Object July 2009

Captain Davies’s Chinese Passport

Captain Henry Rodolph Davies, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, aged 29,  was chosen in 1894 to lead an expedition to Yunnan Province, China. In order to travel in this region he needed a passport from Peking. The original passport with a translation is on display during July at The Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock, as the Soldiers of Oxfordshire “Object of the Month”

The purpose of the expedition was to establish the feasibility and possible direction of a railway line extending the existing railway system (largely of French construction) in China through Yunnan to Burma. This would open a land route from Western Europe across to the Chinese ports which would largely run through British lands.

Veronica Babington Smith, a volunteer archivist working with the Trust, said, “This passport is a beautiful document, handwritten in Chinese characters, with official stamps from the government in Peking. Captain Davies must have carried it for many months, mostly on foot, and it is in remarkably good condition.  It is a good example of the kind of story residing in our archives, especially when linked to his authorship of military intelligence reports on what he saw.”

Captain Davies, who had a Burmese wife, is shown in an accompanying photograph with his 4 children. The display also features Captain Davies’s Chinese visiting card.