Daniel Richard Caldwell

Daniel Richard Francis Caldwell (19 September 1816 – 2 October 1875) was a colonial government official in Hong Kong. He was Registrar General and Protector of Chinese from 1856 to 1862 and was involved in the notorious Caldwell Affair in the late 1850s.

Early life He was born in British East India Company's island of Saint Helena to Daniel Caldwell and Mary Caldwell on 13 September 1816. When he was a child, he followed his father, a soldier in a local militia corps first to Penang and then to Singapore. In 1834, he commanded his own trading ships before becoming a clerk in Canton, where he was employed in a lucrative opium trading company. "He has a reputation as a womaniser and was said to have learned Chinese through his liaisons with various women," according to historian Christopher Munn. Due to his sound linguistic skills, in which he was fluent in several Chinese dialects as well as Malay, Hindustani and Portuguese, Caldwell served as an interpreter to the British during the First Opium War.

Career in Hong Kong In 1842 he settled in Hong Kong and became essential to the colonial administration in dealing with the local Chinese in the earliest years of Hong Kong as a British colony. He first worked as court interpreter, and then appointed assistant superintendent of the Hong Kong Police in 1846. He resigned from the government for the first time when he declared bankruptcy in 1847 and escaped creditors by fleeing to the neighbouring Portuguese colony of Macao. He was again employed by the government soon afterwards. Caldwell was effective in clamping down on crime and piracy by using his network of informers, being head of detectives and guide to the Royal Navy in its expeditions against pirates. He was involved in the Battle of Huhlan Bay which took place on 4 August 1855, in which HMS Rattler and USS Powhattan destroyed ten pirate junks and killed more than 800 pirates.

Soon after the battle, Caldwell resigned from the government due to low pay and purchased a merchant steamer, The Eaglet, which ran coastal trade and set up convoys escorting junks along the South China coast. When the Second Opium War broke out, calling Caldwell "the only government functionary through whom we have ever had satisfactory intercourse with the native population", Governor John Bowring employed Caldwell as Registrar General and Protector of Chinese (later Secretary for Chinese Affairs), which dealt with the issues related to the local Chinese community in 1856. He was given extensive powers over the lives and businesses of local Chinese under the emergency legislation in 1857 and 1858. His duties was also extended to the registration and licensing of brothels under the new Venereal Diseases Ordinance.

Caldwell Affair In early 1857, some Chinese agents attempted to poison the European community through its morning bread supply, which caused the fear and suspicion between the local Chinese and European residents. In the same year, Caldwell was involved in a scandal as an American pirate Eli Boggs accused Caldwell of having criminal connections with the notorious gangster Wong Ma-chow and claimed he had been framed by Wong Ma-chow, who was a key informer and associate of Caldwell. Wong was arrested on 16 July 1857, followed by the defence from Caldwell who demanded an acquittal. On 10 May 1858, the Colonial Treasurer Frederick Forth made an allegation of Caldwell owning a brothel. Attorney General Thomas Chisholm Anstey weighed in, by calling Caldwell a "brothel keeper and pirate" and referring to his wife, a Chinese woman named Mary Ayow, as "that harlot". Even Caldwell's own racial identity was questioned, who had only a few years earlier been described as having "blue eyes and truly English countenance", was now described as a "man of mixed blood" and a "Singapore half-caste". The scandal was described by Governor Bowring as "seldom been paralleled by any assemblage of Englishmen met in official conclave." The couple had 12 children and over 20 adopted children of Chinese descent. He died in Hong Kong on 2 October 1875 and buried at the Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley, Hong Kong where a huge and ornate tombstone was erected by his fellow Freemasons.