Vandeleur Molyneux Grayburn

Grayburn was born on 28 July 1881 in England.[2] 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.[2][3] He was educated in Jersey and at Denstone College in Staffordshire.[3] Upon leaving school he joined the bank of Leatham, Tew & Co in Goole.[4]

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.[5] He had stationed in the Hong Kong head office, branches in Singapore, Malaya and India.[4] In 1920 he became the chief accountant of the head office in Hong Kong[6] and later on was appointed assistant sub-manager and sub-manager.[7][8]

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.[9][10]

He was also made Justice of the Peace on 27 May 1927,[11] 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.[12][13]

A confidential letter from V. M. Grayburn to Douglas Clague, 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.[30]

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.[31]

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.[32] However Grayburn decided to stay for his wife and assisted the BAAG by providing it information in Hong Kong.[33]

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.[1] Grayburn and his assistant Edward Streatfield went to the Foreign Affairs Office and confessed he was responsible for the smuggling and money-raising operations.[33] Grayburn and Streatfield were arrested two weeks later on 17 April 1943 and taken to the Happy Valley Gendarmerie. Grayburn was sentenced to one hundred days or three months in the Stanley Prison.[1]

Tomb of V. M. Grayburn at the Stanley Military Cemetery.

For the first half of his sentence he remained in good health. Beginning from 16 August 1943 he complained about a slight fever and a loss of appetite. His condition deteriorated and was sent to the Prison hospital on 18 August. Khader Bux, an Indian warder, acted as a medical officer, applied to the Japanese authorities four times for a doctor but none was sent. Dr. Harry Talbot, who was also sent to the same prison, diagnosed a high fever and was slightly delirious on 20 August. Although Bux managed to get some sulphonamide tablets smuggled in for the patient, Grayburn was already comatose on 21 August.[34] 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.[35]

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",[36] 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".[1] 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.[37] 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.[34] The war crimes trial in 1947 found Dr. Saito Chuichi, the medical officer of the Stanley Prison guilty for Grayburn's death and Saito was sentenced to eight years in prison.[38]

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.[27]

V. M. Grayburn had three marriages. He married Ruth Danvers Higgs at the Saint Andrew's Cathedral, Singapore on 12 April 1917.[39] 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.[2] Muriel Mary Grayburn was also sent to the Stanley Internment Camp when her husband was sent to the Stanley Prison. She survived the Japanese occupation.

Grayburn was enthusiastic in sports and played golf, tennis, racing and rugby.[2][4] He was a centre three-quarter rugger for Shanghai and the Interport match against Tientsin in 1907 and figured in inter-club matches in Hong Kong in 1912 and 1913.[4]

His racial views were a product of his class and era. In a letter, in 1937, he stated that the British HSBC workers should not marry non-Britons, and "foreign, native, half-caste are definitely taboo".[40] 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.[41]