...Yesterday a Daily Mail reporter met this romantic figure at Claridge’s Hotel, Brook Street West London. Sir Paul is a grey-haired, brown-faced man, whose side whiskers and genial manner summon up thoughts of Dickens rather than of Eastern splendour.
“I am in England in connection with the development of coal-mining in China” he said. “There is a great deal of coal in China, and I think that when the state of the country is quieter the mining of coal will be undertaken properly. When this is done I hope to organize iron and steel works in the British territory near Hong Kong.”
Sir Paul Chater, 7 August 1922
Catchick
Paul Chater was born to Armenian parents living in Calcutta, India on
the 8th September 1846. Chater Paul Chater and Miriam Zorer had thirteen
children in all and Paul Chater's siblings can be seen on the right.
Chater Paul Chater (known as Paul Chater) worked for the Calcutta Civil
Service under the British government where he held a variety of
positions mainly as an accounting clerk in the general finance and
foreign department.
The hardest thing a child could experience
is the sudden loss of a parent, Catchick Paul Chater was orphaned at
eight. His father drowned in the Hoogley River in 1853, his mother
appears to have died a lingering death in 1855, whilst his vulnerable
younger siblings Sophie seven and Theo just four could not have found
the change in family circumstances easy to understand.
Paul
Chater (as he was known, preferring to drop his Christian name and
anglicise what was left) was admitted to
La Martiniere School in Calcutta, an institution with an excellent
academic record and one that implemented a curriculum that far
outweighed those of other local schools.
Years
later in the 1920's, when he was a self-made multi millionaire he came
to the aid of the ailing La Mart school when it found itself in a
position of near collapse. He donated a much needed eleven lakhs
Rupees, saving the school from certain closure. The school never forgot
the gesture of it's old alumni and even today in the 21st century Paul
Chater is remembered in the school's daily prayer.
He left La
Martinere in 1862-63 having passed the surveying examination but rather
than stay and carve out a career in Calcutta the city of his birth, he
took a chance and went to Hong Kong where his eldest sister Anna had
settled with her family. She had married Jordan Paul Jordan in Calcutta
in 1845, (he was from the well known Jordan family of Madras) a year
BEFORE Paul Chater was even born, thus although a sister to Paul
Chater, she was old enough to be his mother.
Arriving in 1864, Hong Kong was the promise land for Paul Chater. He loved it so much that he never made one return journey back to Calcutta for the next 22 years. With the help of Jordan his brother-in-law, Paul Chater started a basic clerical position with the Bank of Hindustan, China and Japan. Listening and learning as he went along, within two years he had cast out alone and set himself up as a broker. In 1876 he formed a partnership with a new friend, a Parsee from Bombay, called Hormusjee Mody. Mody was eight years older and wiser and was the steadying hand on the shoulder of the bright, vibrant and enthusiastic Chater. The formidable partnership of Chater & Mody lasted until the untimely death of the then Sir H.N. Mody in June 1911. Chater was in London for the coronation of George V when the news was telegraphed through to him. He was wracked with guilt for not being with his lifelong friend.
...Paul Chater......whose energy, whose enterprise and whose industry in everything connected with the welfare of this island have, to no little extent brought the colony to that prosperous condition in which it is today....
Mr. F. Fleming Acting Governor of Hongkong 1890
He
developed many projects for the extension and benefit of the colony with
such successful businesses and companies in Hong Kong as
The Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company,
The Star Ferry Company but none more successful that the founding in
1889 of The Hongkong Land Investment Company, later to become
Hongkong Land in conjunction with
James Johnstone Keswick.
One of his
finest projects was the now famous
Praya land reclamation scheme, a 57 acre area of land drawn from the
sea and a project that had occupied his mind for many years prior to its
inception. In the mid to late 1880's Paul Chater was often seen floating
in a sampan in Victoria harbour with a rod and line. The talk was he was
fishing, a pastime from his normal rigorous daily schedule. However, he
was actually putting to good use the surveying qualification he had
acquired in Calcutta as a teenager. The line was not a fishing line but
a plumb line and he was calculating the depth of the harbour to
determine if, with excavation, the harbour could take larger ships.
Because of his foresight in the 19th century, Hong Kong is now a
major trading port in the 21st century.
...Paul Chater the directing genius of Hongkong Land from its inception......
Hong Kong Daily Press 1926
Cricket
and horse racing where his two passions, and in his latter years
travelling around the world with his wife Lady Christine became another
passion. After they married on the 17th August 1910 at
St. George's Church, Hanover Square, London they regularly visited
San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, New York, Vancouver, Honolulu, the
Philippines, London, Plymouth, Southampton, Liverpool, Edinburgh,
Geneva, Genoa, Paris, Port Said, Marianbad and many other places.
The
Prince of Wales visted Hong Kong in 1922 and spent a day watching the
races at Happy Valley, seen here with Chairman of the Hong Kong Jockey
Club Sir Paul Chater.
