British concession of Tianjin

The British concession of Tianjin was one of seven total British concessions in China. It was one of nine foreign concessions in Tianjin, and was the earliest established and most successful out of all of the concessions. The concession bordered the French and Germans to the northwest and southeast, respectively, and faced the Russian concession across the Hai river. The settlement prospered economically, and many legacies of the British influence over Tianjin can be seen today.

Flag of the British Empire

Emblem of Tientsin British Municipal Council 天津英租界工部局徽

Quotes

• The beginning of the first two concessions, the British and the French, were “foul and noxious swamps, around them, on the dryer grounds, were the numerous graves of many generations of people”
  • Hersey, “A reporter at large: homecoming. I: the house on New China Road”, New Yorker, 10 May 1982, 54, cited in Maurizio Marinelli, “Making Concessions in Tianjin: Heterotopia and Italian Colonialism in Mainland China.” Urban History 36, no. 3 (2009): 404

• For three or four Chinese coppers, I could ride in a rickshaw from my home, in England, to Italy, Germany, Japan, or Belgium. I walked to France for violin lessons; I had to cross the river to get to Russia, and often did, because the Russians had a beautiful wooded park with a lake in it.
  • Hersey, “A reporter at large: homecoming. I: the house on New China Road”, New Yorker, 10 May 1982, 54, cited in Maurizio Marinelli, “Making Concessions in Tianjin: Heterotopia and Italian Colonialism in Mainland China.” Urban History 36, no. 3 (2009): 404

• Japanese actions during the Tianjin incident is part of its 'new order' policy meant to completely squeeze out British influence in China.
  • Watt, D.C. How War Came, New York: Pantheon Books, 1989 page 353

• The British Municipal Council was empowered to install gas, water, and electric supply; tramways, or other means of facilitating transit of wayfarers or goods, or to grant concessions to others to do so”.
  • Hersey, “A reporter at large: homecoming. I: the house on New China Road”, New Yorker, 10 May 1982, 54, cited in Maurizio Marinelli, “Making Concessions in Tianjin: Heterotopia and Italian Colonialism in Mainland China.” Urban History 36, no. 3 (2009): 404 With the development of the concessions, foreign authorities also introduced modern municipal infrastructures to the concessions in Tianjin, the planning and construction of which were confirmed in regulations and byelaws. Taking the British Concession as an example, in Land Regulations of the British Municipal Extension, Tientsin 1898.

• As the chairman of the Municipal Council of the British Concession in Tianjin, W. W. Dickinson, reported to the consul in Tianjin, these regulations were “based on those which obtain in Shanghai and in the British Concession, and the committee made modifications and additions as past experience and present exigency seem to justify.
  • Hersey, “A reporter at large: homecoming. I: the house on New China Road”, New Yorker, 10 May 1982, 54, cited in Maurizio Marinelli, “Making Concessions in Tianjin: Heterotopia and Italian Colonialism in Mainland China.” Urban History 36, no. 3 (2009): 404 the British Municipal Council of one treaty port would actively reference existing regulations of other British Concessions. With the gradual improvement of the municipal administration system of the British concession in Tianjin, the British Municipal Council took over the legislative work, in which the council always followed the model of Shanghai. In 1898, a committee was appointed by the Municipal Council of Tianjin to make new regulations for British Municipal Extension in Tianjin.

See also

• Foreign concessions in Tianjin
• British Empire
• Colonialism
• China

External links

• Concession Buildings in Tianjin
• WorldStatesmen: China
• Tianjin Museum of Modern History
• Tianjin under Nine Flags at University of Bristol

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