The brothers Ernest Major and Frederick Major arrived in China in the early 1860s to set up business in the tea industry. Their business did not flourish, however, and their Chinese comprador1 urged Ernest Major to establish a newspaper, and he introduced a man from his home village, Wu Zirang H ? i t , as an editor. Major accepted his suggestion, and asked Qian Xinbo $$ fÖ to go to Hong Kong to seek the assistance of Wang Tao, who was running a newspaper there. Qian was Wang's son-in-law. Wang agreed to help, and contributed a good deal of material from the English language press of Hong Kong.2
1 Sources differ as to the name of this man. According to Zhang Jinglu Zhongguo jindai chuban shiliao chubian 41 S jfift Hi JiS Pr jU [Historical sources on publishing in modem China, Vol. I] (Zhonghua shuju 1953-1954), p. 270 his name was Chen Huageng f5£
According to Yu Yueting till H Wo guo huabao de shizu [The ancestor of the pictorial in China] (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe ÄSfct, 1981), p.150; Zheng Yimei M & fäShu boo hua jiu 4H(iUüÜI0 [Talks about the old days of books and newspapers] (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe 1983) p. 84; and Roswell S. Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press 1800-1912 (Shanghai 1933; Taiwan reprint: Ch’eng Wen Publishing Company Taipei, 1966), p. 64 his name was Chen Shengeng Xu Zaiping "Shen Bao shi ruhe jikua 'Shanghai Xin Bao’ de?" ^ £U? [How did the Shen Bao gain ascendancy over the Shanghai Xin Bao?] in Xinwen yanjiu ziliao HfN! No. 15 (Zhongguo Zhanwang chubanshe 1982) p. 209 gives his name as Chen Gengshen
2 This story is given in many sources, sometimes word for word. See Zhang Jinglu, Chuban shiliao, p. 270; Yu Yueting, Huabao de shizu, passim; Xiang Dicong "Shanghai Dianshizhai shiyin shu bao ji qi jiqizhe" [Lithographic printing of books and newspapers at the Dianshizhai in Shanghai, and their successors] in Shanghai difangshi ziliao No. 4 (Shanghai: Shehui kexue chubanshe
1986) p. 245; Zheng Yimei, Shu bao hua jiu p. 84; Don J. Cohn, Vignettes from the Chinese - Lithographs from Shanghai in the Late Nineteenth Century (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1987), p. 1; Britton, Chinese Periodical Press, p. 64, Shen Bao shiliao bianxiezu ^
[Compilers of the history of the Shen Bao ] ed., "Chuangban chuqi de Shen Bao" I7JMÖÜ ^ M [The Shen Bao in its initial period] in Xinwen yanjiu ziliao W No. 1 (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe 1979) p. 138. Qian Xinbo (Qian Zheng ) was a xiucai. As he was miopic he adopted the sobriquet "Sojourner watching flowers [i.e. prostitutes]
In 1871 Ernest Major and three friends, C. Woodward, W.B. Pryor and John Mackillop, each contributed four hundred taels of silver, a total of one thousand six hundred taels o f silver altogether, to establish a Chinese language newspaper, the Shen Bao ^ ffi.* * 3 The specific rights and obligations of each of the shareholders were set out in detail in the contract. Major was to be responsible for the actual management o f the newspaper, any profits or losses were to be split three ways, of which Major would get two, and the other three one third between them. Major hired Jiang Zhixiang as the editor-in-chief, and He Guisheng
and Qian Xinbo as his assistant editors. Some time later Jiang Zhixiang was awarded the jinshi degree, and He Guisheng became the editor-in-chief. The first issue of the Shen Bao was published on the 30th of April, 1872.4
It was extremely successful, and after only eight months forced the closure o f the Shanghai Xin Bao, which had been a going concern for ten years. It then
through fog" (Wu li kan hua ke ). See Shanghai Tongshe Shanghai
yanjiu ziliao, p. 678
3 On the background and growth of the Shen Bao, see Terry Narramore, Making the News in Shanghai: Shen Bao and the Politics of Newspaper Journalism, 1912-1937 (Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University, Canberra, 1989), pp. 18-79. The question of the ownership of the Shen Bao is a very confused one. According to Shanghai Tongshe Shanghai yanjiu ziliao xu j i, "Shen Bao chuangbanren kao" ^ [Investigation into the initiator of the Shen Bao ] (pp. 316-317), the owner was Emest Major. Many later sources, however, give the name of the proprietor of the Shen Bao as Frederick Major, Ernest's brother. See He Shengnai , "Sanshiwu nian lai Zhongguo zhi yinshua shu" —