Longevity was something he knew well
and remarkably even today, he can be counted as the longest
serving Chairman of the Board of Stewards at the
Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, a position he held for 34 consecutive
years between 1892 and 1926.
Roll
of Honour of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club remembers Sir Paul's long
service.
Sir Paul attended every annual race meeting in Hong
Kong for 60 consecutive years which is probably more than any other
individual in his lifetime.
In his last year of racing in 1926 he
won the prestigious Hong Kong Derby with 'Glorious Dahlia' a photo of
him and his devoted wife leading in this winner can be found in the
photo gallery above.
St. Andrew's Church and the Vicarage, Kowloon
Some titles and positions held by Chater:
One
should give more than a passing nod of acknowledgement to his Masonic
life. Suffice to say there is too much to cover here, but both his
public and private philanthropic contributions throughout his Masonic
lifetime were thoughtful, generous, impeccably on-point and generally
well anticipated by him even before he had been approached to help
whatever cause was needing his contribution. Appointed District Grand
Master of Hong Kong and South China in 1881 at just 35 years of age, he
held this position for a consecutive 28 years retiring in 1909. However,
he was asked out of Masonic retirement not once, but twice after
this to install new District Grand Masters in Hong Kong.
He held
many high ranking positions within Freemasonry such as Grand
Superintendent of District Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Hongkong and
South China, Prior of Provincial Priory of China but probably the most
remarkable achievement and one that is perhaps little known and
overlooked today is that Sir
Paul Chater reached the throne of St. Mary Magdalene Chapter Rose
Croix and was the only resident Far Eastern mason ever to be
honoured with the 33rd Degree in the English constitution. [The 33rd
degree is an honorary degree bestowed upon especially worthy masons who
have accomplished outstanding work.] This is a clear indication of his
remarkable achievements and the depth of respect he was held in by the
Masonic fraternity.
Sir
Paul Chater died on the 27th May 1926, and bequeathed Marble Hall and
its entire contents, including his unique collection of porcelain and
paintings, to Hong Kong.
The remainder of his not inconsiderable
estate wealth was bequeathed to the
Armenian Holy Nazareth Church in Calcutta in perpetuity.
The two commemorative plaques inside the Armenian Holy Nazareth Church in Kolkata placed by the church committee in gratitude and acknowledgement of Sir Paul Chater's everlasting legacy to them.
Just as there are commemorative plaques in the Armenian Church in Kolkata, there is also a plaque remembering Sir Catchick Paul Chater in St. Andrew's Church Kowloon in recognition of his generous legacy to the church and the community as a whole as well as the stone commemorating the construction of the church hall.
In
the 1950's in remembrance and recognition to their generous benefactor,
the Armenian Church in Calcutta built a retirement home for Armenian
elderly, named the 'Sir Catchick Paul Chater Home' at Park Circus
Calcutta (next to the Armenian Church of St. Gregory which is
affectionately named by the local Armenians as 'the small church').
For
many years the Sir Catchick Paul Chater Home was run by the late Charles
Sarkies 'Cha Cha' as he was fondly known. He was very honoured and proud
of Sir Paul's achievements and as a token of his esteem and gratitude to
Sir Paul, Cha Cha created a small topiary garden within the grounds in
which he nurtured the home's initials 'CPCH' into the delicately trimmed
shrubbery
Sir
Paul was interred at the Hong Kong Cemetery alongside his beloved
brother Joseph and nearby his loving nephew John known as Theo Bagram.
The graves of Sir Paul and
Lady Chater with Joseph Chater (brother) to one side and Theo Bagram
(nephew) the other side.
Lady
Chater lived in
Marble Hall until her death in 1935. Ownership then passed to the
government. It became “Admiralty House” – the official residence of the
Naval Commander-in-Chief, and was commandeered by Japanese during their
occupation. It accidentally burned down in 1946, and the government
buildings occupied the site since its demolition in 1953. Government
residences named 'Chater Hall Flats' are today located on the site of
Marble Hall.
The
Chater Collection Catalogue and the rare Bizen Ware catalogue that
formed part of The Chater Collection on display in Marble Hall.
Chater amassed a large collection of historical
pictures and engravings relating to China which he gifted to the colony.
The Chater Collection was subject to a work by its curator, James
Orange, in 1924, at which time the collection stood at 430 items. Its
backbone was the collection of Wyndham Law of the Chinese Maritime
Customs Service, and included oil paintings, watercolours, sketches,
prints and photographs, most of which are based on landscape scenes of
the South China trading ports in the 18th and 19th centuries, and of
British activities in China. The Chater Collection was dispersed
and largely destroyed during the Japanese occupation, and it would
appear only 94 pieces (now an important part of the collection of the
Hong Kong Museum of Art) are known to have survived.
This is a very brief synopsis of the life of Sir Paul Chater.
...Hong Kong has given me a great deal, and I hope to be able to do something for it in return, if I can leave an iron industry as a heritage I shall be glad....
Sir Paul Chater 1922