Colonel Kenneth Cantlie (1899-1986), mechanical engineer, was born in London in 1899 as the youngest son of Lady Mabel Cantlie (née Barclay Brown, 1860-1921) and Sir James Cantlie (1851-1926), a surgeon and specialist in tropical diseases. Kenneth Cantlie had a long international career as a designer of locomotives and coaches in Argentina, India and China and promoting the British locomotive industries after the Second World War.
The Cantlie family had strong connections to China: Sir James trained Dr Sun Yat-Sen (1866-1925), who became the first president of China after revolution in 1911. Sir James and Lady Cantlie were instrumental in rescuing Sun Yat-Sen in 1896 when he was held captive at the London Chinese Legation by the Chinese Qing Dynasty. Sun Yat-Sen remained a close family friend and became the godfather of Kenneth Cantlie.
Kenneth Cantlie was educated in Scotland at Junior School and Gordon’s College, Aberdeen, and University College, London. The loss of his right eye in early childhood resulted in Kenneth being unfit for army service during the First World War, and instead undertook war work at London North Western Railway’s Crewe Railway Shops. He then became an apprentice and a pupil of Crewe’s Chief Mechanical Engineer Mr. Bowen-Cooke, subsequently obtaining a certificate on technical training at Crewe Technical College.
Between 1920 and 1923 Kenneth acted as an assistant to the Chief Mechanical Engineer, then Assistant Traction Superintendent and Train Ferry Supervisor on Entre dos Rios Railway in Argentina. In 1924 he joined the Jodphur-Bikanir Railway in India as the Assistant Locomotive Superintendent and then in 1928 as the Deputy Loco Superintendent building 70 coaches to his own designs.
In 1929 Kenneth Cantlie was invited by the Chinese government to represent his family at the state funeral of president Sun Yat-Sen when his remains were interred in the mausoleum at Purple Mountain, Nanking and was subsequently appointed to act as an adviser to the Chinese railways by the Minister of Railways Sun Fo, son of Sun Yat-Sen. Before taking up the post in 1930, Kenneth travelled in China, Japan and the U.S.
Kenneth Cantlie returned to China in 1930 as the Consulting Expert for Standardisation of Equipment and was offered the official post of the Technical Adviser to the Chinese Ministry of Railways in 1934. He contributed substantially to the rebuilding of the Chinese railways by engineering lines and designed bridges, carriages and locomotives, such as the 4-8-4 KF class locomotives. Kenneth Cantlie was appointed as the Trustee of the British Boxer Indemnity Fund in 1931 and was later awarded the Order of the Brilliant Jade.
Kenneth Cantlie married Phyllis Gage-Brown (1896-1965) on 7th April 1931 at the All Saints Church in Kobe, Japan and the family lived in Shanghai and Nanking, China. The couple had three sons, the eldest being born in China: Hugh (1932), Paul (1934) and Bruce St. George Cantlie (1937).
The Cantlie family stayed in Nanking until February 1937 when they left for England. The outbreak of the war and Japanese invasion in 1937 prevented Cantlie’s return to China and he stayed in London as the adviser to the Chinese Government Purchase Commission (part of the Indemnity Fund), a post he held until 1950.
Cantlie acted as the manager of Caprotti Valve & Gear Ltd Associated Locomotive Equipment Ltd. between 1939 and 1948, becoming the director from the start of the Second World War.
Kenneth Cantlie joined the British Army on the 2nd September 1939 and served in various positions in the War Office and invasion areas in Africa and Germany throughout the Second World War. In 1942 he was promoted as Lt. Colonel and 1946 he was posted to the German Section of Home Office in London.
After the war Kenneth Cantlie acted as the Overseas Representative for the Locomotive Manufacturers’ Association (LMA) promoting British railway industry exports between 1948 and 1956. He visited and reported on the railways of various countries in North and South America, India, Europe and the Middle East. Cantlie represented the Giesl ejector in the 1950s to the 1970s in various continents including Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. He founded and co-directed a consultancy company called Verity-Orient Ltd. with another locomotive engineer George W. Carpenter.
In 1956 Cantlie was invited to attend the 90th birthday anniversary of Dr Sun Yat-Sen as a guest of the Chinese Government, meeting key figures such as Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai. He returned to China again in 1957 to 1958 promoting British companies and also reporting on the trips to the British Ministry of Defence and delivering messages between Zhou Enlai and the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Kenneth Cantlie maintained strong connections to China by visiting Peking and Hong Kong until the early 1980s.
Kenneth Cantlie was a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Institution of Locomotive Engineers, the Newcomen Society, the Society of Chinese Engineers and the China Society (London). He was also the founding member of the Conservative Commonwealth Council and a member of the West African Committee.
Kenneth Cantlie died 11 February 1986 aged 87 after a long illness in his home, 8 Chester Row, Eaton Square, London.
