Albert Heard
{{Short description|American banker and diplomat}}
File:Albert Farley Heard.jpg.]]
Albert Farley Heard (October{{nbsp}}4, 1833{{snd}}March{{nbsp}}26, 1890) was an American banker and diplomat who was the second-ranked member on the founding committee of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC).{{cite book |author=Liu Shiping |title=汇丰帝国 |trans-title=The HSBC Financial Empire |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R4gXvgAACAAJ&pg=PT18 |year=2010 |publisher=Citic Publishing |isbn=978-7-5086-2035-0 |language=zh |pages=18–19}} He was the son of Elizabeth Ann Farley and George Washington Heard, brother of Augustine Heard. After graduating from Yale University, he went to China to assist his uncle in business and ultimately succeed him in heading the management of his trading firm, Augustine Heard & Co.
Career in China
Heard was born on October{{nbsp}}4, 1833 in Ipswich, Massachusetts{{cite book|author=Yale University|title=Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University ... Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Alumni|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jlcdAQAAIAAJ|year=1880|page=582}} and graduated from Yale University in 1853,{{Cite web|url=http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~bak00166|title=Heard, Elizabeth, 1802–1865. Elizabeth Heard Papers, 1829–1864: A Finding Aid|publisher=OASIS, Harvard University|year=2011|access-date=May 29, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140605051222/http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~bak00166|archive-date=June 5, 2014|url-status=dead}} having submitted his thesis on the late medieval philosopher and reformer John Huss.{{Cite book|title=Order of Exercises, Yale College, July 23, 1853|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zT9cAAAAcAAJ|year=1853|access-date=June 2, 2014|last1=University|first1=Yale}} Thereafter he travelled to Canton (now known as Guangzhou), China to join the family firm of Augustine Heard & Co.{{Cite web|url=http://ee.stanford.edu/~gray/poisoning.pdf|title=Poisoning by Wholesale: A Reminiscence of China Life|author=Albert Farley Heard|publisher=Stanford University|access-date=29 May 2014}} becoming a partner in 1856{{Cite web|url=http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/heard/treaty-ports-compradors.html|title=After the Opium War: Treaty Ports and Compradores|publisher=Historical Collections Exhibit, Harvard Business School|access-date=May 29, 2014}} and later managing partner. During his tenure as head of the firm, Heard fought off serious competition in the Yangtze River steamer trade from rival American firm Russell & Company.{{Cite journal|title=Administering a Steam-Navigation Company in China, 1862–1867|journal=The Business History Review|authorlink1=Kwang-Ching Liu|author=Kwang-Ching Liu|volume=29|pages=157–188|number=2|date=June 1955|publisher=Harvard College|jstor=3111385}}
Along with the three other Shanghai businessmen, R.C. Antrobus, James Whittal and Henry Dent, in 1860 Heard purchased 40 mu (about {{convert|24,000|m2}}) of land within the Shanghai Race Club for cricket and other sports.{{Cite web|url=http://jds.cass.cn/Item/5713.aspx|title=A Short History of Shanghai|publisher=Institute of Chinese History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences|date=4 March 2007|access-date=2 June 2014|archive-date=15 July 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140715030648/http://jds.cass.cn/Item/5713.aspx|url-status=dead}} He also later served as the Russian consul general in the city,{{cite web | url=http://www.bris.ac.uk/history/customs/ancestors/1862chinadirectory.pdf | title=China Directory 1862 | publisher=Hong Kong: A. Shortrede & Co. | date=1862 | access-date=29 May 2014 | page = 45}} and as the representative of the Chinese government in Russia. In 1887, he published The Russian church and Russian dissent, comprising orthodoxy, dissent, and erratic sects, covering multiple aspects of Russian orthodoxy.{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/russianchurchan01heargoog|title=The Russian church and Russian dissent, comprising orthodoxy, dissent, and erratic sects|author=Albert Farley Heard|location=New York|publisher=Harper & Brothers|year=1887|access-date=29 May 2014}} In 1857, during the Second Opium War, Heard traveled from Shanghai to Hong Kong aboard the steamer Antelope. Outside of business, Heard is known to have owned a collection of pictures by the early photographer Felice Beato.{{cite book|author1=David Harris|author2=Felice Beato|title=Of battle and beauty: Felice Beato's photographs of China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KvDbAAAAMAAJ|year=1999|publisher=Santa Barbara Museum of Art|page=132|isbn=9780899511016}}
Return to the US
Heard left China in May 1873, having first conveyed a parcel of land at the corner of Aberdeen and Staunton Streets in Hong Kong to his "protected" Chinese woman,{{Cref2|A}} Lam Kew-fong.{{cite book|author=Helen F. Siu|title=Merchants' Daughters: Women, Commerce, and Regional Culture in South China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gM9cMIxjoVcC|year=2010|publisher=Hong Kong University Press|isbn=978-988-8083-48-0|page=135}} Back in America, Heard married Mary Allen Livingstone.{{Cite web|url=http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/ark:/99166/w65f1hz0|title=Heard, Albert Farley, 1833-1890|publisher=Social Archive at the University of Virginia|access-date=2 June 2014}} He died on March{{nbsp}}26 1890 in Washington, D.C.
Notes
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{{Cnote2|A|Defined as "a woman acquired by and living with a foreigner"{{cite journal|journal=The China Journal|volume=36|number=36|date=July 1996|title=Women & Chinese Patriarchy: Submission, Servitude and Escape|last1=Jaschok|first1=Maria|last2=Miers|first2=Suzanne|doi=10.2307/2950419|pages=232–234|jstor=2950419}}}}
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References
{{Reflist}}
{{Foreign trade in Imperial China}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heard, Albert F.}}
Category:People from Ipswich, Massachusetts
Category:History of foreign trade in China