Ilha Formosa, meaning the ‘evergreen resplendent isle’, today known as Taiwan was named by passing European navigators in the sixteenth century. Although it had never been officially a part of the British Empire, the island – like a large portion of the world, was influenced by Great Britain, its activities, and policies. The aim of this thesis is to explore the development of the British concept, or image, of Formosa through the second half of the nineteenth century. During this period, British influence in Formosa picked-up significantly due to British commercial interests. Under British influence in the second half of the nineteenth century, Formosa started to produce and export famous Taiwanese tea on a much larger scale. The popularity of Oolong tea brought Formosa into the sphere of British public interest and the British community in Taiwan grew as a result. As time went on, more missionaries and their wives, officers, and merchants visited and lived in Taiwan. Their interactions with the Chinese and indigenous populations were carried back to Britain through visitors´ journals, letters, photographs, and stories, all of which effected the British public perception of Formosa. The popularization of Taiwanese tea together with other commercial and political interests played an important role in the British public reflection of Formosa, which evolved from the opening of the Taiwan seaports to foreign trade at the end of the 1850s and the beginning of the 1860s until the end of the nineteenth century, when the Japanese began its colonization of Taiwan.

In order for one to understand the dramatic historic development of Taiwan, one must first gain a sense of place and time in order to appreciate how different periods in the history of Taiwan have helped shape its progress, either in a constructive or negative way. The purpose of this thesis is to describe a British presence that existed in Taiwan from 1858 to 1895. The Treaty Port era has been documented in a number of different discourses, but the role the British played in the nineteenth century economic and social transformations of Taiwan have not been studied as a subject within its own right. Attention to this overlooked aspect of British history is not only important because it was a turning point in British perception of extraterritoriality, but also in Chinese relations to foreign powers. In addition the period was also marked by a reformation in the importance Taiwan played to the Qing court. In 1858 with the signing of the Treaty of Tientsin and the Treaty of Peking in 1863, as a result of the Second Opium War, China was required to open four ports on Taiwan. The Treaty of Tientsin designated Anping as a Treaty Port in 1858 and the Treaty of Peking opened the ports of Tamsui and Keelung in 1860 and 1863 respectively. Finally, concessions of the treaty opened Takao in 1864. However, the question of Taiwan as an obvious location for trade was raised as early as 1883 and this period was mirrored by the withdrawal of the East India Trading Company for China. As a consequence, it was not the ‘Company’ that penetrated the shores of Taiwan as it had done in both India and China. Instead it was agency houses and private firms, which transformed the agrarian economy into the market mechanisms of international commerce. This thesis will confront a British community presence as a social historical process by highlighting the cause, course, and consequence of the formation and the theoretical structuration of nineteenth century treaty ports in Taiwan.