Visions of China: A photographic memoir Collated and edited from the diaries and notes of Captain Claude Butlin D.S.C. R.N.

After serving as a Term officer at the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, Commander C.M Butlin was appointed to H.M.S. Hawkins and set sail for the China Station in 1925.

In the previous century Treaties had been forced on the Chinese which allowed foreigners to establish trading facilities in certain ports along the coast and on the Yangtze River. Later concessions were also granted and these were run entirely by foreigners and in them the Chinese had no jurisdiction.

China was in some chaos in the 1920’s. The Manchu Dynasty has ended and War Lords with their armies had taken over. To protect trade from these soldiers and from pirates, ships of the British Navy patrolled the coast and Yangtze River. Smaller gun boats were used to escort the convoys of commercial ships up and down the river.  There was great need for oil at that time.

These photographs were taken by Claude Butlin during his tour of duty in China between 1925 and 1928.