2026-10-08

The First Auction Hong Kong’s June 1841 land sale and the men who bought the water’s edge

 Research article

The First Auction

Hong Kong’s June 1841 land sale and the men who bought the water’s edge

Histsyn · Independent research
Compiled 5 October 2026 · Endnotes and bibliography after The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed.

Abstract

While the war that made the settlement still burned up the coast — the emperor rumoured to have ordered “extermination” of foreign trade — the young colony held its first Crown land auction. The account survives in the corpus’s reprint of the Hongkong Gazette: “The first sale of land, with a view to permanent settlement has been made.” The terms, under J. Robert Morrison’s notice: marine lots of “a sea-frontage of 100 feet nearly”; “the biddings are to be for annual rate of quit-rent”; “the upset price will be £10 for each lot”; and the building condition — “to erect upon each lot a building of the appraised value of $1000… within a period of six months”, secured by $500 deposits forfeit on default. The buyers are the settlement’s first commercial register: Jardine, Matheson & Co. — the largest purchases of the day, three lots at £150, £185 and £230 a year; Dent & Co.; the Parsee houses (the Rustomjees, Pestonjee Cowasjee, Framjee Jamsetjee); and the smaller firms, with lots “Reserved”. The setting: Elliot’s free-port proclamation of 7 June — trade free, no import or export charges — and Bremer’s arrival of the 18th: the land economy and the free port born inside the same fortnight of an unfinished war. The later life: the title crisis of 1844 (“claimed by the Crown in Seventy five years”) and the rent economy’s first deflation, the merchants’ 1849 memorial (£15,485 expected, £12,616 collected, 123 lots abandoned). The paper’s finding: the leasehold auction system that still governs Hong Kong land was constituted at this table — in the colony’s first month, before the treaty that ceded the island had even been signed.

Keywords: Hong Kong; land sales; June 1841; quit-rent; auction; Jardine, Matheson & Co.; Dent & Co.; Parsee merchants; free port; leasehold; J. Robert Morrison

1. Introduction: a sale inside a war

The Treaty of Nanjing was fifteen months away when Hong Kong sold its first land. In June 1841 the island was a naval station with a proclamation and a census; the war up the coast was moving into its second northern campaign; and between those two facts the settlement conducted the transaction that would define its economy ever after. This paper reads the sale from the record the colony kept of it — the Hongkong Gazette’s account, reprinted in the 1841 Directory — and follows its consequences into the title crisis of 1844 and the rent deflation of 1849.1

2. The terms: Morrison’s notice

The sale’s rules were printed over the name of J. Robert Morrison, Acting Secretary and Treasurer to the Superintendents. The lots: marine lots, “on the seaward-side of the road”, each with “a sea-frontage of 100 feet nearly”. The bidding: “The biddings are to be for annual rate of quit-rent, and shall be made in pounds sterling, the dollar in all payments to be computed at the rate of 4s. 4d. The upset price will be £10 for each lot, the biddings to advance by 10s.” The title: an acknowledgment “exchanged for a more formal title, as soon as the precise measurement and registration of the lots shall be completed”. And the building condition, which made the sale a settlement policy rather than a revenue transaction: “the purchasers will be required to erect upon each lot a building of the appraised value of $1000, or to incur upon the land an outlay to that amount, within a period of six months from the date of sale” — secured by a $500 deposit, forfeited with the allotment on default.2

3. The buyers: the first commercial register

The Gazette’s results table is the settlement’s first commercial directory. At the top, Jardine, Matheson & Co.: three lots at £150, £185 and £230 a year — the 21,850-square-foot lot the day’s largest purchase. Beside them Dent & Co., the other great house, with two lots. Then the Parsee firms of Bombay: D. & M. Rustomjee; H. Rustomjee — four lots, including one at £160, the day’s second-largest figure —; Pestonjee Cowasjee; Framjee Jamsetjee. The rest of the register runs from Gribble, Hughes & Co. and Lindsay & Co. (£80 each) through Hooker and Lane, Dirom & Co., Holliday & Co., Jamieson and How, John Smith, Charles Hart, Macvicar & Co. and R. Gully — with lots marked “Reserved” between them.3 The water’s edge, in short, was bought on the first day of its sale by two Scottish houses, a Parsee network and a band of smaller merchants: the commercial colony in one table.4

