A Barbarian’s House by the River Tamsui

The British Treaty Port Community

From its estuary, the River Tamsui feeds into Taipei City, the capital of the island of Taiwan. By the standards of many East Asian cities, Taipei is a relatively new urban center, being formed in the 1880s as a result of interconnected histories between pioneering Han Chinese families, local indigenous peoples, and a predominant British treaty port community that had begun settling there in 1862.

Historically, from the Dutch colonial period, the southern city of Tainan was the capital of the island. But as trade and population shifted with the tides of the treaty-port system, this began to change. ¹⁰ Following the Sino-French War (1884-1885), the island of Formosa (Taiwan) ceased to be simply a prefecture of the Fujian province and became a province in its own right. With this change came new ideas about the formation of a provincial capital. Representatives of the political tradition wanted the surrounding areas of present-day Taichung, a central location with a milder climate, to become the province’s new home. However, the emerging gentry, who had established their wealth on the banks of the River Tamsui, wanted a new walled city to be erected close to the market-towns of Banka (Mengjia 艋舺) and Dadaocheng大稻埕 with its growing foreign settlement. Thanks in part to private donations made by the local gentry, and the walled capital was finally completed in 1884 on the banks of the River Tamsui.

The establishment of the treaty port on the river’s mouth reflected the efforts of British Vice-Consul Robert Swinhoe who in 1861 had been given the task of establishing British trade on the island. Claiming that trade in the south was negligible, he sought permission to move north. ¹¹ Notwithstanding descriptions of the location as no more than “an anchorage [situated in] a straggling fishing village near a river-mouth,” ¹² within two years, Swinhoe was confident enough to predict that “The Tamsuy [sic] River…was destined to become the British port of trade.” ¹³

At first, trade was conducted by Swinhoe within his consulate offices—the former “dilapidated” Old Dutch Fort. Expanding trade opportunities brought greater foreign involvement in the commercial and political affairs of the island. As commerce, which was largely concentrated in port towns on the island’s periphery, started to develop, fortune hunters in search of wealth and missionaries in search of converts began to penetrate the hinterland and interior regions, which had hitherto been off-limits to foreign communities.

The initial enthusiasm by some foreign merchants for the “opening” of Taiwan was, however, tempered by the activities of Chinese merchants who exercised monopoly powers over the export of key commodities—sugar, rice, and camphor. Taiwan produced two-thirds of the camphor—used for medicinal purposes and in the manufacture of celluloid and smokeless gunpowder—traded in international markets. Monopoly control of such a lucrative commodity generated considerable tension between the communities.

Although the foreign community was less strictly segregated from the local population than in other treaty ports, it did share certain topographical features. It had an anchorage, the bund, the club, church, hospital, cemetery, consulate, and customs houses—all regarded as integral features of “treaty-port culture.” ¹⁴

Thus, the opening of the port in 1862 was on one hand greeted with great hostility in the face of an incumbent foreign presence, while on the other it was met (by some within the local community) with a more positive response to the new challenges and opportunities in terms of trade and infrastructural modernization.

The Dodds and the Establishment of the Barbarian House on Bitou Street

On June 22, 1868, three brothers—Wu Shui-shu (sic) [Wu Ruishu 吳瑞書], Wu Yu-shu [Wu Yushu 吳玉書], and Wu Fu-chih [Wu Fuzhi 吳福支]—jointly transferred to Dodd & Co. the possession and lease in perpetuity of a piece of land located in Tamsui. ¹⁵ On its southerly border, Fanzailou was constructed (Figure 1). This home was an eclectic example of British Victorian architecture of the 1860s, with clear continental European influences and an outstanding reminder of the period colonial architecture of the subtropical regions. ¹⁶ The external features of the property seem to reflect the beliefs and stylistic influence of Roger Smith—a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects—who, at a conference in London in 1867, advanced the view that the design of buildings constructed in tropical regions should accommodate the limitation imposed by conditions in such regions. Among these, Smith highlighted the importance of buildings being able to cope with both climate and potential natural disasters. He also spoke of the need for building materials that could accommodate flora and fauna that might pose a danger to either a building or its inhabitants. ¹⁷ So it was that the design of the “Barbarian House” mimicked other colonial buildings to be found throughout tropic regions; therefore, in a sense, visually connecting Taiwan culturally to other regions.

