Royal Asiatic Society China in Shanghai

Top: Peter looks out from the top of
the old RAS building under the gaze
of “Tug” the RAS Logo perched
above.
Bottom: RAM Curator Ella Liao
examines the old RAS Journals and
images with Peter and Dan Wang.
7pm - Saturday 3 rd November
PETER HIBBARD MBE
More Than a Stuffed Bird Show
- The RAS Legacy in Shanghai -
In 1857 the founding fathers of the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai
foretold that the city was destined to be the greatest and most
influential city in the Far East. With some essential civic amenities in
place - an administrative body, a church, a hospital, a racecourse and
a park, they judged that the time was ripe for ‘social cultivation’ and
‘intellectual improvement’. Those pioneers embarked on their
investigations into China in an age of huge profiteering when
Shanghai’s unique cultural milieu was being melded as an outcome of
the ravages of the Taiping Rebellion. The Society opened its first
building on the site where RAM sits today in 1874 and in the latter part
of the 19th century today’s Rockbund district was a thriving centre for
British social and civic life. Shanghailanders and visitors could delight
over Gilbert & Sullivan opera’s at the Lyceum Theatre, be put on trial at
the British Court for their foibles, attend services and fêtes at the Union
Church and take to the waters from the Rowing Club. They could also
freely engage in learned activities at the RAS North China Branch,
browse the magnificent library where its renowned journal had pride of
place, or explore the mammoth collection of stuffed birds and animals
in its museum. In the early 20th century Shanghai could fairly claim to
be the greatest city in the Far East and the new RAS building, opened
in 1933, embraced a vision of the future in the mesh of the past. The
building and all that it embodied was in many ways a projection of one
man’s dreams and determination. That man was Arthur de Carle
Sowerby, renowned naturalist, explorer, author, activist, curator of the
museum and later RAS President, whose prime ambition was only
realised with the opening of RAM in the building in 2010 - a fin de
siècle of contemporariness and history.
Peter Hibbard will examine and illustrate the history, the vicissitudes
and the revival of the RAS in Shanghai in its pursuit of promoting
cultural life in the city and beyond, and explore the fate of its historical
collections.
Peter Hibbard MBE, an urban planner and sociologist, turned his
attentions to the development of the Chinese tourism industry in 1983.
He was a Visiting Scholar at Hong Kong University’s Centre of Asian
Studies in 1985/86 and lectured in tourism studies at the Beijing
Institute of Tourism thereafter, before moving to Shanghai in 1991. He
has devoted much of his life to researching the historical development
of Shanghai and of tourism in China. Peter is very much concerned
with promoting links with the past and with fostering awareness,
understanding and appreciation of Shanghai’s unique historical
inheritance. He was President of the re-convened Royal Asiatic
Society China in Shanghai from to 2007 to 2011 and is the author of
“The Bund Shanghai: China Faces West”, “Beyond Hospitality: The
History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, Ltd.” among other
works.
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