THE OBSCURE ADVENTURER

LITTLE WAS KNOWN of Charles Batten Hillier's background and the circumstances which had first brought him to Hong Kong. According to reports at the time, this young and ‘obscure adventurer’, having arrived sometime in 1841 as the Second Mate of a merchant-ship, had left to join a trading company, which soon afterwards failed. He then disappears from view until 20 December 1842, when he is known to have joined the recently-established Magistrates’ Court as a clerk and interpreter. Promoted to Assistant Magistrate on 26 June 1843, he was appointed four years later the Colony's Chief Magistrate, a post he would hold for the next nine years.

Even by the standards of a fledgling colony, it was an unusual career path, particularly given the importance of the Magistrates’ Court. It was, as Christopher Munn says, ‘the arena in which government and people encountered each other most extensively, most directly, most unequally, and with far-reaching consequences’. And, as Governor Bonham later acknowledged, upon its successful working depended ‘the degree of respect with which the Chinese … regard our …Government generally, as well as the obedience that they will be disposed to pay to the laws under which they are permitted to reside.’ With the six hundred or so westerners out-numbered by some 20,000 Chinese, the success of this exercise was dependent upon the implicit collaboration of those people and their confidence in the Magistracy.

Whilst there were serious failings in Hillier's approach, we will see that, under his stewardship, the court generated a degree of respect from this multi-faceted community and, as a result, law and order was maintained. This was all the more surprising given the fact that, during this period, the colony would suffer from a deeply-divided administration, economic stagnation and widespread corruption. How was it, therefore, that someone seemingly so unqualified for that role was able to achieve as much as Hillier did? To answer this, we must first understand more about his early life and the circumstances that brought him to Hong Kong.