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Figure 1.

Fanzailou or the ‘Barbarian’s House’ during the Dodd era (late-nineteenth century) (courtesy of SMC Publishing Inc., Taipei, Taiwan).

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Figure 2.

A photograph of Fanzailou during the Shuttleworth period (c.1980s) (courtesy of Charles Shuttleworth).

The first occupant of Fanzailou—John Dodd (Figure 3), the pioneer of Taiwan tea—was born in “The Shambles” in Preston, Lancashire, on October 25, 1838. His parents were Nanny Dodd (née Atkinson) and John Dodd senior, a local butcher and subsequent publican. John had two siblings—Margaret (of whom he was very fond, writing to her often) and James.

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Figure 3.

John Dodd with Albert medal (ourtesy of the Dodd family).

The early years of John Dodd remain something of a mystery. It is thought, through a family connection, that he was educated in London by the Dent family. ¹⁸ What is known is that in spring 1859, John Dodd was in Hong Kong, where he personally recalls having played in a cricket match “on the Heights in Canton City, between the Hong Kong Cricket Club and a team of military officers who were stationed there.” ¹⁹ The China Directory for Hong Kong in 1861 lists Dodd as working as an assistant at Dent & Co. on Queen’s Road. ²⁰ The following year, the same directory lists him as one of Dent’s employees but also as “Senior Deacon” at Zetland Lodge on Zetland Street. ²¹

The directory for 1863 sees Dodd still at Dent & Co., but now under the management of Chomley, Mackenzie, and Alexander Turing. At Zetland Lodge, he is listed as treasurer. ²² Within a year, Dodd had been promoted to the second most senior assistant at Dent’s and was also a member of the committee of the Victoria Regatta Club, and Lieutenant and Acting Adjutant in the Victoria Artillery Company of the Hong Kong Volunteers. ²³ It was also in 1864 that John Dodd, four years after his first visit to the island, settled on Taiwan as agent for Dent & Co., which had established an agency at Tamsui in 1862, with P. F. de Silva working as de facto agent in present-day Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan.

A year before Dodd’s arrival, Dent & Co. formalized their position by sending Churlton Rainbow as their first resident agent in Tamsui, where he purchased premises for the company. ²⁴ Following the collapse of Dent & Co. in 1866 (a result of the liquidation of Overend, Gurney and Co., the discount house on Lombard Street in London), these premises would, in 1867, become the property of Dodd & Co. ²⁵

John Dodd subsequently replaced Rainbow as agent for Dent & Co. He recalls that after staying for a mere eight months: “no one could have been more pleased than he to get across the bar […].” ²⁶

In the years before Dodd moved to Taiwan, Robert Swinhoe had reported to the British authorities that northern Taiwan was the source of several commodities that could be traded on the international market. Among these he included sulfur, indigo, camphor, rice, coal, and to a lesser degree tea. Although he felt that the quantity of tea growing in the vicinity was suitable for a domestic market, Swinhoe sensed that the quality was inferior to others grown on the Chinese mainland. ²⁷

During his life in China, Swinhoe had observed tea dealers in the ports of Amoy (Xiamen) and Fuzhou purposely mixing Formosa tea with quality leaves in order to create a cheaper hybrid variety. ²⁸ The inference he drew from this was that the local tea could be exported profitably to only other Chinese ports but was unsuitable for international markets, except perhaps those of overseas Chinese communities. ²⁹

Dodd searched the region, especially the neighboring camphor forests, and made enquiries about other commodities, including cinnamon. Against the advice of Swinhoe, he made initial enquiries about the small patches of tea that were being cultivated in private gardens. With his comprador, or middleman, Li Chunsheng 李春生, Dodd bought samples and shipped them to Macao for inspection. The tea was well accepted there, and the pair quickly extended loans to farmers to extend cultivation and increase production. In accordance with Swinhoe’s advice, John Dodd imported tea slips from Ankoi in the Amoy district in order to raise the quality.

John Dodd knew that establishing a small-scale tea factory in northern Taiwan would be a risky investment, especially in the face of competition from the other treaty ports. Moreover, with neither the necessary workforce essential for tea production, nor the ownership of shipping assets, Dodd had to rely heavily at first on Jardine, Matheson & Co.