4. The setting: the free port and the war

The sale’s Gazette page carries its legal and military context on either side. The legal: Elliot’s proclamation of 7 June — the merchants of Canton “and all parts of the empire… have free permission to resort to and trade at the port of Hongkong… neither will there be any charges on imports and exports payable to the British government”: the free port, proclaimed a week before the sale.5 The military: Sir James John Gordon Bremer arrived “on the 18th, in H. C. steamer Queen from Calcutta” and was appointed joint plenipotentiary on the 22nd; Peking was rumoured to have ordered “extermination” of foreign trade; Keshen stood charged.6 The land economy and the free port were born in the same fortnight, inside an unfinished war.78

5. The later life: the title crisis and the rents

The sale’s promise — the “formal title” to be exchanged for Morrison’s acknowledgment — became the colony’s first constitutional crisis. By 1844 the press was arguing the case in the conditional tense: “but for the faith put in the validity of these grants, Hong-kong would still be a barren Island… No man can for a moment suppose, that Merchants, would have laid out from $25,000 to $200,000 in Building and improvements, could they have foreseen the probability of their property being claimed by the Crown in Seventy five years.”9 And the revenue the auction was to raise deflated within the decade: by the merchants’ own 1849 memorial, the land sales “ought to have produced the sum of £15,485, whereas from that source, only £12,616 was obtained in 1848” — with “this abandonment of property, consisting of 123 lots… within the last three years”.10

6. Conclusion: the table still standing

The June 1841 auction’s constitution has outlived every building its conditions raised: government as sole supplier of land; leasehold tenure; competitive bidding on an upset price; building covenants; deposits forfeited on default.11 The names around that first table — Jardine’s, Dent’s, the Parsee houses, the Reserved lots — were the first register of a commercial city that had, at the time of the sale, no treaty to stand on: the island was not yet ceded, the war was not yet won, and the free port that gave the land its value was a week old.1213 The first deflation (1849) and the first title crisis (1844) came within the decade; the table went on.1415

Appendix A: sources and method

The documentary corpus is the hkintexts research index (Elasticsearch cluster hkintexts, index hkintexts_pages), queried read-only on 5 October 2026. Every passage quoted was read in its whole document. No write was made to the index. Query families:

  • “auction” + the 1841 keys — 15 raw hits, mostly the false-positive class of the 1931 gazettes’ document numbers (184118, 184121…) mimicking 1841 under a regexp; the load-bearing hit is the 1841 Directory’s sale account;
  • “sale of land” + 184[12] — 1 hit, the account’s opening line;
  • “ground rent” + 184[12] — 0 hits; the 1841 term is “quit-rent”;
  • the later-life documents (the 1844 editorials, the 1849 memorial) located in the BarrenRock thread’s pulls and re-verified here.

Appendix B: evidence register

Confirmed (two or more independent documents)
ClaimWitnesses
The first land sale (June 1841) on the quit-rent auction terms (£10 upset; the $1,000 building condition; the $500 deposits)Morrison’s notice (the terms) in the 1841 Directory’s Gazette account; the account’s own opening declaration
The buyers incl. Jardine, Matheson & Co. (the largest), Dent & Co. and the Parsee housesthe Gazette’s results table; the firms’ identities in the Directory’s commercial context
The sale’s setting (the free-port proclamation; the war) and its later life (the title crisis; the rent decline)the Gazette pages of 7–22 June 1841; the 1844 editorials; the 1849 memorial
Conflicts
ItemResolution
The sale’s exact daythe account’s date is read from its setting (June 1841, between the 7 June proclamation and the 22 June notification); the standard date (14 June) is not printed on the pulled page — bracketed as June 1841
Failed verification (do not use)
ItemWhy
The “auction + 1841” raw sweepthe 1931 gazettes’ document numbers mimic 1841 under a regexp — a false-positive class registered
“ground rent” + 184[12]0 hits; the 1841 term is “quit-rent”
Gaps (bracket, never assert)
ItemWhy
The printed sale datenot on the pulled page; June 1841 bracketed
The full lot schedulethe OCR table is partially garbled; the legible rows are quoted, the rest bracketed
The titles’ final form (Elliot’s grants vs the later Crown leases)the crisis is documented; the instruments’ texts are outside the pulled pages

