Book Review: Policing Hong Kong: An Irish History by Patricia O’Sullivan

Throughout the history of the British Empire, men from the British Isles would travel to colonies to work in administrative positions and even the police. Hong Kong was one of those, with several of the recruits moving to the colony from Newmarket a town in County Cork in what is now the Republic of Ireland from the 1860s.

In the summer of 2009, Patricia O’Sullivan’s 90-year-old aunt asked her to find what happened to her Uncle Murt in Gresson Street. From this point and looking at family history and a wealth of extensive documents and contemporary newspapers wrote Policing Hong Kong: An Irish History.

O’Sullivan details the history of the first arrivals until the death of George Neil Davitt in 1950, the last Newmarket man on the Hong Kong Police Force.

I first came across the book and a couple of others whilst walking past a stall outside the Au Shue Hung Memorial Library at Hong Kong Baptist University, but not having enough spare cash on me at that moment, I choose not to purchase any but ordered them from Amazon, several months later, having completed my study exchange and returned home.

The wait to read this book was worth it.

O’Sullivan offers a meticulous telling of the histories of these men. The period in which this book details, 1864–1950, covers vast changes in Hong Kong and its’ society. That had an impact on the policing and the challenges these men faced, travelling tens of thousands of miles to police Hong Kong.

This included the 99-year lease on the New Territories and the challenges policing a vast new chunk of land faced. The book also details the challenges these men faced not just in fighting criminals, but in terms of pay and conditions, leisure and for some their returns home to marry brides who returned with them to Hong Kong.

O’Sullivan’s aunt’s parents were a Hong Kong police officer and his bride, but the father, Patrick retired 2 years after her birth so she remained in Ireland.

There’s also a brief section on the impact of growing Republican and nationalist sentiment and animosity to the Royal Irish Constabulary in Ireland upon these men.

Whilst, during this period, Chinese and Indian police officers were shamefully paid less than European ones, this book details the periods in which the different communities came together, such as the wars and sometimes donated money to support widows of the force and the outpouring of the event of Gresson Street.

It was the 22nd January 1918 and a running altercation in Wanchai with organised criminals left five policemen dead. Over half the population, came to watch their funeral procession.

The book details fascinating cases such as the tragic and mysterious unsolved disappearance of Thomas O’Sullivan, police officers stopping a murder suspect fleeing by boat to The Philippines and battles with pirates in the waters surrounding the colony.

Davitt’s death saw the end of Newmarket men on the Hong Kong Police Force, but men from Britain remain on the force. One of the terms of the handover from Britain to the People’s Republic of China gave the opportunity for Hong Kong civil servants who were British to stay on and for them to keep their pensions.

When handover did come in 1997, the Hong Kong Police Force allowed those who were fluent in Cantonese to stay on, even encouraging it. Fluency in several languages including Cantonese was very useful for British/Irish police officers and their families in the colonial period and for the Britons, this remained so.

The aim was to increase continuity and confidence. They are around 60 left. Two, Rupert Dover and David Jordan, have been singled out by protestors as part of the opposition to the police’s handling of the protests this summer.

Steve Vickers was the head of the criminal intelligence bureau but left the force in 1993, he told Hong Kong Free Press: “As the years have gone by, and China’s rise has been much more pronounced, the Hong Kong government became politicised in the years following the handover, this politicisation also affects the police.”

Hong Kong Police Force is under scrutiny from pro-democracy protestors in the present, but this book gives a fascinating insight into a part of its’ past.

Rating — 5/5 stars

Next book to review: Why We Get The Wrong Politicians by Isabel Hardman