Following the collapse of Dent & Co., John Dodd established his own company, Dodd & Co. In 1867, he made enquiries into a property in Banka (Mengjia), a local market town on the River Tamsui. He was certain that this was the best location for a processing factory, being not only close to a larger labor pool but also within short distance of the tea-growing regions. However, he was jejune in thinking that the establishment of foreign premises in tightly knit communities would be accepted by the local populations. Nevertheless, Dodd rented a small shop from a widow of a local camphor merchant, for the purpose of processing tea. This stirred up resentment among local residents, and in order to settle the growing tension, local officials sequestered the property under the pretense that the owner’s husband had not paid off certain loans.

Having already put down a considerable loan, Dodd demanded that the British Vice-Consul, Henry Holt, intervene. Negotiations between Holt and the Qing officials continued for several days until order had—supposedly—been restored. But when two employees of Dodd & Co.—Crawford Kerr, a partner in the company, and Godfrey Bird—arrived at the disputed premises, ³⁰ without warning they were assaulted by a mob of local residents. ³¹ As soon as the news reached the Vice-Consul, Holt requested military support. The Qing officials, realizing the seriousness of the situation, responded by going directly to the British consulate. The Vice-Consul refused, however, to meet the officials and insisted that a number of demands be met, including the issue of an official apology, punishment of the clan and its leaders, a formal declaration denouncing the assault, and payment of compensation and indemnity to Dodd & Co.

On October 22, HMS Janus, commanded by Lieutenant Leicester Keppel, arrived in Tamsui. He was “coincidentally” accompanied by the American Consul for Amoy, Charles le Gendre, on board the US Ship Aroostook. In the face of such pressure, the local officials conceded to the Vice-Consul’s demands and the men involved in the attack on Dodd & Co.’s employees were arrested and compensation paid. ³²

The following year, John Dodd purchased the land from the Wu brothers and construction of Fanzailou began shortly afterward. Dodd would later purchase a number of other properties that extended along the River Tamsui, and further across the northern coast to the city of Keelung.

John Dodd found an unexpected market for his teas in the United States, and in May 1867, he became the sole agent for Jardine, Matheson, & Co., after taking over the duties of Milisch & Co. ³³ The following year, he was appointed Honorary American Consul to Formosa and, in 1874, Vice-Consul to the Netherlands. ³⁴ The year 1868 also saw John Dodd becoming agent for the North China Insurance ³⁵ and Lloyds in Tamsui and Keelung. ³⁶ It is thought that during this period Dodd must have returned briefly to Hong Kong, for in 1869 he fathered Elaine Dodd and, the following year (June 26, 1870), a son, John Valentine—issues of a relationship with a Han Chinese girl, known only as Taihee (Figure 4). ³⁷

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Figure 4.

John Valentine Dodd with Taihee in Hong Kong (courtesy of the Dodd family).

By 1872, Dodd was once again living at Fanzailou. The stimulus from expanding foreign markets spurred rapid growth within the Formosan tea industry, leading Dodd to move his factory from Banka to a market town upriver known as Twatutia (Dadaocheng). At this larger establishment on Liuguan Street 六館街, known by Dodd as the “Old Bluff,” the workforce was for the first time able to fire tea in situ. Indeed, the business was so successful that it began to attract rivals from other trading companies. Competition in the area raised the cost of tea and within a short period Formosan oolong tea had become even more valuable than opium as a trading commodity. As John Dodd himself puts it, “tea-men” started to prefer dollars to drugs. ³⁸

The need to import silver for tea and the sudden influx of competitors began to affect the profits of Dodd & Co., and by June 1872, the company was showing signs of distress, forcing Dodd to sell some of his property in both Keelung and Tamsui. Fanzailou and the “Old Bluff” remained, as did an office in Keelung where Dodd & Co. functioned as agents for Keelung Coal Company. ³⁹ Dodd firmly believed that he had been overcharged in his purchases of tea and complained too that it was being diluted with inferior quality leaves. ⁴⁰ In fear of his reputation among his American clientele, in November he wrote a self-deprecatory letter to Jardine, Matheson, & Co. stating that he could no longer pay his debts due to the troubled market and a recent fire at one of his properties. ⁴¹ He pleaded for time to preserve his reputation and provide an opportunity to rebuild. Fortunately, for Dodd, in September 1873 a large sale of tea was recorded in the United States and he was able to rebuild without serious damage. Even so, the China Directory for 1873 makes clear that he had been forced to take on an additional partner, Godfrey Bird alongside Crawford Kerr, while also making a number of redundancies in the company. At Tamsui, the company staff, now included M Larken, as tea inspector, with John Moss and H. Kendrick as godown, or warehouse keepers. ⁴²