[Printing technology in China over the past thirty five years] in Zhang Jinglu, Chuban shiliao pp. 257-285, on p. 270; Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity: Wang T'ao and Reform in Late Ch'ing China (Harvard University Press, 1974) p. 292; Fritz van Briessen, Shanghai - Bildzeitung 1884-1898, Eine Illustrierte aus dem China des ausgehenden 19. Jahrhunderts (Atlantis Verlag AG Zürich, 1977), p.l 1; Don J. Cohn, "Selections from the Dianshizhai Pictorial" , Renditions No 25 (1985) p. 48. [According to the references in this work,
it would seem that this mistake originated with Zhang Jinglu. In footnote no. 2 to the preface of Cohn's later work, Vignettes from the Chinese, the author adds a word of explanation: "Many Chinese and English sources reprint the erroneous notion that Frederick began the publishing side of the brothers' enterprises"; the Taiwan reprint of Shen Bao (Xuesheng shuju 1965) gives F. Major as the name of the founder of the Shen Bao in the introduction; Britton, Chinese Periodical Press, p. 63 and p. 69; Xiang Dicong, "Shanghai Dianshizhai" p. 245. Other sources simply say "the Major brothers" or "Major". Sa Kongliao "Wushi nian lai Zhongguo huabao sange shiqi" [Three periods in Chinese pictorials over the past fifty years] in Zhang Jinglu, Zhongguo xiandai chuban shiliao yi bian ^ S3Äf t $4 m [Historical sources on publishing in contemporary China] (Zhonghua shuju, 1955) p. 408 gives "Major"; Shen Bao shiliao bianxiezu [Compilers of the history of the Shen Bao ] ed., "Chuangban chuqi de Shen Bao" ^ JB [The Shen Bao in its initial period] in Xinwen yanjiu ziliao $Tf4) No. 1 (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe
1979) p. 134 gives "Major Brothers". The Jindai lai Hua waiguo renming cidian
A ^ i3 J Ä (Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1981) has no entry for E. Major. He is mentioned in the entry for F. Major as his brother who cooperated with him in a number of ventures, including the Shen Bao.
became the only Chinese newspaper in Shanghai.5 Its circulation increased from 600 to over ten times that figure by the time Major retired and left Shanghai for England in 1889.6
From the 1860s to the 1890s, the Major Brothers controlled six different enterprises in China, including the Shen Bao and the Dianshizhai Printing C o m p a n y . 7 In 1876, when Major established the "Tien Shih Chai Photolithographic Publishing Works", he introduced a type of new technology into China, the lithograph.8 Slightly earlier, in 1874, a French Missionary produced a number of religious tracts by the lithographic method at the Tushanwan i l l l v S Printing Company in Xujiahui but the first use of the lithograph for mass printing was that o f the Dianshizhai Printing Company. Major hired a Chinese printer from the Tushanwan Printing Company, by the name of Qiu Zi’ang
5 The Shanghai Xin Bao was the first Chinese language newspaper in Shanghai. It was established in 1861; most of its news items were translated from the North-China Daily News. It was initially a weekly, and was later published every second day. It was run by John Allen Young and others. It could not compete with the Shen Bao, and ceased publication of the 31st of
December, 1872. See Xu Zaiping, "Shen Bao" pp. 208-213. Another story is that Major convinced the proprietor of the Shanghai Xin Bao, Henry Shearman, to withdraw that newspaper in
competition with the Shen Bao, as Shearman already owned the North-China Herald and the North-China Daily News. See Liang Jialu Zhongguo xinwenye shi T HI Dr [A history of the press in China] (Guangxi Renmin Chubanshe, 1984) p. 37
6 Shen Bao bianxiezu, "Chuangban chuqi", p. 136 See the Preface to the, Dianshizhai, written by Major in May 1884, in which he says the Shen Bao "sells ten thousand copies every day; we cannot keep up with the demand." This assertion is difficult to verify.
