Sir Henry Eldred Curwen Pottinger, 1st Baronet GCBThe Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the medieval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
PCHer Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council is a body of advisors to the British Sovereign. Its members are largely senior politicians, who were or are members of either the House of Commons or House of Lords of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.The Privy Council, the...
of Richmond, (Chinese Translated Name 砵甸乍; also 璞鼎查 in Qing document) (3 October 1789 - 18 March 1856) was an
Anglo-IrishAnglo-Irish was a term used historically to describe a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until 1871, or to a lesser...
soldier and colonial administrator, who became the first
Governor of Hong KongThe Governor of Hong Kong was the head of Government, ex-officio Commander-in-Chief and Vice-Admiral of Hong Kong during British rule between 1841 and 1997....
.
Henry Pottinger was born at Mountpottinger,
County DownCounty Down is one of the traditional counties of Ireland. It is located within the province of Ulster and is part of Northern Ireland....
, at that time a rural area outside of
BelfastBelfast is the capital of and the largest city in Northern Ireland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom. It is the seat of devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly. It is the largest urban area in the province of Ulster, and the second largest city on the island of...
in
IrelandIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
. He is the son of
Eldred Curwen PottingerEldred Pottinger , Anglo-Indian soldier and diplomatist, entered the Bombay Artillery in 1827, and after some years of regimental duty was appointed to the political department under Colonel Henry Pottinger....
and
Anne GordonDorothy Anne Gordon played nine Women's Test matches and eight Women's one-day internationals for Australia....
. He studied at the Belfast Academy.
In 1804, he went to
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
to serve in the army and explored the lands between the Indus and Persia, travelling in disguise as a Muslim merchant and studying local languages, under the orders of Sir John Malcolm.
Sir Henry Eldred Curwen Pottinger, 1st Baronet GCBThe Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the medieval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
PCHer Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council is a body of advisors to the British Sovereign. Its members are largely senior politicians, who were or are members of either the House of Commons or House of Lords of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.The Privy Council, the...
of Richmond, (Chinese Translated Name 砵甸乍; also 璞鼎查 in Qing document) (3 October 1789 - 18 March 1856) was an
Anglo-IrishAnglo-Irish was a term used historically to describe a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until 1871, or to a lesser...
soldier and colonial administrator, who became the first
Governor of Hong KongThe Governor of Hong Kong was the head of Government, ex-officio Commander-in-Chief and Vice-Admiral of Hong Kong during British rule between 1841 and 1997....
.
Early life, education, military career
Henry Pottinger was born at Mountpottinger,
County DownCounty Down is one of the traditional counties of Ireland. It is located within the province of Ulster and is part of Northern Ireland....
, at that time a rural area outside of
BelfastBelfast is the capital of and the largest city in Northern Ireland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom. It is the seat of devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly. It is the largest urban area in the province of Ulster, and the second largest city on the island of...
in
IrelandIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
. He is the son of
Eldred Curwen PottingerEldred Pottinger , Anglo-Indian soldier and diplomatist, entered the Bombay Artillery in 1827, and after some years of regimental duty was appointed to the political department under Colonel Henry Pottinger....
and
Anne GordonDorothy Anne Gordon played nine Women's Test matches and eight Women's one-day internationals for Australia....
. He studied at the Belfast Academy.
In 1804, he went to
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
to serve in the army and explored the lands between the Indus and Persia, travelling in disguise as a Muslim merchant and studying local languages, under the orders of Sir John Malcolm. In 1806, he joined the
British East India CompanyThe East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
and in 1809, he fought in the Mahratta war as a lieutenant then rising to the rank of colonel. Pottinger later became Resident Administrator of
SindhSindh , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhis. Different cultural and ethnic groups also reside in Sindh including Urdu-speaking Muslim refugees who migrated to Pakistan from India upon independence as well as the people migrated from other provinces after...
in 1820. He later held the same post in
HyderabadHyderābād state was the largest princely state in the erstwhile British Indian Empire. It was located in the south-central region of the Indian subcontinent, and was ruled, from 1724 until 1948, by a hereditary Nizam...
.
In 1820, he married Susanna Maria Cooke who in 1831 gave birth to their son, William Frederick who would go on to become notorious for his run-ins with
bushrangerBushrangers, or bush rangers, were outlaws in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who had the survival skills necessary to use the Australian bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities....
s as Inspector of Police in
New South WalesNew South Wales is Australia's most populous state, located in the south-east of the country, north of Victoria, south of Queensland and east of South Australia...
in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
. Their second son, Henry, was born on 10 June 1834 and died on 18 October 1909.
He was created a
baronetA baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown known as a baronetcy...
when he returned to England in 1839.
Governor of Hong Kong
He became the second British Administrator of
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
(12 August 1841 - 26 June 1843) and the first Governor of Hong Kong (26 June 1843 - 8 May 1844). Before this appointment, Pottinger led a navy to defeat
YishanYishan . Manchu official and member of the Qing imperial clan. Yishan belonged to the Bordered Blue Banner in the Eight Banners and was a great-great-grandson of Yinti, who was outmaneuvered by the Yongzheng emperor...
