| Wonsan port circa 1900s courtesy of Diane Nars. / Robert Neff collection |
By Robert Neff
Fascinating and mysterious characters often passed through Korea in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For the most part, little is known about them save their names and the rumors and insinuations surrounding them. This was the case of the Bilbroughs.
Wonsan, in the summer of 1899, had a small Western community ― mainly missionaries and Korean Customs staff. Although the isolated port was often visited by steamships traveling between Vladivostok, Japan and China, the handful of Western passengers rarely stayed ventured ashore because there was nothing to interest them. Thus, when it became known that Charles Francis Stanhope Bilbrough and his elderly mother Gertrude were planning on moving to the port, there must have been a great deal of excitement. But surprisingly, there is almost no mention of their arrival in English-language newspapers or magazines.
At 33, Charles was a dashing rich English bachelor who was fond of hunting, sailing and business. The previous year he had arranged through a missionary to buy several hundred acres of land on the Kalman Peninsula under the pretense that the climate was good for his health. According to Yun Chi-ho, the Korean governor, when the Englishman bought the land it "was nothing but gravel land, oyster shells, patches of stunted millet fields, with a dozen or more Korean hovels with their concomitant dirt and smells, lazy, stolid men and famished, filthy dogs."
Immediately on his arrival, Charles began to transform the land. Water pipes were laid, the ground was leveled, a machine shop was built and, by October, construction of a "spacious house" of stone, cement and timber was completed.
Money was not a problem and only the best and most luxurious, often imported goods, were purchased ― "the Bilbroughs tolerating no trash." Of course, Charles could easily afford it ― he had business interests throughout Asia, especially in the southeast.
Within three years, the once desolate, rubbish-strewn land had become a garden of Eden. When Governor Yun visited, he was so impressed that in his diary he wrote:
"Under the magic touch of occidental energy and capital, the once barren desert is literally smiling with gorgeous flowers. All kinds of English vegetables supply the kitchen with everything a civilized man requires in the way of herbs. The beach on the shore of the cove is no longer, as it used to be, a dumping ground of the garbage, refuse and stinking fish of the Koreans. I felt, involuntarily, I could breathe full and free in this delightful morsel of earthly paradise."
Yun was disgusted with the striking contrast between the Bilbroughs' estate and the nearby Korean village. He berated the villagers to keep their homes cleaner, but the villagers only offered the excuse of poverty for their sloppiness.
"No arguing with a Korean who verily believes that no man gets rich unless he is dirty," Yun observed and then caustically added, "Thus uncleanness in Korea is associated with the strongest passion of a man, viz: the love of money."
Yun hated "to see pretty sites going into the hands of a foreigner" because he had already witnessed it in Seoul, when he "could not keep back tears of sorrow and indignation." But he reasoned, "is God unjust in taking a thing from one who abuses it to give it to another who improves it?" He concluded that the Koreans had only themselves to blame for losing the land that their forefathers has possessed for tens of centuries.
Yun's praise for the transformation of the estate did not extend to the Bilbroughs, as we will see tomorrow.
Robert Neff has authored and co-authored several books including, Letters from Joseon, Korea Through Western Eyes and Brief Encounters.