7 These were: (i) The Jiangsu Yaoshuichang known in English as Major's Acid Works or the Kiangsu Chemical Works. See FT.Hawks Pott, A Short History of Shanghai (Shanghai 1928) p. 135: "Among the first industrial establishments founded in Shanghai was the Kiangsu Chemical Works, started by the Major Brothers in the early 'sixties, near the old stone bridge which crossed the Soochow Creek"; (ii) the Shen Bao Office , founded in 1872; (iii) the Shen Chang Bookshop [Shenchang Painting and Calligraphy Shop] ^ H 15lit ; (iv) the Dianshizhai Printing Company known at that time in English as the Tien Shih Chai Photolithographic Publishing Works, founded in 1876; (v) Major’s Soap Factory
1^, founded during the 1870s and (vi) the Sui Chong Match Factory Ö founded during the 1880s. In 1889 the two brothers amalgamated all these companies into one, Major Brothers Limited, with a capital value of three hundred thousand taels of silver. See Sun Yutang
Zhongguo jindai gongyeshi ziliao yi bian [Materials on the history of modem industry in Shanghai] (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1957), Vol. I, p. I l l ; p. 125; pp. 236-240. The Major brothers also had interests in Singapore, including forty thousand mu of land on which rubber, tobacco and sugar were produced. See Fang Hanqi Zhongguo jindai baokanshi (shang ce) 4*111 [A history of the press in modern China - Volume 1] (Shanxi: Renmin chubanshe, 1981) p. 42
8 Zhang Jinglu, Chuban shiliao (er bian), p. 356. Cohn has pointed out that Dianshizhai literally means "The Studio of Touching the Stone", and refers to both the process of lithography (stone printing) and the phrase dianshi chengjin ,^.6] "touching a stone and turning it into gold", meaning to improve the quality of a literary composition. Cohn, Vignettes from the Chinese, p. 1 note 1.
m .9 In all he hired about 200 people.10 The first major publishing success came in 1882, with a printed edition of the Kangxi Dictionary. Forty thousand copies of the first edition were printed, and were distributed by the Shenchang Painting and Calligraphy Shop. They were sold out in a few months. The second reprint was for sixty thousand copies, and happened to coincide with the Imperial Examinations in the capital. Many of the examination candidates bought five or six copies, either for themselves or for friends, and the second reprint was also sold out in a matter of months. The success of the Dianshizhai Printing Company caused a good deal of envy amongst other businessmen, and before long a merchant from Ningbo established a printing house called Baishishanfang ^ f'S ’lIl J?f, and another from Guangdong established the Tongwen Bookstore , in competition with the Dianshizhai Publishing Company.* 11
The Dianshizhai Printing Company specialised in reprinting classical works, reproductions o f rubbings o f famous pieces of calligraphy and the like. In May 1887 M ajor placed a number o f advertisements in the Sheri Bao, in which he announced he intended to reprint the Gujin Tushu Jicheng ^ Ä f ® 12. Between the years 1885 and 1888, M ajor's Publishing Company printed one thousand six hundred and twenty eight volumes in the Gujin Tushu Jicheng series. Major also spent a lot of time and energy collecting a number of premodem Chinese works, and published more than one hundred and sixty volumes in this series entitled Juzhenban Congshu in imitation of the Chinese series of the same title of the Qianlong period.13 Major's enthusiasm for collecting old books, especially valuable ones, at one stage even led to him becoming involved in a book- theft scandal.14
9 Zhang Jinglu, Chuban shiliao (yi bian), pp. 269-270