contact address in the records…which was in Canada! A place she did not emigrate to from the UK until 1948. So that information was evidently retrospectively added at a much later date.
If Hannah did not retreat to the UK and the fact she was an Eurasian born in HK and grew up in HK, her cultural compass would dictate that she would be more comfortable in Asia than in the UK. She ended up in Australia therefore we have to consider the push/pull factors that caused her to be there. Even her own niece who was already continuously living in Australia from 1938 did not know when Hannah arrived in Australia.
If Hannah was already in Canada or the UK during this blank period, a place of relative safety, why would she go to Australia? Because she must have been in an area at risk of war / Japanese occupation …which points to Asia, most likely China. I suspect she was in China (this can include Hong Kong at times but more likely the Treaty Ports) during this period.
Mr McReynolds and two Mrs Warrens
Great to have you on the case, David. I have never conquered mmis. Clever you to find the second article with its conflicting report on who got bitten. Just a couple of points: the Warrens seem to have successfully concealed their Eurasian connections from the Hong Kong community. I’m grateful to Henry Ching who has researched and written on the elite Eurasian families of Hong Kong and who let me know that Hannah Warren was not known to be Eurasian.
I was suspicious about the number of Broadwood Terrace being cited as the same as the number of Broadwood Road, but the bungalow at 19 Broadwood Road was not big enough to accommodate Leslie, Cicely, their baby and, by 1926, Leslie’s two brothers as well as his mother and servants. It seemed plausible that Hannah should have her own accommodation at the bottom of Broadwood Road. I’m not familiar with the name McReynolds. I’d like to find another reference to him. The Deacons, Hewitts and Whiteleys were the names of the immediate Broadwood Road Warren neighbours that I know of.
It's useful to know that Hannah was not in the 1939 UK census. I hadn’t looked there. There was a Mabel Warren aged 60 of Bronwen Court, London NW8 who sailed for Sydney on the P&O liner Cathay in 1938 but that doesn’t make particular sense.
It is possible that Hannah joined her youngest sister, Nellie (Ellen Olson2) Melcher, who married Evert (Everett?) Melcher and lived in Shanghai. But Nellie married near the beginning of WW1 and the Melchers, being German/Eurasian, I believe, probably had to leave Shanghai. (Although I believe that Evert had Dutch nationality). According to Olson memory, Evert worked for the East India company in Indonesia. I haven’t explored that. The Olsons believe their family had houses in Shanghai and Canton, but I haven’t personally seen evidence of that and suspect that one was the Melchers’ house. An early passport photo of Hannah had a Shanghai studio stamp. Once in England, that seems to have been the (John) Olsons’ main home base.
Hannah’s younger brother, Charles Olson, was in Hong Kong till 1927, when he emptied the family bank account and scarpered to Canada leaving his wife, Ethel, behind. I don’t think Hannah would have followed him.
Hannah’s niece, Iris Gaby, was based in Foochow, then Amoy. Her husband took long leave in 1938. He wrote a memoir in which no reference to Iris’s aunt appears at all, despite Iris having spent a large part of that leave with her sister in Hong Kong.
Those are a few more details that occur to me, sparked by your useful suggestions and which might provide stepping stones. Thank you for directing your thoughts so forensically towards my quest for Hannah.
Floral tribute from Mrs. C.E. Warren & family, 1925
I recently posted a summary of a report on the funeral of Mrs Otto Kongsing in August 1925. I had forgotten that Mrs. C.E. Warren and family were in the list of those reported to have sent a floral tribute for her funeral. So even if the 1926 report about the monkey bite doesn’t refer to my grandmother, Hannah Warren, it seems that she was still in Hong Kong in August 1925. That said, Mr and Mrs J. Olson and family, also in the list of senders, left Hong Kong in 1921. John is only known to have returned briefly in 1923 and 1927. I’m not therefore sure if the sending of a floral tribute is a guaranteed proof of presence. Charles Olson, who was in Hong Kong, could have sent a wreath in the name of his brother’s family in addition to his own.
I've read lots of funeral
I've read lots of funeral reports by now - if a wreath is sent it can mean anything regarding locality. They might be 'here' (local) but could not attend the funeral or they are not here (as in abroad). I've even seen attendees who were at the funeral and also sent wreaths. But it's great there is one mention of her. It's small clues like that we need to look for so thanks for bringing that up for attention.
1940
I finally found her Jill!!
Hannah Mabel Warren evacuated to Victoria, Australia from Hong Kong in 1940.
Please see this link
You need to contact Vivian Kong (see link) for more precise information, who is (was? likley given the age of the blog) doing a PhD on pre-war Hong Kong evacuees at H.K. University under the stewardship of History Professor Robert Bickers of Bristol University, a chap I have had a long time of personal communications for the last 18 years regarding my own family history research.
Kathleen Freda Warnes any relation?
Access to Australian Immigration records
I started to write a note of thanks to David here yesterday, but eventually decided to thank him via a personal email. I also needed to explain that I had muddied the waters by sending an inquiry to Vivian Kong when she was doing her research into Hong Kong evacuees some years ago. Vivian offered to put an inquiry about Hannah Warren on her website. She has included her in her list of evacuees, which is correct, but the 1940 date is speculative. After getting her doctorate, Vivian gained a research fellowship at Bristol. The following link gives her past and future publications – all very interesting for historians of Hong Kong. https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/vivian-kong The main link for the very informative Hong Kong History Project under Robert Bickers is https://www.hkhistory.net/
Australian Immigration has apparently now made its records more accessible. A kind librarian/researcher in Australia, who has been helping me for some years, has recently managed to locate Hannah Warren’s name as an incoming passenger to Sydney and the year of her arrival, which was 1941, as given on her death certificate. I am now waiting for a reply to my request to Australian Immigration for more details. The period of 30 business days that they request for replies to enquiries hasn’t yet elapsed. I have also asked for any available information about Hannah’s whereabouts and upkeep during the years 1941 to 1966 – and especially 1941 to 1945, as I don’t think she would have been entitled to financial help from the Hong Kong government. I shall report back, in case the information is useful to other people whose ancestors found themselves in the same tricky position as my Eurasian grandmother at a time when Australia had a “Whites Only” policy.
No, Kathleen Freda Warnes, the name next to Hannah’s on Vivian’s list of evacuees, is nothing to do with my family.
Just a bit of oblique
Just a bit of oblique background reading for you Jill....see article "ASSISTANCE TO EVACUEES" in column 7 regarding some of the organizations (which Hannah may have accessed) helping British HK evacuee folk adjust to life in Australia on their arrival
Source: Hong Kong Daily Press, page 6, 29th October 1940
Victoria League
Thanks for this article about the Victoria League, David. My grandmother was 61 at the time of her arrival, on her own and unlikely to have had financial support from her son after the invasion of Penang where he had gone. She will have needed all the help that was available.