Throughout his sojourn in Taiwan, various features—some colorful—came to characterize Dodd’s behavior. He was liked, respected, and feared by both the foreign and local communities. At times, he was a thorn in the side of the British consular service, and their reaction depended largely on both the personality of the consular staff and the nature of the source of agitation. On one occasion in 1885, Dodd complained to Alexander Frater, the British Consul, that he had not been taken seriously about certain threats made to both his property and his employees. What was more, he felt that Frater had verbally attacked and insulted him. Frater’s response was that no one in the employment of Dodd & Co. had ever been in any real danger. In Frater’s words, Dodd was simply being a “fussy, excitable, obstinate, and [a] somewhat self-important man.” ⁴³ To this Dodd replied, “your letter is of such character that I decline to keep in my archives. There is a proper way of saying even disagreeable words, and your letter has passed that limit. If I have failed in courtesy, I had no intention of doing so. You ought to know that I am a man of peace with all men.” ⁴⁴

Nineteenth-century Taiwan was not only a commercial transitional period but also a time that witnessed the return of both Catholic and Protestant missionaries. The English Presbyterian Church began formally arriving in Formosa in 1865. Reverend George Lesley MacKay, from the Canadian Presbytery, arrived in Tamsui by steamer on March 9, 1872, and his diary notes that he was immediately welcomed by John Dodd who had kindly given his best quarters within his house at Fanzailou—in fact, it was an out-of-the-way room that was seldom occupied. ⁴⁵ During Dodd’s stay in Formosa, he established a close friendship with MacKay and is often mentioned in his personal diaries. In a number of extracts, he observed that Dodd was well known for housing recent arrivals and often put up all kinds of people. Dodd often helped out naval and shipwreck victims who had come to him for assistance; and in 1868, he also assisted a fugitive in hiding from the Qing authorities, following an attempted assassination in central Taiwan. ⁴⁶ As such, Fanzailou mediated not only as a socioeconomic space but also as a political one, a “safe house” to a select few that John Dodd considered worthy of protecting. In a sense, the activity that took place therein was far more indicative of social relations outside of the house. However, what is not clear is whether the space within the house itself actually affected the manner in which the fugitive hid.

Although Dodd and the fugitive, William Pickering, were competitors in business—Dodd being a resident in the north and Pickering in the south—they enjoyed each other’s company whenever they could. Pickering delights in narrating tales of Dodd’s antics in his book Pioneering in Formosa and writes of their enjoyment of warm sunset evenings and walking along the banks of the River Tamsui. ⁴⁷ It is perhaps within his house that the various roles in which Dodd had to navigate are better documented.

Joseph Beal Steere, a professor of zoology at the University of Michigan, who spent six months in Formosa between 1873 and 1874 collecting animal and plant specimens, was another who enjoyed Dodd’s company. Steere describes Dodd as being very hospitable and recalls an occasion when Dodd had invited him, with Reverend MacKay and other members of the foreign community, to a Christmas dinner at his home. Upon arrival at Fanzailou, Steere noticed that Dodd had graced the property’s jetty and grounds with bright Chinese lanterns and as the guests entered the main dining room they were taken aback by the large spread of a plump English turkey, roast beef from Hong Kong, and plum pudding that had been sent tinned from England. As Steere puts it, except for the “silent Chinese servants and waiters in long white gowns and glassy black cues [queues] reaching for the floor, [they (Steere et al)] could have fancied [them]selves at home.” ⁴⁸

Although Joseph Beal Steere does not mention discussing his own plant and animal specimens with John Dodd, he does reveal that Dodd had spent a significant period of time living among the aboriginal communities inhabiting the mountainous central districts of Taiwan. Dodd, himself a keen collector, had amassed a large number of deer and bear specimens. He was regarded as a knowledgeable man with a keen eye. According to Albrecht Wirth, a German anthropologist who made two visits to Formosa in the late 1890s, he was an “excellent scientist and a painstaking observer.” ⁴⁹

John Dodd was someone who conducted his own scientific experiments, especially in gardening. He tells us that he successfully grew camphor in his garden, where by 1869 he had planted numerous trees. By the time he left in 1890, these had grown at least thirty to forty feet high—indeed, perhaps the camphor trees that today hide the ruins of Fanzailou are those very trees.

