British Concession of Tianjin

The British concession in Tianjin was the earliest and most prosperous of the nine foreign concessions in the city. It was opened on 17 December 1860, after the Qing government signed the Treaty of Tianjin and the Convention of Peking, when the diplomat Frederick Bruce pressed the governor of Zhili to mark out a site on the west bank of the Hai River at Zhizhulin. The first plot covered about 28 hectares. British merchants were at first reluctant to buy land there, but the concession grew quickly with the boom in Sino-British trade and the arrival of foreign firms, consulates and clubs. The Tianjin Massacre of 1870 pushed many foreigners into the settlement, and new wharves and roads made it the city's commercial and financial centre. Its municipal council copied British local government, with a ratepayers' meeting, a chairman and a police force. The concession was expanded in 1897 and again in 1903. Japanese forces occupied Tianjin in 1937, and after the Allied victory in 1945 the Chinese government formally absorbed the concession, ending eighty-five years of British administration.