This catalogue was compiled in conjunction with an exhibition on the history of the Morrison Library, 13 August – 15 September 2007, held at the University of Hong Kong Libraries, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Robert Morrison’s missionary voyage to China. Robert Morrison (1782-1834), the first Protestant missionary arrived in China in 1807, was famous for translating the Bible into Chinese and compiling the first Chinese-English dictionary.

The history of the Morrison Library goes back to 1806 when members of the English Factory set up a library in Canton. This collection later formed the basis of the library of the Morrison Education Society which was set up to continue the work of the Rev. Robert Morrison, who died in 1834. The Morrison Library first moved to Macao in 1841 and then to Hong Kong in 1842. At that time it consisted of 3,500 volumes. In 1869 the collection became part of the stock of the newly-opened City Hall Library. But four decades later the usefulness of the Morrison Library to the general public was in doubt and it was loaned to the newly established University of Hong Kong in 1914. In 1925 the collection was made over permanently to the University. The Morrison Library, now commonly called the Morrison Collection, has been part of the University of Hong Kong Libraries collection since that time.

It is noted from the Catalogue of Works in Morrison Library, City Hall, Hongkong, published by the City Hall in 1873, that the Library contained 1,666 titles (3,585 volumes). But the latest stocktaking shows the Collection now consists of 1,290 titles (2,751 volumes). All titles have been catalogued and can be retrieved from the Libraries’ online catalogue.

The Collection still contains a number of books that bear Robert Morrison’s signature. As a whole, the Collection has a few seventeenth century books and a fair number of eighteenth century titles. The remaining were published in the nineteenth century. At present, the Morrison Collection is kept in the 24-hour air-conditioned Western Rare Book Room at Special Collections, 1/F Main Library of the Libraries.

Further information about the history of the Collection, please consult “The Morrison Library an early nineteenth century collection in the Library of the University of Hong Kong” by Dorothea Scott, in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, v.1 (1961), p. 50-67.