Wayfoong

Some weeks ago I was moved to buy a copy of 'Wayfoong', a commemorative history of HSBC, published on the occasion of their centenary in 1965. Something of a picture book, with words by Maurice Collis, a Dubliner who became a colonial civil servant in Burma, returning to England between the wars to become a writer, largely but not exclusively about Burma and the Far East. Not for the first time, having read this book, it strikes me that Collis, while writing with considerable knowledge and on matters which are interesting, is not a very good writer and his prose is oddly flat. Perhaps he never stopped being a civil servant.

The gentleman illustrated is How-Qua, sometime principal of the Hong merchants of Canton. Clearly an eminence, but I have no idea what such a principal was or did. The first of many interesting pictures from the past of HSBC in what was then called the Far East; the Far East of Conrad where banks sometimes crashed, taking the savings of better-deserving mariners with them. See 'The End of the Tether', to which a serious introduction is provided at reference 2.

I completely failed to grasp how the characters chosen for HSBC were pronounced 'Wayfoong' and meant abundance of remittances. Although it does seem that, despite various ups and downs, HSBC was a very profitable business, not least because of their skill in managing the currency, then based on the fluctuating fortunes of the Mexican silver dollar. And big government loans.

I also completely failed to grasp how HSBC could rise again so quickly from the ashes of the second world war, during most of which most of the bank was in the hands of the Japanese. Clearly a second read is indicated.

I was interested to see in the original prospectus, included as Appendix A, that one of the original sponsors of the bank was one Arthur Sassoon of Messrs D. Sassoon Sons & Co, the very same family which was later responsible for Siegfried Sassoon. See reference 1.

Another connection was BH's paternal grandfather, who spent time on a gun boat on the Yangtze, at a time in the 1930's when that was how we did business with the Chinese. We still have the snaps - and some other souvenirs. With, according to google, America, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Japan all playing their part, all sending in their gun boats. While I didn't even know that Portugal had any. It's a wonder the Chinese don't bear more grudge than they appear to.

To be contrasted with the more widely known commemorative volume published by Shell, a few years before this one, called 'The Scallop'. A lavishly illustrated book about the scallop and its place in cultural history, with chapters written by all kinds of eminences. But a book which is in no way a history of the company. Vanity publishing of the very best quality.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/sassoon-not.html.

Reference 2: http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/eese/artic98/nustedt/9_98.html.