Cornell Sidney Franklin

Cornell Sidney Franklin (樊克令, Fánkèlìng) was the American who chaired the Shanghai Municipal Council through the first two years of the Sino-Japanese war, from 1937 to 1939. The Council ran the International Settlement, and the chairmanship was its senior elected post.

The gazetteer traces a lawyer’s career. He trained at the University of Mississippi, worked in Hawaii as a legal clerk, a territorial official and a judge, and came to China in 1921. With Fleming and Norwood Allman (阿乐满) he formed a firm in January 1922, and later practised with Harrington.

He sat on the Council from 1933 to 1939. After the Japanese took over the settlement in December 1941 he was interned. Back in Shanghai after the war he led the American Chamber of Commerce, the American Country Club and other bodies, and the gazetteer calls him a leader of the American community. In November 1946 he formed a firm with Robert Bryan (博良), according to Bryan’s entry. He left for the United States in 1950. No death date is given.