For a variety of reasons, Dodd’s life in Taiwan is well documented by his contemporaries. On the night of August 9, 1871, a severe typhoon was recorded in Taiwan. Off the coast near Keelung harbor, two ships, the British Westward Ho and the French barque Adele, had foundered. Although the British gunboat HMS Elk was in harbor, its crew was unable to render any assistance. John Dodd and Augustus Margary ⁵⁰ (an assistant at the British Consulate in Tamsui) aided in the recovery of the shipwrecked seamen. Both men were awarded the Albert Medal (equivalent to the modern George Medal)—although Margary was awarded his later, since Thomas Wade had accidentally omitted his name from the report. ⁵¹

On a number of occasions, however, it was not Dodd’s bravery so much as his acts of generosity that saved the lives of others. On October 18, 1884, the French blockade of Tamsui began and the subsequent period witnessed immense pressure on both foreign and local merchants, as important shipments were often interrupted by the French. Even before the official blockade started (e.g., during their bombardment of Keelung in August 1884), the French were impeding foreign imports. It was during this troubled period that the overworked and anxious Reverend MacKay fell ill with meningitis. According to Doctor Johansen, who was tending the missionary, MacKay’s fever was dangerously high. Shortly before the diagnosis was made, the Hailoong arrived in Tamsui (October 12) with a shipment of ice for Dodd & Co. Dodd’s account of October 12 notes that a French officer had overhauled the vessel prior to anchoring. However, fortunately for MacKay, on this particular occasion the “overhauling” was sufficiently lax for Dodd to make the ice available to MacKay who recovered shortly afterward. ⁵²

The history of the French blockade of Taiwan and its impact on the different communities living in Taiwan are carefully documented in an account that Dodd published in the Hong Kong Daily Press. ⁵³ In his diary, he makes a number of references to his property in Tamsui, which he described as being located “just a mile distant from the other European houses.” ⁵⁴

On October 2, 1884, Dodd writes that as four French ships began firing on Tamsui, “the noise was something tremendous. Every house shook, windows rattled, and plaster fell from the ceilings. Even at Piatow [the location of his house], quite three miles from the men-of-war, if not four, the concussion was felt as described.” ⁵⁵ The isolation of Fanzailou meant that Dodd was unable to “rendezvous” at the designated meeting point of Douglas Lapraik’s residence and instead was forced to apply directly to the consulate for protection. Captain Boteler from the Cockchafer (the only British gunboat to have remained throughout the blockade) sent eight marines to assist the residents at Fanzailou. Dodd believed that the French had mistaken Fanzailou for a distant fort, as more than one shell fell “not a hundred yards from the flagstaff and some nearly went into the cargo boats at the end of the wharf.” ⁵⁶ On October 1, 1884, Dodd and other members of the foreign community were instructed by the Consul, Alexander Frater, to leave all property in Dadaocheng in the charge of their compradors and to make their way to the safety of the consulate in Tamsui. ⁵⁷ On the October 10, Dodd reported that two women and several men had taken refuge at Fanzailou under the protection of five marines from the Cockchafer. ⁵⁸

According to his diary, by April 16, 1885, the blockade of the port of Tamsui had officially been raised. The impact that the yearlong blockade had on relations between the predominant British community and local society can be seen in Dodd’s diary entry for April 24, in which he refers to the hardship endured by both communities and admits that his lack of confidence in the authorities of the Qing at the start of the blockade was misplaced.

Dodd became an important figure of the foreign community throughout this ordeal, and his compassion for his fellow countrymen was reflected in his gestures and actions. Interestingly, during his sojourn in Tamsui, his acts of kindness were not always directed toward the foreign community. In an article written for the American Geographical Society in 1876, Joseph Steere noted that female infanticide was not uncommon among the Chinese population in Formosa. ⁵⁹ Often the bodies were wrapped in straw and dumped on the river banks. On one occasion, Steere reports that the bodies of two girls, one of whom was still alive, were found on Dodd’s jetty at Fanzailou—though Steere does not say, perhaps (though more work would need to be carried out in the Canadian Presbytery archives) that the little girl was first taken into care by Dodd before being handed over to the missionaries.

