Asiatic Petroleum Company, China – family connections
New information, posted 19th November 2020. Brian Hughes has been in touch about his father: My father William Elias Hughes from the Conway Valley in North Wales was employed by APC (North) up to the War in Shanghai following his sailing from London on the ‘Nyanza’ on 28/06/1913. I believe he first worked in Customs.
My mother followed, having met him when he was home on leave, in October 1932 and they married 26/11/1932 in Tientsin, North China. My sister and brother were born in Shanghai with myself and my younger sister being born in Sydney NSW. My sister is vague about how and when they got out of China but I believe they left for Chongquing (Chungking) following the capture of Shanghai by the Japanese in 1937. Clearly, Shell must have helped with this and the subsequent escape to Brisbane. I have some photographs and 16 mm film of them in China but no detail of his career with APC.
HF: To see images of William Hughes and his family, in China, please see our article: Asiatic Petroleum Company employees, a compilation – information needed, linked below
Ian Brown has been in touch. His father’s cousin Joe MacDonald worked for the Asiatic Petroleum Company pre WW2. Ian writes,” the Shanghai base [of APC] seems to ring a bell for me when I recall my father talking about Joe MacDonald’s time in China which I feel was not necessarily that long, curtailed by the war. I have a record of him sailing on the Corfu for Hong Kong in November 1937, he married Lizzie Smith in September 1937, he married late at the age of 43.” I’ll post what Ian knows about Mr MacDonald in a separate article.
And Hong Kong based Nicholas Kitto also has a family connection to APC. On his website he writes, “my Grandfather, John ‘Jack’ Kitto, was recruited directly from school by Royal Dutch Shell in 1910. After training in their London office he travelled to Shanghai on the Trans-Siberian Railway and commenced work with The Asiatic Petroleum Company (North China) Limited on 16 September 1912. He remained with APC in various locations in China until his retirement in 1939.”
It seems highly likely that Joe and Jack will have known each other.
Nicholas has a superb collection of photographs of APC buildings in about nine cities in China. They are linked below.
Let’s start with some background information about the company.
Asiatic Petroleum Company was a joint venture between the Shell and Royal Dutch oil companies and was founded in 1903. It operated in Asia in the early 20th century with its corporate headquarters on The Bund, in Shanghai.
Before the formation of the Royal Dutch Shell Group in 1907, Shell Transport Trading Company Limited and Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, originally competitors, established a presence in the South China region. The Shell Company is recorded as exporting to China by 1891 and Royal Dutch by 1894.
The benefits of working together to develop Far Eastern markets for oil products had already become apparent by the early part of the new century and a joint venture, the Asiatic Petroleum Company Limited (APC), was set up for this purpose in 1903.
Before and after the merger of interests in 1907, much of the companies’ business was conducted through agents, but by 1913 demand for oil products had outgrown this arrangement and APC’s northern and southern branches were formed to manage operations in the region. APC (South China) set up its office in Hong Kong’s Central district as a regional head office for South China and the Philippines. These are the direct antecedents of the present Shell Companies in China and Hong Kong.
The ‘Arrow’ APC houseboat Registered in ShanghaI C1920/1930S
In 1941, APC (South China) was the second largest corporation in Hong Kong, with an issued capital of over HK$150 million – just less than the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank.
However, business activities ceased during WWII when Japan requisitioned APC’s possessions in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Asiatic Petroleum Company building The Bund, Shanghai, 1920s?
This article was first posted on 27th November 2014.
See:
Sources:
- Shell history in China the company website
- Shell history in Hong Kong the company website
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_Petroleum_Company
Related Indhhk articles:
- Asiatic Petroleum Company employees, a compilation – information needed
- Asiatic Petroleum Company staff photo, Shanghai 1930s
- Asiatic Petroleum Company Ltd – links to Arnhold & Company
- Walter George Babb, Employee of the Asiatic Petroleum Co, UK, 1911 – information wanted
- BAAG records of shipping in HK during 1944-45 – the Fukuan Maru, ex-Shu Kwang operated by Asiatic Petroleum Company
- Yung Hao tanker – requisitioned by HK Government 1951 leading to China’s requisitioning of Asiatic Petroleum Co
- Asiatic Petroleum Company, China – requisitioned by Chou En Lai 1951
- Joe MacDonald – Asiatic Petroleum employee, China/HK late 1930s
- Asiatic Petroleum Company – contemporary photographs of its Shanghai building
- Asiatic Petroleum Company – Shanghai building , further information
Did ASP have offices in Peking?
Is it possible to access a list of employees from 1907? Does Shell have an archivist?
Looking for any information on shipping list or employees list on Thomas Alexander Palmer 186-1937 and Edward Alfred Palmer possibly around 1933 / 1934 from Singapore. I think he was an junior engineer on one of the ships.
Any helpful would be most helped.
Colleen Fancote ( Western Australia)
Hello, I am trying to track my grandfather Ernest Kirk who worked here before WW1 broke out. Like Yvonne above, I would like to know if there is an archivist at Shell who can help me find out more.
