Paul French - The Old Shanghai A–Z

14/F Hing Wai Centre
7 Tin Wan Praya Road
Aberdeen
Hong Kong
www.hkupress.org

Paul French, 2010

ISBN 978-988-8028-89-4 (Paperback)

First printing 2010
First eBook 2010

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover design and page layouts by Alex Ng Kin Man, Twin Age Limited

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How To Use This Book

Following are two indexes. The first alphabetically lists the former road names in Shanghai followed by their current names. The second simply reverses this and alphabetically lists all the current names followed by their former names. Both indices provide an indication as to whether the road was in the former International Settlement (IS), the former French Concession (FC) or the External Roads Area (ER). Simply look up a road by its former or current name and find the page number related to the individual entry.

I have taken as a final guide the road names that applied to the foreign concessions, and the so-called External Roads Area to the north and west of the concessions, from 1947, as detailed on the map of Shanghai published that year by the Oriental Publishing House, Shanghai. From that point I have worked back chronologically to include earlier names and note the name changes for certain roads over time from Sir Rutherford Alcocks arrival as British Consul at Shanghai, when he proceeded to begin the process of formally laying out the British Settlement, to 1949.

Therefore, in the index certain current Shanghai roads have more than one entry. For instance in the French Concession, Rue de lAdministration was changed to Rue Mathieu after the First World War as part of a major series of road name alternations to commemorate French Shanghailanders who died in the trenches. Similarly Church Road, a very early road in the British Settlement, was later renamed Kiangse Road as the Settlement expanded and some order was introduced with Chinese city names being used for roads running west from The Bund and Chinese province names for those running north to south. However, within the text each road name is indexed separately in order to explain its history and cross-references are provided within the text where appropriate.

Within separate road entries notable buildings, original structures or organizations and venues that existed often have their street numbers listed. These numbers refer to the original numbers of the buildings and, as many roads have been renumbered in the intervening years, do not necessarily always correspond to the current road numbers. It is ardently hoped by the author that this will not be overly confusing to the user of this directory.

This AZ does not claim to be a record of every building on every street in Shanghai, nor every memorable event that ever took place in the city before 1949. It is a snapshot of the interesting and the odd that hopefully gives some flavour of the city when it was a treaty port. A list of books that have more complete lists of every building, structure and organization in the city pre1949 is provided at the end of this book for those who wish to delve deeper.

Road Names IndexPast to Present