Dodd often spent his leisure time living among the aboriginal people in the mountainous districts, and it was during one of these visits that Dodd uncovered petroleum deposits. Prior to this discovery, numerous ships’ crews had often observed a mysterious flickering of lights emanating from the mountainside. Realizing the cause of what was taken to be a legendary oracle, the following year, Dodd leased land and with the help of a local Hakka community purposely built wells for the extraction of petroleum. ⁶⁰ But the local Qing officials did not take lightly to this kind of foreign encroachment, and no further action toward the distillation of petroleum occurred in Taiwan for another ten years.

Not long after his brief experimentation with petroleum, Dodd left Formosa. On March 3, 1890, he bade farewell to the island and sailed out of Tamsui aboard the Fukien bound for Amoy and later on to Great Britain. After returning to Britain, he moved to Atcham in Shropshire, where on August 7, 1893, he married Mary Lloyd—a dressmaker and daughter of a cabinetmaker in Ynyscynhaiarn, Carnarvon, Wales. ⁶¹ In the 1901 census, John Dodd—now in Wales with his wife Mary—is referred to as being “a retired merchant from China” and living in a house called Glen Mair (Mary’s Valley) in Trefriw with one servant named Edith Rees, 21, from Monmouth.

Dodd remained in Wales for the rest of his life, dying in the peaceful hamlet of Trefriw on July 15, 1907, after being in a coma for two days following a brain hemorrhage. His brother-in-law, John Lloyd, was present at his death. He is buried at St Mary’s Church in Llanrwst. Mary, who died on July 17, 1920, joined his resting place. Their epitaph reads, “Until the Day Breaks.” They had no children.

There is no suggestion that Dodd ever returned to his “Barbarian House” on the River Tamsui. His last will and testament stated that if his properties in Formosa were unsold at the time of his death, his house in Piatow and his premises, the “Old Bluff” in Dadaocheng, should be assigned to his son, John Valentine Dodd.

John Valentine Dodd (known in probate records as J. V. R Dodd) is listed in the China Directory for 1893 as working as a clerk for Jardine, Matheson & Co. in Shanghai. ⁶² John Valentine Dodd married a Chinese woman named Hannah Chan and had three children: the eldest, Valentine Richard, followed by John Dodd, and finally Pansy, who died of typhoid at 18.

It is known from newspaper articles that John Valentine Dodd was a keen gambler and on September 5, 1929, working as chief interpreter in the Supreme Court, appeared in the bankruptcy court. ⁶³ The official court record showed that John Valentine Dodd had no property, either in Hong Kong or outside, from which it may be deduced that the property left to him by his father had by this time been sold.

John Valentine Dodd died in Hong Kong on September 24, 1932, and no mention of the Formosan properties—including Fanzailou on Bitou Street—was left in his Will and Testament. The next chapter in the house’s narrative maintains this connection with Hong Kong in a way that perhaps highlights the social and cultural prescriptive nature in which its residents lived.

The Rise of the Petroleum Companies

In 1843 on D’Aguilar Street in Hong Kong, a young 21-year-old Douglas Lapraik took up an apprenticeship in a shop of a watch and chronometer maker. ⁶⁴ Shortly after qualification, Douglas Lapraik formed Douglas Lapraik & Co.—a company that was to become synonymous with fine clocks and watches. ⁶⁵ The early 1850s saw Lapraik extend this business to include the import of opium and, after befriending Thomas Sutherland, the Superintendent of the P&O SN Company, he ventured into the docking business, establishing new docks in Aberdeen, Hong Kong. Inviting Sutherland to invest, the pair established a close relationship and Lapraik was later invited to support Sutherland in the formation of a local bank in Hong Kong. Lapraik thus became a member of the Provisional Committee of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Company Limited.