(奕山) at
HumenHumen may refer to:*Bocca Tigris, a strait in the Pearl River Delta known as Humen in Chinese.*Humen Town, a township belonging to Dongguan City.-See also:* Humen Pearl River Bridge, a suspension bridge over the Pearl River in Dongguan...
and, as an envoy for the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name and the state form of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927...
, negotiated the terms of the
Treaty of NankingThe Treaty of Nanking or Treaty of Nanjing, signed 29 August 1842, was the unequal treaty which marked the end of the First Opium War between the British and Qing Empires of 1839–42...
(1842), which ended the
First Opium WarThe First Opium War or the First Anglo-Chinese War was fought between the British East India Company and the Qing Dynasty of China from 1839 to 1842 with the aim of forcing China to allow free trade, particularly in opium...
, with the
ChineseChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
Qing EmpireThe Qing Dynasty , also known as the Manchu Dynasty, was the last ruling dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912...
.
On 26 April 1843, the Governor's residence (
Former French Mission BuildingThe Former French Mission Building is a declared monument of Hong Kong. It is located at 1, Battery Path, Central. It currently houses the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong.-Features:...
) was robbed.
On 26 June 1843, he was appointed to become the Chief Commander of the British troops stationed in Hong Kong.
During his very short tenure, Pottinger established executive and legislative chambers, with one discussing political affairs and one designing legal codes. However, the chambers did not convene often, and this gave Pottinger wide-ranging powers to decide on policy.
Towards the end of his tenure, Pottinger lost the support of the local British merchants and was isolated. He left on 7 May 1844.
During his governorship, Hong Kong became the major port for trading
opiumOpium is a narcotic formed from the latex released by lacerating the immature seed pods of opium poppies . It contains up to 12% morphine, an opiate alkaloid, which is most frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade...
in China.
Post-governorship
Pottinger became a member of the
Privy CouncilHer Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council is a body of advisors to the British Sovereign. Its members are largely senior politicians, who were or are members of either the House of Commons or House of Lords of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.The Privy Council, the...
in 1844, and became Governor of the
Cape ColonyThe Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...
in 1847 and also of
MadrasChennai , formerly known as , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the fifth most populous city in India. Located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal, Chennai city had a population of 4.34 million in the 2001...
in the same year. In 1851, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general.
He died in retirement in
MaltaMalta , officially the Republic of Malta , is a densely populated developed European country in the European Union. The Southern European island nation is an archipelago that includes the inhabited islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino, along with a number of smaller, uninhabited islands...
in 1856.
Places/Things named after him
- Pottinger Street
Pottinger Street is a street in Central, Hong Kong.The street was named after the first Governor of Hong Kong, Henry Pottinger. The street was originally on the slope between Queen's Road Central and Hollywood Road...
in CentralCentral , the central business district of Hong Kong, was commonly known as part of Victoria City. It is an area on the north shore of Hong Kong Island. It is located across Victoria Harbour from Tsim Sha Tsui, the southernmost point of Kowloon Peninsula...
, Hong Kong IslandHong Kong Island is an island in the southern part of Hong Kong. It has a population of 1,289,500 and its population density is 16,390/km², as of 2008...
- Pottinger Peak on Hong Kong Island
Hong Kong Island is an island in the southern part of Hong Kong. It has a population of 1,289,500 and its population density is 16,390/km², as of 2008...
near Siu Sai WanSiu Sai Wan is a newly developed residential area on the Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong, China. It is located in the eastern part of Chai Wan, and is administratively under the Eastern District. The population is about 80,000.-Location:...
- Pottinger Gap between Pottinger Peak and Mount Collinson
- Pottingers Entry off High Street in Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and the largest city in Northern Ireland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom. It is the seat of devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly. It is the largest urban area in the province of Ulster, and the second largest city on the island of...
, Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and it is situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
- Pottinger House, Belfast Royal Academy
The Belfast Royal Academy is the oldest school in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a co-educational, non-denominational voluntary grammar school situated in north Belfast. The Academy is one of eight Northern Irish schools whose Headmaster is a member of the Headmasters' and...
, his former school, named a house in his honour.
- Mount Pottinger in East Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and the largest city in Northern Ireland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom. It is the seat of devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly. It is the largest urban area in the province of Ulster, and the second largest city on the island of...
- Pottinger constituency
Pottinger, a division of Belfast, was a UK parliamentary constituency in Ireland. It returned one Member of Parliament to the British House of Commons 1918-1922.-Boundaries and Boundary Changes:...
in Parliament
See also
- Pottinger Baronets
Pottinger is a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. It was created 1839 for Lieut General Henry Eldred Curwen Pottinger, first Governor of Hong Kong from 1843 to 1844...
- History of Hong Kong
Hong Kong began as a coastal island geographically located in southern China. While pockets of settlements had taken place in the region with archaeological findings dating back thousands of years, regularly written records were not made until the engagement of Imperial China and the British Colony...