Purvis was a sea captain who turned to painting, he was a prolific painter of ship portraits and marine scenes from the early 1890s to the late 1920s. There’s a lot more on him here including the fact that he seems to have abandoned his family in Bristol around 1915, worked as a mate or master of various steamships, at least until 1925, mostly in Far East Ports including Hong Kong. Purvis reportedly died in Hong Kong on 17 January 1933, after an accident.
H31 is something of a mystery – there was a ship marked HS31 in Hong Kong c.1927 – Gwulo has a photo of it though I can’t find a record for it – excepting an H31 (HMS Griffin) that looks similar (second photo below) but was not launched until 1935, after Purvis’s supposed death in Hong Kong. HMS Griffin transferred to the Royal Navy’s Eastern Fleet in March 1942.
There was also a submarine named H31 – a British H-classsubmarine built by Vickers Limited, Barrow-in-Furness. You can see the H31 on the sub’s fin below. She was laid down on 19 April 1917 and was commissioned on 21 February 1919 that survived until World War II. However, Purvis clearly didn’t paint a sub though possibly H31 did go to Hong Kong (Gwulo has a picture of the crew).
So any ideas what this H31 in Victoria Harbour was? My best guess is that it was a submarine support vessel that towed and resupplied and the submarines?
The British Museum’s big new exhibition, Samurai, opens this week. I got a sneak peek of the exhibits last week. One of the most fascinating is that of the Christian samurai, Hasekura Tsunenaga. In 1613 Hasekura led a mission to Madrid and Rome (and stopped briefly in France too) to see pope Paul V. they arrived in 1615 and had his portrait painted in silk clothes by the Urbino artist Archita Ricci. Hasekura returned to Japan in 1620, by which time Christianity had been banned by the shogunate. Hasekura died of illness in 1622 with rumours swirling that he had abandoned Christianity, or that he was martyred for his faith, or that he continued to practise Christianity in secret.
Looking for something to do this Sunday in Hong Kong? Why not get out and do me VoiceMap GPS walking tour Kowloon Tong: Art Deco and Hidden Heritage in Hong Kong – I guarantee you’ll see some architectural treasures and streets you’ve not seen before. So here’s a fun fact – the tour takes your to he Modernist Saint Teresa’s Roman Catholic Church and also the marvellous Art Deco apartments and shops on Prince Edward Road West nearby. Both were financed by one of the great funders of Modernism and Art Deco architecture in Hong Kong, the Franco-Belgian Crédit Foncier d’Extrême-Orient.
A rare “disaster postcard” of the 1886 Glasgow-built PS Hankow, an iron paddle steamer of the China Navigation Company that initially worked the Yangtze River routes up from Shanghai and transferred to service on the Hong Kong-Canton route in in 1886. Hankow was gutted by fire on 14 October 1906 at the Canton Steamer Wharf in Hong Kong with loss of 130 Chinese lives. The wreck was then towed to Shanghai in 1907 and converted to a hulk before being moved once again to Hankou as a transhipment godown. It then spent some time in Shasi in Hubei and Yichang on the Yangtze before being destroyed by American bombing during World War Two.
This postcard was posted from Hong Kong in 1907 where it must have been purchased… It shows a large crowd watching the ship burn, along with people inside it!! The card misidentifies the Hankow as a SS (Steam Ship) rather than a PS (Paddle Steamer).
Tickets for all events for HKIlF 2026 on sale now including Amitav Ghosh, Hu Anyan, Hernan Diaz, Emma Pei Yin, Lawrence Osborne, Bonnie Tsui and many more….
I’ll be talking biographies, Empire and espionage with John le Carre’s biographer Adam Sisman on Friday, March 6, 12:00 PM at the Fringe Club.
There’s one fascinating phenomenon to the rise of Trump and his own-brand of American fascism which intersected last week with Starmer’s visit to China and the public interest in the images on TV of the PM in Beijing and Shanghai. Namely, the way in which so many British kids have totally switched off from American “culture” and pivoted towards East Asia.
As twentieth century UK kids we were saturated in US culture – films, TV, music. No choice pre-internet, pre-streaming when the BBC and ITV bought in US TV shows and films to fill airtime. We often knew that with a few exceptions it was crass, vulgar and rubbish, but couldn’t avoid it until we were old enough to seek out the better video/DVD stores and indie cinemas. But not now – the media world is your oyster.
I see UK kids currently fascinated by all things K-pop and Hallyu, they’re wanting to visit Japan and Korea, they’re trading Labubus, they love Crunchyroll, Pop Mart and Mini So. Friday night dinner? – they want sushi, ramen and bibimbap. Of course some families can facilitate these interests more than others – and yes, this week I will sit in Cineworld Eastbourne watching the Stray Kids DominATE tour movie surrounded by happy kids and also a lot of bemused parents and grandparents (it’s rated a 12A).
And hopefully all this will grow into a deeper love of Asian art and culture spurred by reading manga and manhwa as well as watching anime and playing Asian-themed video games. Many kids are progressing to wanting to see exhibitions like the new “Samurai” at the British Museum that offers them a more scholarly look at the images they adore but with references to popular culture too. Anyone who went to the Kawaii exhibition at London’s Somerset House a while back will have seen how kids took eagerly to the galleries. Of course we can only hope a desire for language learning will also follow.
UK kids naturally have their own stuff from TV shows to Jelly Cat, footie teams to bands, and some American stuff seems to resonate – Stranger Things especially. But to many kids the US is now largely culturally and creatively irrelevant, and, to many, it is an increasingly scary, shouty and frightening place on the nightly news. They don’t like it, they don’t want it, they’re turning away from it.
The amazing creatives of East Asia dreamt up these worlds of kawaii to healing literature, Labubu to Skull Panda, TV soaps to crazy good movies for us all to access. Meanwhile Trump has sealed the fate of US cultural and soft power for a few generations at least. The shift has happened.
Retelling Wallis Simpson’s adventures in 1920s China with EA Festival’s Joanne Ooi at China Tang at The Dorchester (who are hosting a literary supper club series in partnership with EA Festivals to celebrate their twentieth anniversary)….
