Nicolay Duus, merchant, was listed as a resident of Hong Kong from 1846 to 1850. He was the founder and name partner of the mercantile firm, Rawle, Duus & Co., in 1846, and the founder of the mercantile firm, N. Duus & Co., in 1850. Queen's Road West was listed as his address in 1850.
Variant names: Nicolai Duus; Nicolas Duus.
Duus married Sophia Saint Ives Mary Jarvis in Holburn, London on 18 November 18, 1833. John Burd and his wife Hannah were witnesses.
Selected Bibliography: Hong Kong's First [internet]. Tarrent, William, The Hong Kong Almanack and Directory for the Year 1846, 1848, 1850, Hong Kong: China Mail, resp. 1846,1848 and 1850.
temp.notes:
Nicolia, alias Nicholas, Duus (b. 1807, Hals, Denmark – d. December 5, 1861, Hong Kong) was a mariner and merchant who came to Hong Kong in 1837 after having spent five years in Calcutta, presumably working also as a merchant. Duus ran a trading firm and store, N. Duus & Co., at 18 Queen's Road retailing foods, wines, perfumes and hardware. Friend of China in its October 5, 1843 issue had named N. Duus as one of the three big grocers in Hong Kong: F.H. Tiedeman of an unnumbered godown and store in Queen’s Road, N Duus at 18 Queen’s Road, and Pain & Co. at 2 Magistracy Street. I found an advertisement he placed in Friend of China on September 7, 1843 that said, “For sale French cognac and English brandy in hogsheads. Manila rum and Java arrack in cases. Apply N. Duus, 18 Queen’s Road.” He bought and sold lorchas and even supplied patent toilets. The August 5, 1845 issue of Friend of China described the popular item as “a patent water closet for an upper story”. The firm was the Hong Kong agent for London book publisher - Ingram, Cooke & Co. According to Friend of China, N. Duus started supplying water to ships at their anchorages with the use of a waterboat fitted with tanks and a force pump as early as March 1844. This would put N. Duus the first company to provide this service in Hong Kong, two years ahead of Bowra, Humphreys & Co.
In 1845 Duus partnered with American merchant Samuel Burge Rawle to form a new trading firm - Rawle, Duus & Co., but moved to Shanghai a year later where he opened a ship brokerage firm – Duus & Co. Additionally, I found the name of Duus, Rawle & Co., Shanghai listed in Shanghai in 1846's China Repository. On August 4, 1846, Duus was appointed the Danish Consul for Shanghai, the first in China who was actually a Danish citizen. Duus stayed in Shanghai until 1851, whereupon he returned to Hong Kong and after dissolving the partnship with Rawle, he established his own trading firm - Nicholas Duus & Co. He was appointed Consul for Sweden and Norway in October 1855. He died in Hong Kong in 1861 and was buried in the Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley. Duus attended meetings of the Freemasons in Hong Kong; his mother lodge was the Lodge of Cape of Good Hope.
These were key employees of Rawle, Duus & Co., Hong Kong in 1846: William Hay, John Willaume, F.T. Derkheim, I.P. Pereira, J.A. de Jesus. I hope to be able to find out more about them soon. Henrique Hyndman was listed working for N. Duus & Co., in Hong Kong in 1849 [1]. He later worked for M.C. Rozario & Co. as a book-keeper, and was afterward employed by the China Sugar Refining Co. in Hong Kong.
[1] N. Duus & Co. or Nicholas & Co. might have been in existence before Duus returned to Hong Kong from Shanghai in 1851.
Duus married Sophia St. Ives Mary Jarvis in London in 1833. Both their sons John Henry and Edward Hercules [2] were born outside Denmark, but educated in Copenhagen. After Nicholas died, the family went separate ways. Sophia, together with her sister Georgeanna Charlotte, went to Cape Town to stay with their brother, Hercules Crosse Jarvis, who had just months ago stepped down as mayor of Cape Town after having served for twelve years. Sophia died in Cape Town in 1864. John and Henry moved to Japan where they lived until they died.
[2] John Henry (b. August 4, 1834, Calcutta - d. April 7, 1889) was listed working as a clerk in Hong Kong in 1859. He went to Japan in 1861 and was employed by Lindsay & Co. (the Hong Kong based British mercantile firm and opium trader). On August 25, 1867, he was appointed Danish Consul in Hakodate, Hokkaido. He was the first Danish Consul in Japan of Danish nationality. He started to run his own businesses around the same time. He became the French Consular Agent between 1870 and 1872, and Acting Consul for USA in 1879. Edward Hercules Duus (b. July 1, 1836, Macau - d. April 22, 1901, Kobe) was listed as an employee of Lindsay & Co. in Hong Kong. After Nicholas died, Edward was put in charge of closing his father's company which he did on February 28, 1862, and afterward became partner of his late father's Shanghai company - Duus & Co. He went to Japan in 1871 and work with his brother in Hakodate. In 1881 he moved to Tokyo and was employed by Mitsubishi Mail Steam Ship Co. until 1886, thereafter he worked for various mariner enterprises Tokyo. He married Shiratori Kin of Oura, Nagasaki and was elected Secretary and Treasurer of the Nagasaki Club in 1888. Edward and Shiratori moved to Kobe in 1900 where he died a year later.
References:
- The Chinese Repository – 1843, 1846
- Colonial and Revolutionary Families of Pennsylvania, by John W. Jordan
- Patricia Greenway, the Great-Great-Granddaughter of Nicholas Duus
- The Economist, October 27, 1855
- Forgotten Souls - A Social History of the Hong Kong Cemetery, by Patricia Lim, Hong Kong University Press
- Friend of China, September 7, 1843, October 5, 1843, March 5, 1844, August 5, 1845
- Hong Kong Directory with List of Foreign Residents in China 1859, Printed at the American Press, Hong Kong
- Meiji Portraits
- North China Herald, September 27, 1862
- Peace and friendship: Denmark's official relations with China, 1674-2000, by Christopher Bo Bramsen, Hua Lin, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
- The Portuguese in Hong Kong and China, by Jose Pedre Braga
- Simmonds's colonial magazine and foreign miscellany, by Peter Lund Simmonds
0 comments:
Post a Comment