D. F. Landale

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D. F. Landale
D·F·蘭杜
Senior unofficial member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong
In office
1 May 1946 – 4 January 1950
Preceded byBritish Military Administration
Succeeded byChau Tsun-nin
Appointed bySir Mark Young
Personal details
Born(1905-11-09)9 November 1905
Shanghai International Settlement, China
Died15 December 1970(1970-12-15) (aged 65)
London, United Kingdom
OccupationEntrepreneur and politician
D. F. Landale
Hanyu Pinyin
Landu
Yue: Cantonese
JyutpingLaan4dou6

David Fortune "Taffy" Landale,

senior unofficial member of the Legislative Council from 1946 to 1950. Later in his life he settled in the United Kingdom, where he was chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland
between 1955 and 1965.

Landale had a close connection with Jardine Matheson. His father,

Second World War. The turbulence prevented the firm from reviving the profitable China business that it had enjoyed in the past. In 1947, he founded the Hong Kong Airways with a hope of developing the firm's civil aviation
business. The attempt, however, was hit by the growing instability of the region.

As the senior unofficial member of the Legislative Council, Landale was an active critic of the Hong Kong government who was noted for his unsuccessful attempt to oppose the government's plan of re-introducing

constitutional reform
would take place in Hong Kong.

Biography

Early years

Landale was born in the Jardine Matheson office in the Shanghai International Settlement, China, on 7 November 1905.[1][2][3] He was the son of David Landale (1868–1935) of Dalswinton, Dumfries, Scotland, and Mildred Sophia Fortune (1880–1965).[2] He had two sisters and one brother, namely Margaret Winifred Landale (1903–1989), Veronica Grizel Kinloch Landale (1911–1985) and Peter Wellwood Fortune Landale (1915–1941).[2][4][5] His brother, a pilot of the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, died in a plane crash in the North Sea when he was flying to Hanover, Germany, on a military mission in 1941.[6] His body was never found.[6]

The Landales were closely connected to

Landale Street in Wan Chai, Hong Kong, was named after him.[8]

Early in his life, Landale, who was also known as "Taffy" by his relatives and friends, attended Eton College, and later studied at Balliol College, Oxford.[2][9] While at Eton and Oxford, he was a keen sports player, serving as a member of the cricket team of Eton and captain of the university rugby team.[3][10]

David Landale
The Jardine Matheson office in the Shanghai International Settlement, where D. F. Landale was born on 7 November 1905
Sir William Jardine

Far Eastern career

After graduation and a short stint working in London, Landale followed the footsteps of his father to join Jardine Matheson in the Far East.

Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps.[19]

In 1945, Landale succeeded J. J. Paterson to become chairman and managing director of Jardine Matheson with a view to re-establishing the firm's business interests in Hong Kong, China, Japan and other places in the Far East.[2] In that capacity, he was also appointed a member of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce as well as director of a number of private companies, including the Hongkong Electric Company.[20] His chairmanship, however, coincided with the outbreak of the Chinese Communist Revolution that followed the end of the Second World War. During the turbulence, the Canton branch office of Jardine Matheson was burnt down in an anti-British protest in 1948.[21] Despite that, by the time when the People's Republic of China was founded by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, the firm still managed to maintain its China head office in Shanghai as well as its branch offices in Hankou, Fuzhou, Qingdao, Tianjin, Canton and Shantou, employing some 20,000 employees and having a total asset of around 30 million pound sterling in the mainland.[21] After 1949, the firm's businesses continued to be severely hit by the political instability in China. And when the Korean War broke out in 1950, Landale was forced to move the headquarters of Jardine Engineering Corporation from Shanghai to Hong Kong in face of the worsening relationship between China and the Western countries.[16][21] By 1955, Jardine Matheson had to abandon the China market completely following a number of anti-capitalist political campaigns staged by the Communist Party, most notably the "Land Reform Campaign" and the "Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns".[21] The retreat was a bitter blow to the firm.[16]

Having experienced the turbulence in China, Landale tried to explore new business opportunities in Hong Kong during his chairmanship of Jardine Matheson.