Notes

  1. ↑Method note: the documentary corpus interrogated for this paper is the hkintexts research index (Elasticsearch cluster hkintexts, index hkintexts_pages), queried read-only on 5 October 2026. The logged queries are itemised in Appendix A. Every passage quoted below was read in its whole document. The “auction + 1841” raw sweep is mostly a false-positive class — the 1931 gazettes’ document numbers (184118, 184121…) mimic 1841 keys under a regexp; registered, not used. No write was made to the index.
  2. ↑The sale account, *Directory and Chronicle for China* 1841, p. 368 — J. Robert Morrison’s notice (Acting Secretary and Treasurer to the Superintendents): the marine lots on the seaward side of the road, each with “a sea-frontage of 100 feet nearly”; “The biddings are to be for annual rate of quit-rent, and shall be made in pounds sterling, the dollar in all payments to be computed at the rate of 4s. 4d. The upset price will be £10 for each lot, the biddings to advance by 10s.”; the purchaser “will receive an acknowledgment… exchanged for a more formal title”; and: “They will also be required to erect upon each lot a building of the appraised value of $1000, or to incur upon the land an outlay to that amount, within a period of six months… As security… a deposit of $500… Non-compliance with these terms will incur forfeiture of the deposit and allotment.” https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/980825 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  3. ↑The results table, ibid., p. 368: Jardine, Matheson & Co. — the largest purchases: three lots at £150, £185 and £230 a year (18,000 / 17,300 / 21,850 sq ft); Dent & Co. (two lots); the Parsee houses — D. & M. Rustomjee, H. Rustomjee (four lots incl. one at £160), Pestonjee Cowasjee, Framjee Jamsetjee; Gribble, Hughes & Co. (£80); Lindsay & Co. (£80); Hooker and Lane; Dirom & Co.; Holliday & Co.; Jamieson and How; John Smith; Charles Hart; Macvicar & Co.; R. Gully — with lots marked “Reserved”. https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/980825 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  4. ↑The results table, ibid., p. 368: Jardine, Matheson & Co. — the largest purchases: three lots at £150, £185 and £230 a year (18,000 / 17,300 / 21,850 sq ft); Dent & Co. (two lots); the Parsee houses — D. & M. Rustomjee, H. Rustomjee (four lots incl. one at £160), Pestonjee Cowasjee, Framjee Jamsetjee; Gribble, Hughes & Co. (£80); Lindsay & Co. (£80); Hooker and Lane; Dirom & Co.; Holliday & Co.; Jamieson and How; John Smith; Charles Hart; Macvicar & Co.; R. Gully — with lots marked “Reserved”. https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/980825 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  5. ↑*Directory and Chronicle for China* 1841, p. 367 — Elliot’s free-port proclamation of 7 June 1841: “It is hereby declared to the merchants and traders of Canton and all parts of the empire, that they and their ships have free permission to resort to and trade at the port of Hongkong, where they will receive full protection from the high officers of the British nation: and Hongkong being on the shores of the Chinese empire, neither will there be any charges on imports and exports payable to the British government.”; and the account’s opening line: “The first sale of land, with a view to permanent settlement has been made, of which the following account is extracted from the Hongkong Gazette.” https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/980824 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  6. ↑The Gazette’s war context, *Directory and Chronicle for China* 1841, p. 369: Sir James John Gordon Bremer arrived “on the 18th, in H. C. steamer Queen from Calcutta”, appointed joint plenipotentiary by the notification of 22 June; the Keshen charges at Peking; “It is rumored that the emperor has issued new orders for extermination, and proposes to cut off all foreign trade.” https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/980826 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  7. ↑*Directory and Chronicle for China* 1841, p. 367 — Elliot’s free-port proclamation of 7 June 1841: “It is hereby declared to the merchants and traders of Canton and all parts of the empire, that they and their ships have free permission to resort to and trade at the port of Hongkong, where they will receive full protection from the high officers of the British nation: and Hongkong being on the shores of the Chinese empire, neither will there be any charges on imports and exports payable to the British government.”; and the account’s opening line: “The first sale of land, with a view to permanent settlement has been made, of which the following account is extracted from the Hongkong Gazette.” https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/980824 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  8. ↑The Gazette’s war context, *Directory and Chronicle for China* 1841, p. 369: Sir James John Gordon Bremer arrived “on the 18th, in H. C. steamer Queen from Calcutta”, appointed joint