"While recently reviewing some old documents I came across my fathers’
memoirs written forty years ago about his days in China between 1910
and 1932. These memories were so interesting that I found them worth
publishing." These are the words of Dr. A.R.C. Butson, recipient of
the George Cross and retired Clinical Professor of Medicine at
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.
These words are the reader’s introduction to Memories of China
(1910-1932) which is subtitled "An Engineer’s Memoirs from the Manchus
to Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung." The book itself is based on the
hitherto unpublished account of the everyday experiences of Dr. Butson’s
father –- Cecil Walter Butson, an English-born engineer who worked in
China for 22 years.
The book includes 14 black-and-white photographs and 40 full-colour
watercolours painted by the author' wife Doris Butson. Dr. Butson
supplies an Introduction which draws attention to this unique memoir,
to his enterprising father, and to his father’s account of living and
working in Hankow (today’s WuHan) with its descriptions of a China
that has now changed radically.
Cecil Walter Butson was born in England and at the age of 21 found
employment as a ship’s engineer in China. He kept a detailed record of
his travels in China, his work as an engineer, life in various
"concessions," his marriage, the birth of his son, and descriptions of
everyday life and local conditions during periods of great turmoil.
The book will have special appeal to social historians, especially
"old China hands." It is also a son's tribute to a resourceful father.
Trade paperback, 4-colour cover with French flaps,
illustrated with photographs and watercolours, 5.5" x 8.5", 244 pages,
ISBN 978-1-55246-822-7 @
$30.00
Dick discovered additional art painted by his mother in a cupboard, carefully preserved and unframed, after this book was published. And this material in addition to pictures from an Art Exhibition in Hankow in 1930 are published in an addendum pamphlet to this present volume.