Butterfield & Swire Co., in 1958.[25]

Political career

Apart from his business interests, Landale was appointed an unofficial member of the

Hong Kong government, being one of the first unofficial members appointed when civilian government resumed after the war in May 1946.[2][26][27][28] As an active critic of the government, he openly criticised the government in the Legislative Council meetings for a number of times, such as to blame the government for the perfunctory way it compiled the annual Budget and for its failure to maintain effective communication between Hong Kong and Whitehall in London, of which he thought was a key factor to achieve good governance.[29][30] In 1947, the government started to require an increase in the extent of developments on some of the Rural Buildings Lots in offering re-grants to landowners, as a measure to cope with the influx of refugees from mainland China and the housing shortage.[31] The measure was complained by Landale as oppressive to the landowners due to the higher construction costs that they had to bear.[31]

Besides, Landale was one of the leading businessmen in the colony who repeatedly opposed the introduction of

Second World War, the government proposed for the introduction of the tax to support the British war effort in Europe and to subsidise the local defence budget.[32] Landale was one of the members who were appointed to the War Revenue Committee by the government in October 1939, which was tasked to offer advice on the proposed new tax.[32] The Committee later submitted its report in February 1940 in which Landale and other members expressed strong reservations about the tax proposal.[32] Despite their reservations, the government eventually managed to secure the support of the Committee to introduce the income tax in April 1940, having promised that the tax, as an interim measure to generate war revenue, would be repealed after the war.[32] Ironically, although the government did repeal the tax after the war as promised, the tax was soon re-introduced in 1947, a move which was strongly opposed by Landale and other unofficial members of the Legislative Council.[33] In response to the tax proposal, Landale requested that it should be put on hold for a year to have sufficient time for further review, but his request was turned down by the government.[34] After heated debates, the bill to reintroduce the tax was read a third time and was passed in the Legislative Council in May 1947, notwithstanding that it was rarely voted against by three unofficial members, namely Chau Tsun-nin, Chau Sik-nin and Leo d'Almada e Castro.[34] Landale, however, was compelled to vote for the Bill during the division.[34]

Landale also took part in the debates on the "

Urban Council, no major constitutional reform would take place in Hong Kong.[35][36]

Later years

Landale resigned from the Legislative Council in 1950.[2] He retired from the Executive Council as well as the chairmanship of Jardine Matheson the next year, but he retained a seat in the board of directors of the firm.[2][13] After that, he resided in the United Kingdom, where he was appointed to the directorships of a number of private corporations which counted on his business experience in the Far East.[2] Among them, he joined the board of directors of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1952, becoming deputy chairman of the board later, and he was appointed chairman of the board from 1955 to 1965.[2][37] During his chairmanship, he was also appointed director of a number of firms which had close ties with the Royal Bank of Scotland, such as the Northern Assurance Co. Ltd., Glyn, Mills & Co. and William Deacon's Bank Ltd., etc.[2][17] Apart from that, he was a director of the British Investment Trust Limited, from 1952 to 1970.[38]

Although Landale lived in his hometown of Dalswinton, Dumfries, Scotland, he continued to travel to London frequently to manage his business interests.[10][17] Between 1967 and 1970, he was also appointed by the government as a member of the Review Body on the Remuneration of Doctors and Dentists.[10] In his leisure time he was a keen farmer and forester in his hometown.[10] He died suddenly in London on 15 December 1970 at the age of 65.[2][3] After his death, his family erected a memorial cairn for him in Dalswinton Wood.[39]

Personal life

The cairn in memory of Landale in Dalswinton Wood, Dumfries, Scotland
Landale Street in Wan Chai
, Hong Kong, named after Landale's father, David

Landale was married in London to Louisa Mary Dorothy Charlotte Forbes (1904–1956), the younger daughter of Charles William Forbes of Callendar House, on 7 December 1929.[2][5][40] The couple had one son and three daughters:[40][41][42]

  1. Janet Stewart Landale (30 August 1930 – 1 January 2010);
  2. Sir David William Neil Landale (27 May 1934 – 25 March 2016), a director of Jardine Matheson between 1967 and 1975;
  3. Linda Louisa Landale (born 2 November 1937); and
  4. Kirsteen Forbes Landale (born 28 May 1944)

