File:1891-04-17 Kowloon Walled City beheaded pirates (2).jpg

This photo is what happened after File:Kowloon, Hong Kong; five pirates awaiting beheading, while Wellcome V0031252.jpg

• THE NAMOA PIRACY: In December 1890 [11 Dec] came the infamous piracy of the Douglas Steamship Company [德忌利士輪船公司]'s SS Namoa [南澳號] while she was on her normal run from Hong Kong to Swatow. The pirates, pretending as usual to be passengers, rushed the bridge and killed the Commander, Captain Pocock [Thomas Guy Pocock, 1845-1890], and his Chief Officer before making off with loot to the value of $55,000. Two suspected leaders of the attack were later arrested in Hong Kong, but had to be released for 'lack of evidence'; which must have been very galling for the Police Officers concerned. The suspects then went off to the District administered by the Mandarin in charge of Kowloon City, who promptly arrested them together with seventeen other suspected pirates. He was not as worried about the niceties of 'evidence' as the Hong Kong Magistrates, and ordered their execution forthwith. The nineteen were duly beheaded on the beach outside the city.^[1]
• The photograph shows the execution of the SS Namoa [南澳號] pirates at the execution ground outside the Kowloon Walled City on 17 April 1891. The Police Report of 1890 made by Walter Meredith Deane (田尼), the Captain Superintendent of Police (i.e. Head of Police), to Governor William Des Vœux, recorded the Namoa Piracy in details. According to the Report, among the suspects arrested, five were Hakkas who lived in Shaukeiwan, Hong Kong Island. While the execution was administered by the Qing Chinese officials from Kowloon Walled City, many British Hong Kong officials were invited to witness, including Walter Meredith Deane, James Stewart Lockhart (the Registrar-General of Hong Kong, i.e. Head of Home affairs) and Robert Murray Rumsey (林士, the Harbour Master).^[2]
• The Kowloon City Execution Ground [九龍城刑場] was the beach next to the Boundary Fence immediately south of the Walled City (see also Photo B). In this photograph it is being used for the execution of a gang of some nine or ten pirates. In the right background can be seen the Boundary Fence as it goes down to the sea (with some Hong Kong spectators clinging to it to get a good view). To the right, behind the right-hand-most pirate can be seen a few spectators being kept back from the execution site by soldiers (the civilians close to the execution site are Kowloon City Elders invited by the Magistrate)"--Ove Arup & Partners Hong Kong Ltd, op. cit. section, p. 12.40^[3]
• "This group of pirates (who had murdered many people on the ships they had captured) were caught by a joint Anglo-Chinese Anti-Pirate agreement. It was considered doubtful that the pirates would receive sufficiently condign punishment if they were brought to trial in Hong Kong, and so they were returned to the sub-Magistrate at Kowloon City, to be tried there, since some of their crimes had been committed in Chinese waters. The Magistrate invited the naval and police officers from Hong Kong, who had caught the gang, to witness the execution as his guests: this was seen, on both sides of the then border, to be a clear sign of the good relations between the two authorities at this date"--ibid., p. 12-17, section 12.4.1.2 ^[4]
• Also refer to extensive coverage on "Chapter 13: Streamer Namoa Attacked; Chinese pirates arrested and executed" (page 202 onwards) in Pirate Outrages: True Stories of Terror on the China Seas by Douglas R. G. Sellick.