News reports at the time painted vivid picture of plots and uprisings

Reports by the South China Morning Post a hundred years ago provide many interesting details about the 1911 revolution, including Hong Kong's role as a transit point for revolutionaries, Sun Yat-sen's personality, vivid eyewitness descriptions of the uprisings and what the revolutionaries were like.

Founded in 1903, the Post was one of four English-language newspapers in Hong Kong in 1911. It gave extensive coverage to the uprisings and the establishment of the Republic of China. Many reports were telegrams, or information gathered from steamers that stopped at Hong Kong. There were also eyewitness accounts and government documents.

Probably due to its proximity to Hong Kong, there were many detailed reports about the second Guangzhou uprising in April 1911. A report by a Post correspondent printed on April 29, 1911, suggests that Hong Kong was a transit point for revolutionaries organising the uprising in Guangzhou.

'Since the assassination of the Tartar General Fu Chi it is well known that there has been a large influx of undesirable and suspicious characters from Singapore. Talking with an official who is in the know, a representative of the South China Morning Post learned yesterday that it was computed that no fewer than five hundred supposed members of secret societies had recently arrived in the Colony from the Straits Settlements.

'These men had scattered themselves about the colony, and many were believed to have gone up to Canton [Guangzhou]. They are seldom seen in groups, but yesterday a number were seen in earnest conclave in a certain hotel and were afterwards seen at the Post Office, despatching mail.

'The police are said to have an eye on the movements and doings of some of these men, but nothing had eventuated to warrant any interference.'