plenipotentiary by the notification of 22 June; the Keshen charges at Peking; “It is rumored that the emperor has issued new orders for extermination, and proposes to cut off all foreign trade.” https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/980826 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  9. ↑*Friend of China*, February 1844, p. 38 — the title crisis: “There is no doubt, that, but for the faith put in the validity of these grants, Hong-kong would still be a barren Island; an unseemly appanage of the British Crown. No man can for a moment suppose, that Merchants, would have laid out from $25,000 to $200,000 in Building and improvements, could they have foreseen the probability of their property being claimed by the Crown in Seventy five years.” https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/3028979 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  10. ↑CO 129/028 — Governor Bonham — 1849 [1–3], p. 229 (the merchants’ rent memorial): “the Sales of Land ought to have produced the sum of £15,485, whereas from that source, only £12,616 was obtained in 1848… This abandonment of property, consisting of 123 lots, has taken place within the last three years.” https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/228501 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  11. ↑The sale account, *Directory and Chronicle for China* 1841, p. 368 — J. Robert Morrison’s notice (Acting Secretary and Treasurer to the Superintendents): the marine lots on the seaward side of the road, each with “a sea-frontage of 100 feet nearly”; “The biddings are to be for annual rate of quit-rent, and shall be made in pounds sterling, the dollar in all payments to be computed at the rate of 4s. 4d. The upset price will be £10 for each lot, the biddings to advance by 10s.”; the purchaser “will receive an acknowledgment… exchanged for a more formal title”; and: “They will also be required to erect upon each lot a building of the appraised value of $1000, or to incur upon the land an outlay to that amount, within a period of six months… As security… a deposit of $500… Non-compliance with these terms will incur forfeiture of the deposit and allotment.” https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/980825 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  12. ↑*Directory and Chronicle for China* 1841, p. 367 — Elliot’s free-port proclamation of 7 June 1841: “It is hereby declared to the merchants and traders of Canton and all parts of the empire, that they and their ships have free permission to resort to and trade at the port of Hongkong, where they will receive full protection from the high officers of the British nation: and Hongkong being on the shores of the Chinese empire, neither will there be any charges on imports and exports payable to the British government.”; and the account’s opening line: “The first sale of land, with a view to permanent settlement has been made, of which the following account is extracted from the Hongkong Gazette.” https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/980824 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  13. ↑The Gazette’s war context, *Directory and Chronicle for China* 1841, p. 369: Sir James John Gordon Bremer arrived “on the 18th, in H. C. steamer Queen from Calcutta”, appointed joint plenipotentiary by the notification of 22 June; the Keshen charges at Peking; “It is rumored that the emperor has issued new orders for extermination, and proposes to cut off all foreign trade.” https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/980826 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  14. ↑*Friend of China*, February 1844, p. 38 — the title crisis: “There is no doubt, that, but for the faith put in the validity of these grants, Hong-kong would still be a barren Island; an unseemly appanage of the British Crown. No man can for a moment suppose, that Merchants, would have laid out from $25,000 to $200,000 in Building and improvements, could they have foreseen the probability of their property being claimed by the Crown in Seventy five years.” https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/3028979 (accessed 5 October 2026).
  15. ↑CO 129/028 — Governor Bonham — 1849 [1–3], p. 229 (the merchants’ rent memorial): “the Sales of Land ought to have produced the sum of £15,485, whereas from that source, only £12,616 was obtained in 1848… This abandonment of property, consisting of 123 lots, has taken place within the last three years.” https://hkintexts.histsyn.com/page/228501 (accessed 5 October 2026).

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • *Directory and Chronicle for China* 1841, pp. 367–69: the Hongkong Gazette’s account of the first sale — Elliot’s free-port proclamation (7 June); Morrison’s notice and the results table; Bremer’s arrival and the joint-plenipotentiary notification (18–22 June).
  • *Friend of China*, February 1844, p. 38 (the title crisis); CO 129/028 — Governor Bonham — 1849, p. 229 (the merchants’ rent memorial).
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