Vandeleur Molyneux Grayburn

Grayburn was born on 28 July 1881 in England. His grandfather was Rev. William Grayburn serving in Dublin, Ireland. He was the youngest son of William Echlin Grayburn and Margaret Ellen Markham Grayburn with three brothers and three sisters. He was educated in Jersey and at Denstone College in Staffordshire. He joined the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) in 1900. He first worked as an assistant at the London office and in 1904 was transferred to the Far East. He had stationed in the Hong Kong head office, branches in Singapore, Malaya and India. and later on was appointed assistant sub-manager and sub-manager. During his time as sub-manager he was appointed to various government offices. Between 1927 and 1928, the government issued five million Hong Kong dollars of bonds for supporting public works in Hong Kong under the Public Works Loan Ordinance of 1927. A board was set up and Grayburn was appointed as a member under the chairmanship of J. H. Kemp and C. G. Alabaster to consider application and to allot the bonds. He was also made Justice of the Peace on 27 May 1927, member of the advisory committee of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps from June 1928 to May 1929 and member of the court of the University of Hong Kong from April 1930. ==HSBC chief manager==

Stabilisation of Hong Kong dollar V. M. Grayburn acted as chief manager of the HSBC in March 1930 in succession to retiring A. C. Hynes and was officially appointed by the board in July. . Although Hong Kong's trade was benefited shortly from the decline of Hong Kong dollar, the exchange rate went up again after the pound sterling, Japanese yen and US dollar significantly devalued after they were taken off from the gold standard and Hong Kong's trade was damaged heavily. The US Silver Purchase Act of 1934 also created an intolerable demand on China's silver coins and pushed up the global silver price. V. M. Grayburn was appointed member of the Economic Commission to advise Governor William Peel on the monetary issues in July 1934. The report of the commission in February 1935 concluded the Hong Kong government should not abandon the silver standard as China, the colony's largest trading partner remained on it. The Chinese Nationalist government announced the abandonment of the silver standard in November 1935 due to the instability of the currency. The Hong Kong government followed China shortly afterward. The Dollar Currency Notes Ordinance of 1935 was passed by the Legislative Council on 9 November. Despite the currency coins and notes issued by the Hong Kong government, the currency notes issued by the HSBC and two other British banks in Hong Kong were also recognised as legal tenders in Hong Kong. Under the Exchange Fund Ordinance of 1935, the HSBC had to submit its silver holdings in exchange for the Certificates of Indebtedness, as the legal backing for all banknotes. In December 1935, the government appointed Grayburn a member of the Exchange Fund Advisory Committee, to continue to advise the government on monetary issues. For his services for the establishment of the Hong Kong dollar as the monetary unit, Grayburn was knighted in May 1937 in honour of the coronation of George VI, which made him the second chief manager of the HSBC to receive the honour after Sir Thomas Jackson, 1st Baronet. The plan for a new headquarters building were finalised in 1931. The office was moved out on 10 October 1933 and the construction was taken place at the same site of the torn down old building. M. V. Grayburn was the head of the plan while the chief accountant Arthur Morse was responsible for the budget. The new building was designed by architect G. L. Wilson from the Palmer and Turner. The committee, in which V. M. Grayurn was part of it, concluded an income tax would be the best new tax to be introduced however remained in reservations for the legitimacy of the taxation. The Income Tax Bill was subsequently passed in the Legislative Council despite strong opposition from the unofficial members and the business community. He also assisted the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club to move from North Point to Kellett Island where the club locates today. He was the chairman of the board of the Matilda Memorial & War Hospital and set up a $500,000 fund for the hospital. He was appointed the unofficial member of the Executive Council in July 1941. He held the office until the fall of Hong Kong to the Japanese army in December. Before Hong Kong was occupied, V. M. Grayburn had already appointed Arthur Morse to the London office and transferred Bank's assets to London supported by the British government. The bank had also a large amount of US dollar reserve in the United States to avoid its assets being frozen if the Hong Kong office was fallen into Japanese's hand. In 1941 the British government appointed Morse as acting chief manager and chairman and commanded all branches of HSBC to follow order from London. 12 December 1941, Hong Kong Governor Mark Young announced London to replace Hong Kong as the headquarters of the bank. The Hong Kong government surrendered to Japan on Christmas Day of 1941. ==Japanese occupation==

, member of the British Army Aid Group in November 1942. After the Hong Kong government's surrender, J. J. Paterson, the chairman of the HSBC, V. M. Grayburn and his successor D. C. Edmondston and other Britons in Hong Kong were in the hand of Japanese army. Grayburn and his wife were sent to a hotel in Central and he was forced to help the Japanese bank Yokohama Specie Bank take over the HSBC. The Japanese army took over the bank's main building as headquarters of the Japanese military government and acquired large amount of unsigned banknotes from the bank's reserve. V. M. Grayburn was forced to sign and issue the currency. Although the British government had declared the HSBC's banknotes issued by the Japanese government as invalid and disclosed their serial numbers through the Chinese government's radio, those banknotes were still widely used in Hong Kong and neighbouring regions. An estimated total of 119 million Hong Kong dollars was issued by the HSBC during the Japanese occupation. V. M. Grayburn joined the resistance activities associated with the British Army Aid Group (BAAG), a Southern China-based para-military organisation formed mainly by Britons who escaped from Hong Kong aiming to assist prisoners of war to escape from the Japanese army's POW camps. Two assistants of Grayburn, T. J. J. Fenwick and J. A. D. Morrison successfully escaped from Hong Kong with the help of the BAAG. However Grayburn decided to stay for his wife and assisted the BAAG by providing it information in Hong Kong. ==Death==

To help the British civilians in the Stanley Internment Camp, Grayburn assisted in raising money for them so they could buy extra rations from official canteens and the black market. Grayburn asked Dr. Harry Talbot to smuggle cash back into the camp when he was sent out from Stanley for treatment at the French Hospital but was caught by the Kempeitai. He died at about 7.30 p.m. on Saturday, 21 August at the age of 62. He was buried at today's Stanley Military Cemetery. Streatfield wrote on Grayburn's death: At no time had he ever been seen by a Japanese doctor. There was no doubt whatever of the great regret of the bulk of the Indian warders and several of them expressed their resentment at the attitude of the Japanese in not affording him qualified medical aid. The ‘M.O.’, in particular, had done everything his limited power and ability enabled him to do. The cause of V. M. Grayburn's death was controversial. On 15 September 1943, the Colonial Office wrote to the HSBC in London with news of the death and, basing itself on Red Cross reports, gave the cause as "avitaminosis", while Emily Hahn, an American journalist and also friend of Grayburn said she had heard from the Gendarmes said "with amazing candor that he had died of beriberi". There was a medical examination when his body was returned to Stanley Camp, but the doctors refused to reach a verdict because of the advanced state of decomposition. Dr. Talbot, the last doctor to see him before his death told the war crimes trial that Grayburn died of septicaemia as there were no sulphonamide (anti-bacterial) drugs were administered which could have saved him. Before Grayburn's death, the Privy Council had made an Order in Council to appoint Arthur Morse as the official chief manage on 13 January 1943. ==Personal life==

V. M. Grayburn had three marriages. He married Ruth Danvers Higgs at the Saint Andrew's Cathedral, Singapore on 12 April 1917. After his first wife died, he married Minnie Doris Robson and had a son and a daughter, John Robson and Elizabeth. The marriage lasted until 1939 when they divorced. Grayburn then married his third wife Muriel Mary Mellor, daughter of C. B. Mellor of Chester. Some also said he had said the Matilda Memorial & War Hospital was built for whites only when he was the chairman of the hospital's board. ==References==