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Auction: 25001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 409

Shanghai Volunteer Corps Long Service Medal, silver, hallmarks to rim, the reverse officially engraved 'B.Q.M.S. J. A. Cheeseman. Act. 1920-1931', good very fine

Provenance:
Sotheby's, July 1998.

James Alfred Cheeseman was born at Reading on 13 August 1893, the son of The Rev. James & Isabella Cheeseman, the sixth of nine children. Young Cheeseman was educated at Chester College School and Paradise Street School in Cambridge before going out east - described as a draper - in 1913. With the outbreak of the Great War, he volunteered with 109 fellows from Shanghai and proceeded to England to join the New Army via the Suwa Maru. Joining King Edward's Horse (No. 894), he served on the Western Front from October 1915 and whilst serving in an Observation Post with 'A' Squadron at La Bourse was wounded by a rifle grenade on 24 March 1916 (1914-15 Star Trio). His daughter later wrote how the wounds effected his lower spine and knee, partially crippling him.

Returning to Shanghai in May 1919, he joined the Shanghai Volunteer Artillery Company and the Whizzbangs Shanghai Amateur Football Club. Cheeseman would likely have been called out to share in the actions with his Battery against the Chekiang Kiangsu warlords in 1924-25. Married to Kathleen, he was to face tragedy as she produced a daughter on 16 October 1926 but died the next day, with their infant passing on 20 October 1926. A second marriage several years later (see group photograph) produced another daughter, Dora, who lived until 2015.

Awarded his Long Service Medal as per the Shanghai Municipal Gazette of 7 August 1931, the Artillery Battery was disbanded several years after, with Cheeseman joining the Municipal Police Specials from September 1937 - perhaps serving during the emergency. He had also been made Manager of the famous department store Lane Crawford (founded 1862) shortly before its collapse. He thence set up the Textile Import Company, with offices in the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank Building.

Promoted Sub-Inspector in the Specials in November 1939, Cheeseman was living on the Tifeng Road. Following the uncontested invasion of Shanghai by the Japanese on 8 December 1941, life continued comparatively unchanged and the Municipal Police were required to maintain the administration, under the Shanghai Provisional Council of 1941

Under considerable pressure from the United States Administration, the foreign Extra Territorial Treaties, which had established the China Treaty ports in the 19th century including Shanghai (except that for Hong Kong), were abrogated on 11 January 1943 by the Treaty Between His Majesty in Respect of the United Kingdom and India and His Excellency the President of the National Government of the Republic of China for the Relinquishment of Extra-Territorial Rights in China and the Regulation of Related Matters - so that at the end of the Japanese War Shanghai, and other occupied treaty ports would be returned to the Chinese Government (KMT) in Nanking.

This also had the effect of terminating the Police service contracts in March 1943. That same month, Cheeseman and other expatriate members of allied countries were put into one of the internment camps - described as Civil Assembly Centres. His family went into the Lunghwa Centre. That place held just under 2,000 people and was described thusly:

'The camp was large, containing seven concrete buildings, five large wooden barracks (originally built as stables by the Japanese), and numerous outbuildings. There were fifty nine dorms and 127 rooms for families.'

In addition to malnutrition, malaria and typhoid were a common problem. A fellow internee was J. G. Ballard who, in his book Empire of the Sun (later made into a Stephen Spielberg film), gives a vivid description of life in this camp.

At the end of the Pacific War, when the employees of the Municipal Council, civil servants, Police, Fire etc. came out of the internment camps in August and September 1945, they were unemployed. Some managed to obtain jobs in Shanghai and Hong Kong, which it appears the Cheesemans went to. He arrived back at Liverpool in November 1950.

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Estimate
£800 to £1,200

Starting price
£700