Date
1931-1953
Scope and ContentOriginal folder of correspondence with annotation 'Personal [official] China General'. Documents refer to Kenneth Cantlie's career in China and his personal affairs comprising of hand-written notes, telegrams, letters, copy letters and drafts between Kenneth Cantlie and various parties including The Newcomen Society, Conservative and Unionist Central Office, British Embassy in Brussels, United Nations, Chinese Government, British Foreign Office, the Chinese Government Purchasing Commission, the Chinese Embassy, Sun Fo (son of Sun Yat-Sen), F.K Sah, Lawrence Kadoorie, Lord Chamberlain's Office, various international railway companies such as Iraq Railway, Indian Railways and Wagon-Litt, Chiao-Tung University. Topics include awarding Kenneth Cantlie the Order of the Brilliant Jade in 1937, health records, letters from solicitor regarding a will in the early 1950s, President Sun Fo's visit to London in 1938, negotiations over Kenneth Cantlie's contract with Chinese Ministry of Railways and resignation in 1937, medical relief fund for China during war in 1937, requests for Kenneth Cantlie to return to Nanking in 1937, securing travel passes and tickets for a trip back to China in 1937, certificate of employment by Ministry of Railways, Kenneth Cantlie's work for the Ministry, such as personally designing 4-8-4 locomotives, inspecting lines, moving from Shanghai to Nanking 1935, hand-written notes by Kenneth Cantlie on his career, arranging sick and annual leaves to travel to England; A copy of an marriage certificate from 1939 between Kenneth Cantlie and Phyllis Gage-Brown in 8th July 1931 in Shanghai (The marriage took place 7 April in Kobe, Japan and was re-solemnised and registered three months later in Shanghai, China.); a letter from Lawrence Kadoorie regarding war in 1937; certificate of medals awarded to Kenneth Cantlie during 1939-1945 war.
Baron Lawrence Kadoorie (1899–1993), businessman, was born Lawrence Kelly on the 2nd June 1899 in Upper Richmond Road, Hong Kong as the eldest of the three sons of Sir Elly Kadoorie (1867–1944) and Laura Samuel (d. 1919). The Kadoories, a Sephardi Jewish family, emigrated originally from Baghdad to Hong Kong in 1880. The family moved to England in 1910, but Sir Elly returned to Shanghai in 1911. Meanwhile, the youngest son having died in infancy, Lawrence and his brother Horace attended school at Ascham St Vincents, Eastbourne, and at Clifton College in Bristol. In 1914 they ventured to Banff, Canada, for a family reunion and when unable to return to England the boys continued on to Shanghai and its cathedral school.
After their mother died in 1919 the two brothers took on the responsibility of building up the Kadoorie name in Asia. While Horace in Shanghai ran the family home Marble Hall, Lawrence, after studying law at Lincoln's Inn became an aide-de-camp to his father.
After returning to settle in Hong Kong in the 1930s Kadoorie became chairman of the family-managed China Light and Power Company (CLP) and the prestigious Peninsula Hotel. On the 9th November 1938 he married Muriel (b. 1915), daughter of David Gubbay of Hong Kong. With the fall of Hong Kong in 1941 they, with their infant son and daughter, were interned by the Japanese in Stanley Camp, but in 1942 the family were transferred to Shanghai, living with relatives until they were interned in Chapei (Zhabei) Camp.
Kadoorie returned to Hong Kong in November 1945 and took charge of China Light and Power. The supply of electric power aided the recovery and development of Kowloon and the New Territories. Following objections to the tariff rates the 1959 report of a British-led commission of inquiry included a recommendation for nationalization. Nationalization, however, had not been the Hong Kong government's intention; instead tariffs and dividends were frozen, Lawrence came to timely financial arrangements with Esso (then Standard Oil, NJ), and together they worked out a government-agreed scheme of control. Indeed, China Light and Power's capacity grew from 19.5 mW in 1946 to 2656 mW in 1981; consumers increased from 24,000 to 949,000; and issued capital from HK$13.2 million to HK$2400 million, confirming the ability of a private sector, family-led utility both to provide the essential leadership and to keep vital supplies just ahead of the growing demands of Hong Kong's economic revolution.
Lawrence Kadoorie acted as the chairman of Sir Elly Kadoorie & Sons and was a member of the colony's legislative and executive councils. He held in all some 14 chairmanships, 20 directorships, and 20 memberships in important Hong Kong committees and/or companies, including the general committee of the Hong Kong general chamber of commerce and government planning and advisory committees. The most notable were his leadership in Nanyang Cotton Mill Ltd, Hong Kong Carpet Manufacturing Co., and Schroders Asia Ltd. In 1957 he was invited to become a director of the Hongkong Bank but was pressured to resign in 1967 when the British Bank of the Middle East (owned by the Hongkong Bank) became a target of riots. He retained a life chairmanship of China Light and oversaw notable Hong Kong landmarks such as the Peak Tram and the Hong Kong and Shanghai hotels.
Lawrence Kadoorie was a business taipan and adviser and he was well-known for his humanitarianism and philanthropic contributions. Lawrence, with his brother Horace, founded the Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association to improve conditions for villagers and encourage development in the New Territories. Kadoorie was a member of the University of Hong Kong's council and court and a trustee and chairman of Hong Kong's Ohel Leah Synagogue. He was a justice of the peace from 1936 and accumulated honours including the Ramón Magsaysay award (of the Philippines, 1962), appointment as CBE (1969), a knighthood (1974), and appointment as commander of the Légion d'honneur (of France, 1982). Lawrence was chairman of the Hong Kong Photographic Society, patron of St John Ambulance, had an interest in sports cars and collected Chinese works of art, in particular jade.
In 1981 Lawrence Kadoorie was the first native of Hong Kong to be awarded a British life peerage. With negotiations proceeding relating to the retrocession of Hong Kong in 1997, Kadoorie later argued for measures to ensure the retention of British citizenship for the non-Chinese minority. Following six years of negotiations in 1985 he supported a joint project between China Light and China for the first nuclear plant at nearby Daya Bay, Hong Kong.
Kadoorie's health declined in 1993 and he died following chemotherapy treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and cancer on 25 August 1993. Lawrence Kadoorie was buried on the 27th in the Jewish cemetery Happy Valley in Hong Kong.
In March 1936 Britain sold Mesopotamian Railways to Iraq, which renamed the company Iraqi State Railways (ISR). In 1958 ISR was renamed Iraqi Republic Railways.
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