Historical Photographs of China

All Collections

Beales, Florence Collection

Archibald (Archie or H.A.) Chappel (c.1883-1914) was born at Llantrisant, Glamorgan, Wales, of Cornish parents. He worked as a journalist on the Glamorgan Times, the Wall Street Journal in New York, and the Epping Gazette. Archie and his wife Edith went to live in Tianjin, with their first child Mary (Mamie), arriving on Christmas Eve 1911. H.A. Chappel was Secretary and General Manager of The Tientsin Press Ltd., which published the Peking & Tientsin Times. He died from quinsies on 9 October 1914 in Tianjin (Obituary in the North-China Herald, 17 October 1914). Edith Chappel then returned to the UK with her daughters Mary and Laura. Laura was born in Tianjin in 1912 and died in 1978/9. Her mother Edith died in 1982, aged 103. Florence M. Beales had paid an extended visit to her sister Edith Chappel in 1912/13 and would have taken some of the photographs in the album FB01, an album which she compiled. Only a selection of the Florence Beales Collection is currently online. HPC refs: FB-s, FB01 and FB02.