Edward William Everson

Edward William Everson (January 4, 1883 – October 24, 1950) was a police constable of the Shanghai Municipal Police from 1906 to 1925. He served the role of a police inspector at the Louza Station in the Shanghai International Settlement. He was forced to resign after the May 30th Incident of 1925, in which he ordered his policemen to shoot unarmed civilian protestors on Nanking Road.

Life before Shanghai Edward William Everson was born on January 4, 1883, in Westbury as the first child of Edwin Everson and Emma Roberts. He initially worked as a coal miner in New Tredegar.

Shanghai Policeman Seeking better job opportunities, Everson left his post in 1906 and headed to the Shanghai International Settlement when he was 23 years old. He succeeded within the same year, becoming a police constable of the Shanghai Municipal Council, serving the Shanghai Municipal Police. and returned three years later unscathed to resume his old post.

One year later, in 1924, he married a Chinese woman named May Poon. In addition, constables were expected to "devote their whole time to the police services", so marriages were seen as distractions to the policemen's attention. Everson, with the aid of his elevated rank within the police hierarchy however, was not affected.

May 30th Incident As Everson was enjoying his smooth career, Shanghai was in turmoil. The 1918 Hongkew Riot, where a gunfight between Japanese rioters and constables killed 2 and injured 9, strengthened the anti-Japanese nationalistic forces inside Shanghai. The "May 4th Movement" in 1919, a massive student demonstration in protest of China's mistreatment in the Versailles Treaty, sent nationalistic shockwaves throughout the newly established Chinese Republic. The Chinese people began resisting the foreign colonial presence in earnest. In 1921, the Chinese Communist Party was established and began organizing student and worker movements to protest against imperialism.

Starting from February 1925, Chinese workers in foreign factories began protesting about their poor working conditions. Demonstrations continued from February through May, with the aggressiveness and magnitude slowly augmenting. On May 16, a Chinese worker named Ku Cheng-hung was killed by Japanese factory owners for organizing a strike. Students all over Shanghai began protesting in response, and many illicitly entered the Shanghai International Settlement to organize demonstrations, getting arrested by constables in the process. He headed out to break up the protests but to no avail; The crowd dispersed almost instantaneously. A total of thirteen men died, some of which are minors.

Aftermath Shanghai's rage immediately boiled over, as protests and violence skyrocketed. Right after the incident, on June 1, the Communist Party began organizing strikes.

A trial and investigation of the Incident was carried out, and Everson appeared before the Mixed Court on July 2 to testify about his actions. He argued that he had sufficient reason to believe that the protestors were attempting to take his police station, so he was firing in self defense when he gave that order to shoot, Everson protested heavily against this, begging his superiors to not punish him for his actions on May 30. Just overnight he became "hypersensitive, fanciful, and suffering from nerves". After several more months, the Municipal Council forced Everson to "voluntarily" resign from his office on December 29, 1925.

After resigning, Everson stayed in Shanghai for another three months, debating with the Municipal Council about his pension. They reached a compromise in early 1926, that Everson agreed to be formally laid off in exchange for a 2000-pound annual pension. This huge amount sparked another small protest, because many Chinese believed that their tax money was used to pay the outrageously generous funds. and never returned again.

Later life and death Everson returned to Machen, Monmouthshire in 1927. He served shortly in the local patrol team as an officer, picking up his old occupation back in Shanghai briefly. His large pension fund kept him surviving for another twenty years, but his living had already disintegrated.

Edward William Everson passed away on October 24, 1950. He was buried in a Welsh common graveyard without any decorations; on his tombstone was engraved "We'll meet again" in plain text.