People · South African judge, author of the Feetham Report
Richard Feetham
费唐Fèitáng · 1874–1965
South African judge brought to Shanghai in 1931 to study the International Settlement; his 1932 report defended the system and suggested reforms.
Richard Feetham (费唐, Fèitáng) was a South African judge whose 1932 report is one of the best-known official studies of the Shanghai International Settlement.
By 1931 Britain and the United States had said they would gradually give up extraterritorial rights in China, and pressure was growing for the foreign settlements to be returned. The Shanghai Municipal Council asked South Africa’s prime minister, General Hertzog, to lend it a respected outside judge. Feetham, who had worked in Ireland, India and Kenya as well as South Africa, arrived in Shanghai that year.
His report, delivered to the Council in April 1932 and usually called the Feetham Report, ran to seven parts, covering the settlement’s history and government, its commercial importance, evidence from interested parties, its future, and the extra-settlement roads. According to the gazetteer, it defended the settlement system while recommending some changes to reduce friction with the Chinese community. He died in 1965.
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Connections
- Anatol Michaelovitch Kotenev郭泰纳夫Assisted Feetham's inquiry from 1930