His community-minded spirit was evident in his membership on the boards of a number of committees, and in 1865 he founded the Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao Steamboat Company (in 1883, it was simply known as Douglas Steamship Company, Ltd.). By 1871, the company had established a regular route—of three ships once every two weeks—between Hong Kong, Swatow [Shantou], Tainan, Tamsui, and Amoy [Xiamen]. The company was headquartered in Tamsui on lands that were leased in perpetuity. ⁶⁶

Between March 20 and April 17, 1895, a peace conference took place in the Shunpanrō Hall in Shimonoseki, Japan, endorsing the cessation of hostilities and proclaiming the end of the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). The peace conference and its subsequent treaty marked a major turning point in the history of Taiwan, as Articles 2 and 3 saw the island ceded to Japan. The impact was felt throughout the island, including the enclave of the British community, residing and trading on the river. The Treaty of Shimonoseki delivered a major blow to the Douglas Steamship Company, since the Osaka Shosen Kaisha placed a number of services on the Tamsui-Amoy line causing the two-year-old merger of Lapraik and Cass & Co. to reduce their service. To counter this, the newly merged company started to consolidate its regular service to include the transportation and storage of petroleum. ⁶⁷

For a number of years, the European merchants residing along the River Tamsui had established a close relationship with the Samuel Brothers—a petroleum export company with offices in London and Yokohoma. In 1897, the Samuel Brothers formed the Shell Transport and Trading Company—a title recalling their East-Asian shell-collecting father. Lapraik, Cass & Co. became the sole agent of the Shell Transport and Trading Company, and the warehouse for the company was constructed on the grounds of Fanzailou with the house being used as a manager’s dormitory.

The warehouse, known locally as the “smelly oil shed” [chouyouzhan 臭油棧], was sold by the Samuel Brothers to the Rising Sun Petroleum Company. By 1914, its depot on the River Tamsui had become one of the largest suppliers of fuel for the Japanese military.

In 1944, the Japanese government forcibly sequestered the warehouses—including Fanzailou—on the grounds of foreign ownership. On October 12 the same year, the warehouses were heavily bombed during an American air raid, although no damage to Fanzailou is recorded to have occurred.

Exactly what happened in the months leading up to and after the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, is still unclear. On one hand, all Japanese-listed property was taken over by the Chinese Nationalist government, and it is clear that the Asiatic Petroleum Company—then the “official” owner of the Shell warehouses—began a long lawsuit with the Nationalist government. However, Fanzailou was not seen to be part of this, and the building provided accommodation to various foreign diplomats anxious to set up embassies in and around Taipei City after the Nationalist government and army retreated to Taiwan following their defeat by the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War. ⁶⁸

The story of the house’s last resident is a decisive component in Taiwan’s modern history from the end of the Second World War. Yet more than that, it vogues so closely with the work of American historians David Thelen and Thomas Bender who have since the 1990s defined the existence of transnational history to concerns not only of the movement of people but also of that ideas and technology. ⁶⁹ It is perhaps within this that the continuity between each resident is compelling. Not all of its owners were transnational. John Dodd and Douglas Lapraik most certainly were not—though their business practices conceivably were. Perhaps it could be argued that John Valentine Dodd was, but this would have been imagined since he did not leave the confines of that extended treaty port culture in East Asia. The narrative of its last resident, however, was completely different.

Fanzailou’s Last and Transnational Resident

In the old Roman town of Chester in northern England, a young boy whose mother had died when he was five and whose father was indifferent to his well-being, found himself being cared for by an uncle, of whom he was genuinely fond. This bond marked a new start in life for young Charles Shuttleworth who spent every available moment with his uncle exploring the surrounding countryside on the banks of the River Dee (Figure 5). Charles Shuttleworth believes that there are two events in his life that determined his future, the first was the closeness to nature that developed through his bond with his uncle, and the second was his visit to the cinema to see the 1932 Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan adaptation of Tarzan the Ape Man. Charles Shuttleworth liked to believe that he was Tarzan—someone who had been born on the fringes of his society. ⁷⁰

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Figure 5.

Charles Shuttleworth on a river in the Malaysian jungle (courtesy of Charles Shuttleworth).

Like his fictional hero, Charles felt alienated from his peers, in particular during his school years. Charles often found himself in trouble and abandoned his home and school to live among the trees in nearby forests. His sister—a Jane-like figure—was his source of food, bringing him leftovers after everyone had fallen asleep. The local dogs, feeding on the scraps of food that fell from his tree house, became what Charles liked to refer to as his “Beasts of Tarzan.” ⁷¹

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Charles quickly enlisted, serving first in North Africa and subsequently Sicily and the Italian mainland. It was in Naples that Charles—fluent in Italian—found himself dealing with a Mafia “Godfather” over a war-crime investigation. Charles felt as if he were on the set of a George Raft movie—although he recalled that they did not “flip coins and speak with brash American-Italian accents.” In search of a witness in a mass-murder case, Charles was involved in negotiations for the release of one of the Godfather’s lieutenants, who was being held for black-market activities.

