And for this we are thankful.... - Armenian Reporter

10 The Armenian Reporter | November 22, 2008CommunityLiz Chater about Sir Paul ChaterIn her own wordsKOLKATA – Sir Paul Chater, one ofthe many prominent businesspeoplewho contributed to the preservationof Armenian churches andthe Armenian College in India, isknown as the father of Hong Kong.The Armenian Reporter’s PaulChaderjian spoke to Liz Chater,one of the organizers of the 300thanniversary celebrations, about SirPaul and his legacy.Liz Chater: Sir Paul Chater builtHong Kong. He created the centralinfrastructure, the central financialarea that is Hong Kong today. Everymajor company in Hong Konghe either started or was on theboard of directors.Paul Chaderjian: Tell me aboutPaul Chater’s childhood.LC: Sir Paul was born in Calcuttain 1846. He went to school at LaMartiniere as a foundationer [onscholarship], because he was orphanedat seven. His eldest sisterwas already in Hong Kong withher husband, who was also part ofanother large Armenian dynastyfrom Madras, the Jordan family. Sothe Chaters and the Jordans hadjoined, and she was his older sister.Because there were 13 in the family,although she was his sister, shewas old enough to be his mother.So, she became like a mother figureto him. When he went out on hisown as an 18-year-old, he left Calcuttaand sailed on a steamer calledthe Lightening out of Calcutta intoHong Kong via Singapore.PC: What was in Hong Kong atthe time?LC: Not a great deal. His sisterobviously. I suspect her husbandprobably got him or was influentialin him obtaining his first jobas a clerk in the Bank of Hindustanin Hong Kong. He basicallywas very studious. He worked very,very hard. He was very methodical.And his client base, as we wouldcall it today, liked him. The clientsthat liked him the most were theSassouns, and the Sassouns werevery big out in Hong Kong. I thinkthey were Jews and were fairly wellestablished, and they were fromBombay. There was that connectionthere. They had come from India,they were a minority group, andthey clearly liked what they saw inPaul Chater. They saw something inthat young man, that young manChater, standing in front of them,writing the passbooks and beingvery methodical and logical.PC: How did he go from bankclerk to being the father of the newHong Kong?LC: When Paul Chater wanted tobranch out on his own, he askedthe Sassouns for a loan to start uphis own brokering business. Theysaw something in him and theyagreed. And in his first month, hemade something like 500 dollars,which was a huge amount of moneyat the time. Then he just wentfrom strength to strength. He hada natural ability in the commercialworld. He was able to see thingslong before anyone else could eventhink about a project’s embryonicstage. He started buying up landin Kawloon, long, long, long beforeKawloon would ever develop. Everyonewould always say, “Why areyou doing this? What a waste.”PC: Kowloon?LC: Kawloon is the mainland inChina. Hong Kong is the island. Hesaw Kowloon as a real opportunity.It had a natural basin, and a coastline. He saw that it had the abilityto become something. He builthis weekend cottage there, and hisweekend cottage was huge. It wasa huge palatial bungalow. Well, hewas a major funder and backer ofwhat is Hong Kong Land [propertyinvestment, management anddevelopment group]. Basically, ifthere was a company starting, peoplewould look at him and ask if hewanted to be part of the company.And if he said yes, they gave it somethought and knew it was going tobe a success.PC: What kind of companies?LC: He was very influential inthe Hong Kong Shanghai Bank.Hong Kong Land. Hong KongWharf Company, which is very,very huge. The Star Ferry – he wasa part of that. The Dairy Farm InternationalHoldings, he was partof the process that was influentialto bring better health conditionsto the people of Hong Kong onthe island. He was friends withthe governor and the administrationof the island. He was an advisor;he was a personal friend andcounselor. You’ve got to bear inmind that colonial Britain at thetime in Hong Kong was very, verysmall. So you did everything together.You went to the races. Youwent to the cricket. You attendedballs, functions, dances. They wentto theater shows. And it was thesame people all over again, so theybuilt up tremendous amounts ofcontact. And they all became very,very good friends.PC: Talk about Paul Chater, theArmenian.LC: His family, from what I canunderstand, came from Isfahan,Iran. I haven’t been able to findout too much going back about hisfamily. All of the records are overthere, and I can’t get to them. Butalthough, he never went to themotherland where his ancestorscame from, he was a generous donorto Armenian causes – particularlyin the 1920s, after the Genocide.He did what he did best – helistened, he sympathized, and hegave money.PC: How are you related to SirPaul?LC: The way I can trace it isthat Sir Paul’s grandfather and myfour-times great grandfather werebrothers in Isfahan, and they cameto India. And my four-times greatgrandfather broke away, went toDakka, became a merchant, andgot into trading. Whereas the PaulChater family stayed in Calcutta,stayed within the administrationof the East India Company, clearlybecame very trusted members ofstaff, and were given very importantjobs – judges, writers, etc.PC: You have written about thisin your book about Paul Chater.When did you start your research?LC: Eight years ago, but thebook is far from complete. I’ve got500-something-odd pages at themoment. What I’ve been doing isgoing through records, throughnewspaper articles. I’m very fortunatein researching him, becausehe was very popular and very famousin Hong Kong in his time.The nice thing is that the HongKong Library has digitized almostall their old newspapers, and I