Empire Unravelled: The Great Crash of 1883 & the End of the Qing Dynasty

Date: 24 Nov 2025 (Mon)

Time: 5:30 PM

Venue: RRST-4.35, 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

Speaker: William R. Kelson, Society of Fellows in the Humanities, HKUArts

All are welcome! No registration required.

Often overlooked by historians, the financial crisis of 1883 in China had an enormous impact on the trajectory of the Qing empire (1644-1912). This talk will explore the ways in which a banking meltdown that began in Shanghai and spread across commercialized China became a crisis of state for the Qing. What started as a private sector real estate and stock market crash evolved into a fiscal crisis, a legal crisis, and a funding crisis for state-led industrialization efforts under the banner of the Self-Strengthening Movement. Better understanding these intertwined crises of state can help deepen our understanding of the precarious position of the Qing after 1883.

William R. Kelson (he/him) is a historian of Qing China and its place in the world economy. He is currently at the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at HKUArts, where he is completing a wide-ranging book manuscript on the financial crisis of 1883 in late-Qing China.