With negotiations brought to a successful conclusion, Charles found himself driving in a jeep up a narrow track in a range of mountains with a Carabinieri officer sitting apprehensively beside him. As they drove through what Charles described as being the worst storm in local memory, his companion’s fear intensified, as he recalled local tales of wolves being driven down from the mountains by hunger during such weather. Charles recalled replying that he had no fear of such animals!

His Tarzan-like personality no doubt served him well in his employment with the Malayan Police Jungle Force at the end of the war. Like a twentieth-century John Muir, he remained in Malaya for a number of years, exploring the wilderness of South East Asia.

Three years after Charles Shuttleworth arrived in Malaya, the “bloody guerrilla war” known as “The Malayan Emergency” (1948–1960) began. Charles recounts that it was not long before “the grim business of killing started.” He felt that his combat experience, namely against the German Afrika Korps, was not apt for this type of warfare—against an adversary who he says “were used to avoiding the Japanese—appearing only when they had to.” ⁷²

Charles arrived in Taiwan in April 1975 and recalls stepping out of the Hilton Hotel on Chung Hsiao East Road in Taipei. Although it was midnight on April 5, Charles remembers hearing a loud metallic-like sound pounding out of loudspeakers. It was an announcement that only ten minutes earlier, the eighty-seven-year-old leader of the Republic of China, Chiang Kai-shek had died. A passerby, clearly distressed, told Charles that the abnormally cool temperature and windy conditions that night would carry the spirit of their “great leader” back across the Taiwan Strait to his ancestral home of Xikou in Zhejiang province.

Taiwan fascinated Charles. He was particularly drawn to the mountainous regions of its center, much as Dodd had been a hundred years previously. He arrived as part of Coastline Surveys Limited, working as a base operator on a station west of Keelung. Charles does not remember exactly when he first acquired Fanzailou (Figure 2), but he remembers naming the property “Tree Tops” shortly after becoming field agent for the International Primate Protection League—fulfilling the Tarzan that Charles had dreamt of throughout his life (Figure 6). Charles converted the ground floor of the property into a tearoom and venue for local students. Living on the first floor of the property, Charles remembers each of his visitors in vivid detail. His current minder Ah Gim 阿錦 [Chen Ruijin, 陳瑞錦], who visited him as a child, now takes care of him as an adult.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 6.

Charles Shuttleworth with German shepherd companion at “Tree-Tops” (courtesy of Charles Shutttleworth).

On the night of the May 7, 1992, the 100-odd-year house burnt down. According to the Zhongguo shibao 中國時報 [China Times], the building was said to be under the ownership of Sanda Yangheng 三達洋行 [Sanda Foreign Company], a petroleum company that listed Li Chungsheng—John Dodd’s former middleman—as being its former charge.

Within a mere three hours, the house was completely destroyed. The then mayor of Tamsui, Chen Junzhe 陳俊哲, and the head of the police department, Zeng Yiqiong曾義瓊, both went to the scene. Charles Shuttleworth, who had returned to the property to save his birds, was slightly injured in the incident. The fire department confirmed what Charles believed to have happened, that the overloaded electrical current to the kitchen had caused the fire. ⁷³

In the coming weeks and months, the building was forgotten, assuming the form in which it remains to this day. Previous “exotic occupants” became footnotes in historical narratives or disappeared completely from public consciousness. Fanzailou, or “Tree Tops,” was a building of continuous occupation from its birth during the height of commercial activity to its death—a fitting metaphor perhaps to the life journey of the nearby river. Its life course blended together through the backdrop of daily routines that evolved over its unfolding lifetime. Today, it remains in a kind of suspended animation, neither restored as cultural heritage, as many of the historical buildings in the region are beginning to be, nor completely eradicated. Yet it does tell a story of kinship—people who were defined by their times. Some more ephemeral, choosing to reside temporarily, as was in the case of John Dodd and Douglas Lapraik, others much less transient. The house served a number of functions that embody the culture and expressive dynamics of the people, who lived, worked, socialized, and played in its environment. As such, it is an important part of the social history of the area and perhaps more importantly it should be added to the cultural tourism of the Tamsui historic sites.