Louisa was the Chief Commissioner of the Hong Kong Girl Guides Association from 1948 to 1951. After her death in 1956, Landale was married in London, secondly, to Beatrice Helen Bengson Lund, the widow of K. Lund.[2][5] Besides, Landale was a member of the Queen's Bodyguard for Scotland, the Royal Company of Archers.[17] He was also a member of a number of gentlemen's clubs, including Boodle's and Pratt's in London, as well as the New Club in Edinburgh.[2] In 1946, Landale purchased a ketch in Hong Kong.[43] The ketch, known as Jadalinkir, was christened after his four children "Janet", "David", "Linda" and "Kirsteen".[43]

Honours

  • Unofficial
    Justice of the Peace (J.P.) (1937[15]
    )

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Births" (11 November 1905)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q "LANDALE, David Fortune" (1996)
  3. ^ a b c "David Landale" (retrieved on 18 April 2014)
  4. ^ a b c "Obituary: Mr. David Landale Passes in London" (8 September 1935)
  5. ^ a b c "Mildred Margaret Sophia Fortune" (retrieved on 18 April 2014)
  6. ^ a b "Whitley P4953" (retrieved on 18 April 2014)
  7. ^ a b Keswick (1982), pp. 254–255.
  8. ^ "Roads and Railways - Road Names Series V: Roads named after British officials" (retrieved on 18 April 2014)
  9. ^ Keswick (1982), p. 46.
  10. ^ a b c d British Medical Journal (15 April 1967), p. 188.
  11. ^ a b "Personality Parade No 5 - Ruler of the Princely Hong" (3 April 1950)
  12. ^ Bosanquet (1983), p. 17.
  13. ^ a b Keswick (1982), pp. 264–265.
  14. ^ "Wingsang Launched at the Kowloon Docks" (3 June 1938)
  15. ^ a b "No. 375" (28 May 1937)
  16. ^ a b c Feng (1996)
  17. ^ a b c d e The Bankers' Who's who (1964), p. 253.
  18. ^ "No. 760" (4 July 1940)
  19. ^ "Hon. Air Commodores" (retrieved on 18 April 2014)
  20. ^ Coates (1977), p. 180.
  21. ^ a b c d Keswick (1982), pp. 260–261.
  22. ^ a b c Flight International (1949), p. 713.
  23. ^ B.O.A.C. Review (1946), p. 219.
  24. ^ The Aeroplane (1950), p. 612.
  25. ^ a b Wu & He (2007), p. 36.
  26. ^ "Plaque of Senior Unofficial Members of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (1850-1985)" (9 May 2009)
  27. ^ "The Hong Kong Government appointed members of the Legislative Council yesterday" (12 May 1946)
  28. ^ "All members of the Executive Council have been appointed" (30 May 1946)
  29. ^ "Unofficials' Budget Criticism" (28 March 1947)
  30. ^ "Council Debate on the Budget" (31 March 1948)
  31. ^ a b Webb (7 October 2010)
  32. ^ a b c d Report of the War Revenue Committee (February 1940)
  33. ^ Evans, Freedman and Krever (2011), p. 203.
  34. ^ a b c "Inland Revenue Bill Goes Through" (2 May 1947)
  35. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Liu (2002), pp. 87–90.
  36. ^ a b c d e f g h Cai (May 2013), pp. 24–25.
  37. ^ The Economist (1955), p. 761.
  38. ^ The Economist (29 May 1971), p. 11.
  39. ^ Baxter (14 May 2007)
  40. ^ a b "Landale" (retrieved on 18 April 2014)
  41. ^ "Dean, Janet Stewart, formerly Robson, (nee Landale)" (retrieved on 10 April 2016)
  42. ^ "Landale, Sir David KCVO" (retrieved on 10 April 2016)
  43. ^ a b Mallet (7 December 2007)

References

External links

Business positions
Preceded by Chairman and Managing Director of Jardine Matheson & Co.
1945–1951 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland
1955–1965 		Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by
British Military Administration, Hong Kong
Senior unofficial member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong

1946–1950 		Succeeded by
Other offices
Preceded by
New creation
Honorary Air Commodore of the Air Arm of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps

1945 		Succeeded by
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