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Eric Liddell, Olympic champion; friend to Pamela Werner

8/7/2018

Liddell the athlete

Eric Liddell (1902-1945) was a Scottish Olympic Champion, winning 400m gold in Paris in 1924 (a story made famous through the 1981 Oscar-winning film "Chariots of Fire"). Liddell then became a China missionary, teaching pupils at Pamela's school, the "TGS" in Tientsin. He had a gift for relating to young people.

But A Death in Peking also reveals for the first time how Liddell's connection with Pamela went closer still. Just prior to her death, Pamela lived with his wife's family. Family gatherings with Liddell were a regular feature.

During the war Liddell was imprisoned by the Japanese at Weihsien internment camp, a custody he shared with not only with Pamela's father, E.T.C. Werner, but also with two of Werner's murder suspects, American dentist Wentworth Prentice, and former US Marine Fred Knauf.

Loved and admired by all, Liddell died of a brain tumour in the camp in 1945, leaving fellow internees stunned by his loss.

Liddell in China

University life

Monument to Liddell at Weihsien

Eric Liddell's Olympic success was immortalised by the 1981 film, Chariots of Fire. Liddell (played by Ian Charleson) explained to his missionary sister, worried by the distraction of the Olympics, how he believed God had made him for China, but he had also made him fast!

Ian Charleson as Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire

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The Japanese move to take Peking, 1937.

8/6/2018

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The warring and expanding Empire of Japan provided the violent political backdrop to the murder of Pamela Werner and its investigation.
Throughout the 1930s, the Japanese militarist regime contrived one flash-point after another in its efforts to force conflict with its larger but weaker neighbour, China. Japan lacked the coal and mineral resources China possessed.

Left. In July 1937 Japanese and Chinese troops clashed at the Marco Polo Bridge, just outside Peking. After years of severe Japanese provocation, it proved the catalyst to eight years of war and the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese (including the infamous "Rape of Nanking").

A few weeks later Japanese troops paraded in triumph through the streets of Peking. The Imperial regime was extremely anti-British, seeing the UK as a fading colonial power that it intended to replace. The occupation effectively ended any further investigation of the Werner case by British police. Dennis and Botham were no longer free to operate there.

Tientsin under blockade

Left. Things got worse for the British in June 1939 when Japan blockaded the British concession in Tientsin - over their refusal to hand over four Chinese suspects accused of the assassination of a Japanese national.
Japanese soldiers humiliated British subjects by strip-searching them at the entrance - with people stood naked in the street.
Eventually the British backed down and handed over the four Chinese, who were later publicly executed by the Japanese.

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Sir Anthony Eden forced to apologise to Pamela's father

8/6/2018

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Sir Anthony Eden

Future prime minister, Sir Anthony Eden, was UK Foreign Secretary when Pamela was murdered in 1937.
Much to his embarrassment, He was forced to write a letter of apology to her father after he mistakenly 'misled the house' when he informed Parliament that no British subjects had been killed in China that year.
Pamela's father was furious and wrote from Peking saying so ...

E.T.C. Werner: "This statement is erroneous. On the night of January 7, 1937, my only child, Pamela, was murdered in a most brutal and dastardly manner" and added, "as it is, the murderers are still at large".
The encounter is covered in full in A Death in Peking

E.T.C. Werner in 1937

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Pamela's route home beside the Tartar Wall

8/6/2018

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Pamela's wall route home. This is a great image, revealing so much. A postcard dating from earlier in the century, showing part of the Tartar Wall. The photographer stood on the Hatamen Gate (now demolished), with the Legation Quarter behind them. To the east, in the distance, is the 'Fox Tower'. Pamela's probable route would have taken her down the rough track to the left toward her home at 1 K'uei Chia Ch'ang (not discernible in the image) where she lived with her adoptive father, E.T.C. Werner. Her body was found hard-beside the wall, opposite the second compound seen on the left (in the middle distance), about half way to the far tower.

Right. Without recourse to a drone, it's not possible to replicate the old postcard image. Instead, here is a view of the Tartar Wall looking west toward where the Hatamen Gate once stood (this time the 'Fox Tower' is behind the camera). The wall top is closed to the public. A path can be seen to right, also closed. Coming to a dead-end, it passes the spot where Pamela's body was found.

Left. Part of the same scene today. This time looking west back toward where the Hatamen Gate once stood (the tower block in the middle sits close to its former location). To the right can be seen the modern rail station. Despite the new development, the waste-ground area looks in many ways similar to the that of the postcard. The Tartar Wall has lost some if its height, and indeed has been dismantled entirely a little way beyond the trees.

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The French ice rink.

8/5/2018

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French Club entrance

Left: The much-changed site of the former entrance to the French Club in Peking's Legation Quarter. As detailed in A Death in Peking, press reports of the time describe a temporary ice rink at the location, one covered by a matshed (a large wood and canvas structure). Pamela was last seen alive leaving this location at about 7.30 pm on January 7th, 1937.
The bicycle appearing in the photograph is purely a coincidence.

Right: Opposite the above is the entrance to the former French Barracks (now a trade union building).

The stone entrance may be the original.

The ice rink was arranged for the benefit of the French soldiers. The guard commander, however, permitted its use by the public. Two hundred people used it on the evening Pamela was murdered.

entrance to the French barracks

The area as shown in the most detailed map of the period (Guide to Peking, 1935). It clearly shows the barrack gate with the club opposite. From the club, Pamela's cycle route home would have taken her south into Legation Street, before heading east, out of the Legation Quarter and toward the wall road, where her body was later found.

Right: a matshed-covered temporary ice rink in Peking. The French Club rink was probably similar.
North China's winters could be relied upon to provide sub-zero temperatures. Ice skating was popular pastime, and Pamela appears to have skated regularly.

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The Enigma: Sir Edmund Backhouse

8/4/2018

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Sir Edmund Backhouse

Sir Edmund Backhouse (1873-1944), baronet, linguist, author, translator, secret-agent, and perhaps the most extraordinary character living in 1930s Peking.

Decades after his death, Backhouse and his incredible frauds were exposed by the eminent British historian Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper in his book Hermit of Peking. The book excited much controversy, revered by many as Backhouse was. As a result, Trevor-Roper attracted a great deal of opprobrium.

Research for A Death in Peking revealed for the first time how, almost inevitably, the strange figure of Backhouse featured in the aftermath of the Pamela Werner murder - in his unique style. It also uncovered until now unknown 'secret intelligence' provided by the Baronet to the British government - material that went unseen by Trevor-Roper.

Hugh Trevor-Roper

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Forward>>

Eric Liddell, Olympic champion; friend to Pamela Werner

The Japanese move to take Peking, 1937.

Sir Anthony Eden forced to apologise to Pamela's father

Pamela's route home beside the Tartar Wall

The French ice rink.

The Enigma: Sir Edmund Backhouse

Graeme Sheppard

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