Series 4 > William Melrose in China, 1845-1855

XX
WILLIAM MELROSE IN CHINA
India with tea forming the major return and had little to do with
agency business.1 In 1845 the managing partner at Calcutta was
John Gifford, later replaced by his brother Alexander; in China,
Joseph Frost Edger managed the firm until 1851 when he established
a business on his own. During the period William was with the
firm, the house in China consisted of one managing partner and
five assistants.2
William’s original terms of employment were for three years
during which time his father stipulated he was not to trade on his
own account; it was an arrangement wholly satisfactory to the
Jamiesons, for a complaint frequently made against assistants in
China was that they too often neglected the business of the house
to attend to their own private affairs. William at least was not one of
them. As he later recalled, it was a very wise restriction: ‘if I had
had my own way, I might have ruined myself. . . from not having
experience enough’.3
During the four years that William remained with Jamiesons
he had ample opportunity to acquire the experience he considered
so essential. As tea taster, one of William’s major duties was to
choose a correct assortment of good quality tea at favourable prices.
During the busy season, what with tasting tea, attending to its
shipping, making out documents and keeping an accurate account
of the purchases, there was probably little time for leisurely medi¬
tation. He worked hard and diligently, never leaving Canton for the
gayer life at Macao. As Samuel J. Hallam, a friend of Andrew’s and a
buyer for Russell and Company, observed in 1843, William ‘con¬
ducted himself very steadily and there seems nothing to prevent
him from doing well. His prospects are very good; and he will
probably while quite a young man return home with a handsome
fortune acquired honourably’.4
In Canton William shared a house with Alexander Walker, a
fellow assistant. Here they lived and worked in hot crowded quarters.
It was house no. 3 of the Old English Factory, a building formerly
1 The activities of Jamieson How & Co. are extracted from the shipping cargo lists
published in China Mail throughout the year 1845-6.
2 CR, xiv (1845), 11; xv (1846), 3-8.
3 Below, p. 92.
4 S. J. Hallam to A. M., 25 July 1843, ama, Misc. Letters to A. M., 1845-52.