Hello I am trying to find out further information on my late uncle Godfrey Thomerson who worked as an “assistant” at Asiatic Petroleum in the years leading up to WW 2. He served with the Royal Hong Kong Volunteer regiment and was killed on Dec 25th 1941.
Looking for information about Gerald Spencer Pratt, who worked for this company from circa 1923, returning to England on the Empress of Scotland, arriving at Liverpool 12th February 1947 from Kure Japan.
My father, Robert Rae Hutcheon from Aberdeen, Scotland, was employed by APC from the early 1920s until his retirement to Sydney, Australia, in 1940. Earlier he served as a ship’s engineer for Butterfield and Swire during WW1 years. He was employed by APC in Chingkiang, Hankow (where he married in 1924), Shanghai and Tientsin. He had three children, two of whom, with his wife, Ethel, were pirated when the Swire ship, ss Shuntien, on which they were travelling to Shanghai, was pirated off the Yellow River in 1934. During the Japanese invasion, the family were later evacuated from Hankow in 1937 on board HMS Capetown with other British residents..
His son, Robin, later lived in Hongkong from 1953-1986 where he was employed by the South China Morning Post as journalist and Editor. He married a fellow journalist, Beatrice Greaves, and they had three children, Stephen, Andrew and Jane.
Robin was also the author of histories on the South China Morning Post, the Hongkong and China Gas Co Ltd, the Hongkong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown. Company, Deacon and Co Ltd, Li and Fung Ltd, the Hongkong Housing Society, the Royal Observatory, as well as a biography of Sir Yuekong Pao, George. Marden and the 19th century artists, George Chinnery and Auguste Borget. He also wrote a history of the China Coast, China Yellow, published by the Chinese University of HK.
I have enjoyed the many books written by Robin Hutcheon and his works inspire me to write the articles in this group
I believe my grandmother’s brother Henry Edward Claude TURNER (b. Ilminster Somerset) was an employee of APC c1930. His family’s passage was paid for by the “Asiatic Petroleum Company London” when he transited from England to Shanghai in March of 1930. They stopped in Canada and visited my grandparents en route. (This information is captured on a Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935 for Robert H Turner – Halifax, Nova Scotia 1930 March). His occupation is listed as “Seafarer”. Claude Turner met and married his wife Ethel in Shanghai and their son Robert was born in China about 1926.
Hello Mike
Very good to hear from you. I wonder if I could add the information you included in your comment about Henry Edward Claude Turner to our article,
Asiatic Petroleum Company employees, a compilation – information needed. If you don’t mind I will email you directly about this.
Best wishes
Hugh Farmer
Hi Hugh, my father William Elias Hughes from the Conway Valley in North Wales was employed by APC (North) up to the War in Shanghai following his sailing from London on the ‘Nyanza’ on 28/06/1913. I believe he first worked in Customs.
My mother followed, having met him when he was home on leave, in October 1932.and they married 26/11/1932 in Tientsin, North China. My sister and brother were born in Shanghai with myself and my younger sister being born in Sydney NSW. My sister is vague about how and when they got out of china but I believe they left for Chongquing (Chungking) following the capture of Shanghai by the Japanese in 1937. Clearly, Shell must have helped with this and the subsequent escape to Brisbane .I have some photographs and 16 mm film of them in China but no detail of his career with APC. .
I am trying to find out more about my Grandfather’s time with APC (India) Ltd. I have a cup award to him in March 1920. He was AJ Trousdell DSO MC. The inscription on the cup is: Madras Merchant and Bankers Regatta, March 1920, Challenge Four Oar Race, Asiatic Petroleum Co (India) Ltd. It then lists the crew: AJ Trousdell (Bow), HS Big-Withers (2), H Webster (3), D De B Daly (Str), MES Thompson (Cox). My father, his first child, was born in Madras in 1920.
I understand that in the late 20s he moved from India to Egypt with Shell.
Happy New Year!
01/01/2022
An employee of APC in South America and then French Indochina was Norman HOPE, Married Marjorie Martin Phillips on October 6 1933 at the British Consulate Saigon, In the book “Four Men and the Walrus” it cited quote – Nicholas Kitto said his ‘G’Pa Jack (Kitto) generally wrote reports in duplicate in addition to his own file copy – one for his immediate APC headquarters in Shanghai, the other for the British Government c/o the local Consul or more often the Consul General in Shanghai’. Further ‘my grandfather was recruited by APC directly from his public school on the Isle of Man’. A British WWII war cabinet report by Shell showed that there was no substantial Indochina oil infrastructure. So by inference the same was most likely for the 1930’s
Norman HOPE died on a top secret mission in WWII in an attempt to rescue General de Gaulle’s wife and children
Most interesting contribution re Norman Hope. The clear inference is that some (?many) APC employees in China pre-WW2 had some link to the UK government. I’d like to know more about Norman Hope!
For those who want to know more about Norman Hope I can tell you he worked for Captain Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming in 1939/1940. Cumming with such long name simply signed documents in green ink as “C” If one replaces the initial ‘C” with the alter ego of ‘M” that may give you a clue.