Robert Bickers

As a historian, I dwell in the past in more ways than one. Unlike some of my peers, I remain curious about stories once told, and as new resources come online, or I visit new archives, I will in ...

https://robertbickers.net/2023/11/19/old-stories-new-departures/

I recently found a document in a bundle of papers I was given that had once belonged to a senior scholar in the field of modern Chinese history. With a covering letter dated 13 August 1956, it’...

https://robertbickers.net/2023/10/19/missing-archive-the-papers-of-the-russian-emigrants-association-shanghai/

My work has often considered questions of memory and history making, and of forgetting. A correspondent’s query nudges me to return to my files about a small case study of this that I very brie...

https://robertbickers.net/2023/08/08/lost-monuments-and-memorials-shanghais-de-normann-cross/

The tweet included an eye-catching image, and a mystery. I have since found this photograph of Lully Goon in over 50 north American and European newspapers, but there will have been more. She was...

https://robertbickers.net/2023/03/13/it-was-wonderful-lully-goon-aviatrix/

On 18 June 1842, Queen Victoria recorded in her journal an unusual afternoon’s visit: … we drove with Uncle, the Cousins, &c riding to see a Chinese Collection belonging to a Mr Don , who mad...

https://robertbickers.net/2022/12/30/nathan-dunns-chinese-collection-on-tour-1847-1850/

Not that Chairman, but Henry John Howard Tripp, Chairman of the Shanghai Recreation Club in 1897. A long-time resident of Shanghai, where he worked as agent for the Mitsui Bishi Company (having p...

https://robertbickers.net/2022/07/31/the-chairman-joked-and-chinese-film-history-got-confused/

I’m talking this Sunday evening in Hong Kong, 8 November, as part of the wonderful Hong Kong International Literary Festival. To find out more check out the Festival website, starting of course...

https://robertbickers.net/2020/11/05/hong-kong-bound/

Over on my Department’s blog, I recently answer a few questions about my new book China Bound, what I’m working on next, and my favourite close-to-campus food outlets. Featured Historian: Rob...

https://robertbickers.net/2020/10/01/featured-historians-at-bristol/

Over on Historians at Bristol I’ve posted a short note on my search for the University of Bristol’s first Chinese graduate. It took me to Paris, New York, Beijing, and back to Bristol, or, to...

https://robertbickers.net/2020/07/08/looking-for-chan-ching-yau/

Over the last couple of years I have been working with colleagues to transfer some of the scattered sets of biographical information that I have developed during research projects over the last t...

https://robertbickers.net/2020/06/27/introducing-china-families/