canaccess them for free. So in wintertime,when I haven’t got much todo, when it’s dark, cold, and miserable,I sit on the computer and justread very old newspapers for hours,hours, and hours. They have a basicsearch engine, but it’s very sort ofhit-and-miss. So I pick a month Iwant to research and go throughevery newspaper from that month.PC: Every single article? Whatdo you search for?LC: I’ll look for something, andI’ll look for a reference. Quite oftenhe’ll pop out. Like one particulartime, I was looking for somethingcompletely different, and I foundout that he had fallen out of hisrickshaw on his way to work oneday. This was towards his later life,1919–1920s, and it was big news. ItLeft: Paul Chatermemorial stoneat the ArmenianHoly Churchof Nazareth inKolkata, India.Photo: SebouhBaghdoyan.Far left, top:Pilgrimageorganizer andrelation of SirPaul Chater, LizChater from theU.K. Far left,bottom: Sir PaulChater. Below:Sir Paul Chaterat the openingof the HongKong Universitybuilding in 1919.was huge. Paul Chater has fallenout of his rickshaw.PC: How much time do youspend researching Paul Chater?LC: Every week, up until recently,I’ve spent every spare momentof my time in between my familycommitments. I’ll stay up lateor if I don’t sleep, I get up in themiddle of the night, and I find thatmy very best research is done sortof between one and four o’clock inthe morning when I’m really tired. Ispent nine months looking throughnewspapers for a particular date.PC: What date?LC: For instance, Sir Paul’syounger brother Joseph was alsoin Hong Kong with him. In 1886Joseph died relatively young, in his30s. Clearly, Sir Paul was very upsetand distraught. I knew that Sir Paulhad left Hong Kong after the deathof his brother to come back to Calcuttaand see the family, but I didn’tknow exactly when. The brotherdied in October of 1886, so I kindof figured that Sir Paul would haveleft between November of 1886and January of 1887. So, I searchedevery single newspaper betweenthose months and couldn’t findanything. So, I then systematicallysearched the rest of the newspapersfor the rest of the year, and I foundout he actually left Hong Kong inOctober of 1887, a year after hisbrother died. To find four lines sayingSir Paul is taking a long-awaitedholiday back home to India, it tookme eight months going through everynewspaper for every day. Andit wasn’t just one newspaper. I’d gothrough the Hong Kong Telegraph,the Daily News, the China Mail,the weeklies that were producedas well. I’d go through four differentsets of newspapers looking forsnippets, and it took me 8 monthsto find just that. So, I’m kind of eithermad or determined to pull thefacts together.PC: What’s another exampleof what you search for in newspapers?LC: He was very, very muchinto horseracing. He was a bighorserace owner. He had his ownstable, which later on in life heran with his business partner, SirH.N. Mody. And Chater never,ever, ever missed a horse race inHong Kong for 60 years. When Iwas in Hong Kong last year, theCEO of Hong Kong Land, NickSalnow-Smith, actually saidto me, “How can you be so certainthat he really never misseda horse race in 60 years in HongKong?” I said, “Because I wentthrough 60 years of newspapers,so that I could make sure that Icould record every single race hishorses went to, and he was there,mentioned in every single newspaperfor 60 years.” So I can quitecategorically say that he was thereat every single race.PC: When can we expect thisbook to be published?LC: Unfortunately never, becauseI’ve run out of money, gotno funding, and have self-fundedit up until now. I’ve approachedmajor corporations in Hong Kong.Although they’ve been interested,for their internal reasons, no doubt,they just can’t find the funds to doit. I don’t want a small publication.I think he’s worthy of a nice, huge,big hardback, detailed time-linedbook. That’s what I’d like to see, andI don’t want to compromise. So, Iwill continue to hold on to this.PC: Can people read about SirPaul on your website?LC: Some of it. I’m not puttingit all on. It’s too much to put on, tostart. I’ve got a lot of family memorabiliaand family anecdotes.PC: How and why did you startyour research eight years ago?LC: It started as a hobby. Byaccident I found out that I hadArmenian ancestry. My mum isWelsh, and my father was bornhere in Kolkata. His line is the Armenianroot. My father was bornin the Andaman Islands, and hisfather was born in Dakka. Suddenly,I began to find that I hadArmenian blood, and I wanted tofind out more.PC: How did you discover yourancestry by accident?LC: My father died in 1982. Hewas for many years a seamanworking on merchant ships, cruiseships in the 50s and 60s whencruising was very popular. And hesailed on the old Queen Mary, andthe old Queen Leezie. He died, andI hadn’t realized he was from Calcutta.When I was going throughhis possessions, I came across hisrecord book from when he was atsea. It said, Civil Alexander Chater,born in Calcutta, and I was a bitperplexed, because my mum hadnever said my dad was born there.My dad certainly never spoke aboutit. That’s when I found out my fatherwas from Calcutta and didn’tdo anything about it until I hadmy first child in 2000. I suddenlystarted to think that I needed toknow where I come from, so I cantell him when he gets older. I didn’tknow anything about my father’sfamily. So, I started painstakinglyto try to find information – very,very hard to do. But inquiries tookme into London and the BritishLibrary, where the India Recordsare held. Within five minutes ofwalking in and telling one of theassistants behind the counter thatI’m trying to find my grandfatherHerbert Chater, he pointed me inthe direction of several hundredrows of index cards and said, “Lookunder C or Chater.” So I flippedContinued on page 11